DIY Hodge-podge
IKEA Craft Table
The finished product
So, I started this craft table awhile ago. It’s a mashup of IKEA’s Vika Furuskog table top and two Expedit 2×2 shelves. I needed a large workspace where I could cut my quilting fabric without wrecking my back (a known problem - the living room coffee table, where I’ve been cutting my fabric for the past five years, is definitely too low; our kitchen counters are too high). It turns out that if you put the Furuskog on top of the Expedit unit, it’s almost the perfect height. I’d say it’s about an inch too short - but that’s just being picky. It gave me a bunch of storage, and there’s just enough room in the center for a chair. The Furuskog is unfinished pine, so I treated it with two coats of Minwax Ipswitch Pine and about five coats of satin poly. I used four L-brackets to secure the top to the Expedits. The only thing left to do is to cut a hole and build a platform into the top, so that the sewing machine bed is level with the top of the table; it should make quilting a LOT easier. I’ve also put a little nail in one of the Expedits to hang my mats and rulers; there’s about a one inch lip, because the Expedits are wider than the table… I’m still figuring out what to do about that. I’m thinking that maybe I could build little utility pockets and use the lip to attach them, so that while I’m sewing the things I use most often are within reach. And perhaps on the other side, build something that will hold a little trash bag for all my trash scrap.
Gecko Cages
So, I have two leopard geckos: Mr. Gecko and Ember/Little Gecko. Before we adopted Locke & Sash into our homes, I had modified two 29g long aquarium tanks as their homes; using aquarium tanks is common with reptiles - they’re the perfect size and super cheap if you can get one on sale. What I did was stack them one on top of the other, and affix sliding window screens so that the geckos couldn’t get out. This was great, until the kittens were old enough/big enough to jump up and bat at the geckos - they’d get their little kitty claws into the screen and slide down, effectively ripping the screen and endangering the geckos. So for almost six months we’ve kept the geckos in the office, and kept the office closed so the kittens couldn’t get to them. Meanwhile, I’m racking my brain trying to come up with a solution. I have a decent one for now. Basically, I took four panes of window replacement glass, cut a scant 1/4 inch off the long edge, used clear packing tape along the edges, and fit two panes per tank into the ‘lip’ (where an aquarium top would usually rest). I then took some 1″ moulding, spray painted it black, and glued the moulding in place with some E6000 over the panes so that they wouldn’t fall forward. In the end, I have two sliding glass ‘doors’ on the front of each gecko tank. The only thing I’m concerned about is airflow - while there’s no way this is airtight, I have noticed on a morning or two that there’s condensation on the inside of the glass, so there’s obviously not enough of an air exchange to keep this from happening. This isn’t good, since leopard geckos are not a high-humidity lizard. They don’t like things wet and soppy. I’ve also noticed that the paper towel I have in their tanks for them to mess on often feel damp (whereas they didn’t previously). I’m not sure how to solve this, other than to open the cages and let them air out for a little bit each day.
Old cage with screens
New cage with glass; the right side is open by about 1″
New cage with glass
Little Free Library
So, this is on my todo list… I really like the concept of a Little Free Library. We have a ton of kids in our neighbourhood, and I say the more you can do to get kids to read the better! I’m a voracious reader. I love reading. I love curling up on the couch with a book (be it paper or ebook), maybe a cup of tea, and just losing myself for a few hours in the depths of a great story. I’d have a little bit of everything… books for the young kids, scifi, mystery… remember Goosebumps? I’m sure I could find some of those books at goodwill or a second hand store! And we have the perfect spot out front, a little flower island right at the end of the driveway, next to the street (we have no sidewalks here). It’d be perfect!
*Please note that any products linked to in this post are because I like/use them, and I’m not getting paid to link to them.
This entry was originally posted at http://www.reishka.net. Please comment there.
The finished product
So, I started this craft table awhile ago. It’s a mashup of IKEA’s Vika Furuskog table top and two Expedit 2×2 shelves. I needed a large workspace where I could cut my quilting fabric without wrecking my back (a known problem - the living room coffee table, where I’ve been cutting my fabric for the past five years, is definitely too low; our kitchen counters are too high). It turns out that if you put the Furuskog on top of the Expedit unit, it’s almost the perfect height. I’d say it’s about an inch too short - but that’s just being picky. It gave me a bunch of storage, and there’s just enough room in the center for a chair. The Furuskog is unfinished pine, so I treated it with two coats of Minwax Ipswitch Pine and about five coats of satin poly. I used four L-brackets to secure the top to the Expedits. The only thing left to do is to cut a hole and build a platform into the top, so that the sewing machine bed is level with the top of the table; it should make quilting a LOT easier. I’ve also put a little nail in one of the Expedits to hang my mats and rulers; there’s about a one inch lip, because the Expedits are wider than the table… I’m still figuring out what to do about that. I’m thinking that maybe I could build little utility pockets and use the lip to attach them, so that while I’m sewing the things I use most often are within reach. And perhaps on the other side, build something that will hold a little trash bag for all my trash scrap.
Gecko Cages
So, I have two leopard geckos: Mr. Gecko and Ember/Little Gecko. Before we adopted Locke & Sash into our homes, I had modified two 29g long aquarium tanks as their homes; using aquarium tanks is common with reptiles - they’re the perfect size and super cheap if you can get one on sale. What I did was stack them one on top of the other, and affix sliding window screens so that the geckos couldn’t get out. This was great, until the kittens were old enough/big enough to jump up and bat at the geckos - they’d get their little kitty claws into the screen and slide down, effectively ripping the screen and endangering the geckos. So for almost six months we’ve kept the geckos in the office, and kept the office closed so the kittens couldn’t get to them. Meanwhile, I’m racking my brain trying to come up with a solution. I have a decent one for now. Basically, I took four panes of window replacement glass, cut a scant 1/4 inch off the long edge, used clear packing tape along the edges, and fit two panes per tank into the ‘lip’ (where an aquarium top would usually rest). I then took some 1″ moulding, spray painted it black, and glued the moulding in place with some E6000 over the panes so that they wouldn’t fall forward. In the end, I have two sliding glass ‘doors’ on the front of each gecko tank. The only thing I’m concerned about is airflow - while there’s no way this is airtight, I have noticed on a morning or two that there’s condensation on the inside of the glass, so there’s obviously not enough of an air exchange to keep this from happening. This isn’t good, since leopard geckos are not a high-humidity lizard. They don’t like things wet and soppy. I’ve also noticed that the paper towel I have in their tanks for them to mess on often feel damp (whereas they didn’t previously). I’m not sure how to solve this, other than to open the cages and let them air out for a little bit each day.
Old cage with screens
New cage with glass; the right side is open by about 1″
New cage with glass
Little Free Library
So, this is on my todo list… I really like the concept of a Little Free Library. We have a ton of kids in our neighbourhood, and I say the more you can do to get kids to read the better! I’m a voracious reader. I love reading. I love curling up on the couch with a book (be it paper or ebook), maybe a cup of tea, and just losing myself for a few hours in the depths of a great story. I’d have a little bit of everything… books for the young kids, scifi, mystery… remember Goosebumps? I’m sure I could find some of those books at goodwill or a second hand store! And we have the perfect spot out front, a little flower island right at the end of the driveway, next to the street (we have no sidewalks here). It’d be perfect!
*Please note that any products linked to in this post are because I like/use them, and I’m not getting paid to link to them.
This entry was originally posted at http://www.reishka.net. Please comment there.