A2W: DIY

I have been kicking myself for going on eight years now for never making a hidden bookshelf door out of my workshop entrance. I would love to make something like the hidden spice rack above.

[Via: IKEA Hackers]

Handlebar with a view. I'd go with a mixture of herbs in mine for the utility of cooking with style on a long tour.

[Via: Craft]

One of, if not our favorite Studio Ghibli film done in paper. It took nine plus months to complete and looks incredible. Note to self, make more papercraft.

[via: Reddit]

Always a sucker for Lego anything, the life size Lego weapons in this Flikr group really hit the spot. I never posted the wearable Halo helmet made from the Danish bricks, but the two of these would appear to be chocolate and peanut butter.

[Via: Make]

Wired has put together a piece on iconic tech prototypes, above is the super soaker. The coolest looking of the bunch. Even cooler than the image is the story behind it.

Lonnie Johnson was trying to build a better refrigerator, based on a low-cost heat pump that circulated water instead of Freon. But when one of his custom-machined brass nozzles blasted a stream of water across his bathroom, Johnson—by day an engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory—realized he had the makings of something way more fun. A shotgun-style air pump and a series of check valves allowed for sniperlike range and accuracy with little exertion. Selling the idea to toy companies, though, was more of an effort.

[Via: Make]

A DIY project that added chemical compound labels to crayons, sounds like fun mixed with ultra geeky science and education. I'm digging on this hard.

[Via: Make]

~~Ice cream~~ Gelato on the back of a bike, yum! I doubt the pants crew and I would make it to our destination with temptation so close. It would have probably melted anyway, so it's fine that we stopped to eat it all five miles into the ride.

[Via: Make]

Yup that is a mailbox made X-wing or is it a X-wing made mailbox? In any case it is wicked cool and Crystal would never in a million years let me do something this nerdy to our home. I'll just have to settle for building a time machine and dropping off my parcels in a R2-D2.

It looks like a tight squeeze for most of the people I ride with, save my wife, but the idea alone is fascinating. Maybe a little unsafe considering you would be taking up the width of two riders a abreast on a busy road. Safety be damned though, you would riding in style.

[Via: LikeCOOL]

The art of simplistic design is certainly something I have an appreciation for, but I also can get going for a little over design too. Especially when it is as crisp and beautiful looking as the tape dispenser on display here.

[Via: Make]

An iPad on it's own should make me want to buy it and at this point it kind of already does, save the price. For some reason coupling it with velcro makes me want it even more now, who knew.

[Via: kottke]

As soon as I finish Kaden's swing I know what my next project is! It may be hard tell from the picture above, but it is a triple decker bunk bed and took the guy who made it 300-400 hours to complete. Time well spent in my opinion.

Blend my now burning desire to build my own arcade cabinet, with my love of all things brick and you get this project. A Legocade if you will.

[Via: Make]

I like to imagine an alternate reality where something like a spy bolt would be a necessity. For now though, it can just be something that would be cool to have and show off. You can pick one up for $37.00 USD or make your own if you have a subscription to MAKE.

It all feels a little like Mad Max in the snow. I'm diggin' it!

[Via: Make]

Want a cute crocheted Darth Vader? Me too, go buy the pattern over at Etsy from user lucyravenscar and make us both one.

[Via: GeekDad]

Make has an interview with Peter Atwood, maker of fine custom knives and gadgets, up on their blog as of Friday. It is worth the read.

The site this came from is in French so I have little to no information on it's construction, but from the pictures it looks like an in intensely detailed build process.

[Via: Make]

Our home was built in 1954, when ice cream cost a nickel and bathrooms were the spokespersons for the atomic color pallet. While I do cordon off a place in my mind for an appreciation of vintage design, our bathrooms have found no quarter there. Thankfully our kitchen was striped of it's presumed mustard finish long before we moved in. The bathrooms, I'm afraid, still cling to their respective rose and mint finishes like the petrified instruments of a basilisk victim in a tomb long forgotten.

Four years did they stand and four years did we abhor them. No more, I am pleased to say, well not the downstairs lavatory at least. Over our holiday vacation we went about remodeling our bathroom from a bygone era. The whole process started out by bringing in a contractor to reglaze the old salmon tile to a glossy snow white. It took collectively 4 days for him to complete it. Day one was cleaning and tile repair. Day two was spray prep and spraying primer. Day three was spraying the resin and clear coat. Finally, day four, Christmas Eve, was removing the masking and final touches. The whole process seemed like something I would never want to attempt on my own and well worth the money we spent to have it done.

The follow up to the new color was pulling our old pink toilet and flooring up and sending them to the bottom of the sea in cement footy pajamas. Once they were gone we set about scraping the floor for three days in a row to remove the old adhesive and get back down to the original sub-floor. It was a labor intensive, pain is the ass job, that I would have gladly paid someone to do had I the foresight. Once it was done though the new flooring went down easy and the new toilet soon followed.

Crystal painted on my first day back to work and the room really started to come together. We still have a new sink faucet, toilet paper roll and shower head to install. OK, so the shower head is going to be a bit more work. In an attempt to remove the old shower head Crystal and I might have shattered the old plastic plumbing at it's base. How we are going to fix that is still a known unknown, but we are ruminating.

When I arrived home yesterday there was large box waiting for me. It would have been like Christmas if I didn't know what it was and it wasn't so damn functional. I have needed fenders in the worst way since completing the check almost two months ago. The majority of the rides I have been on with my new toy have been in the rain or post precipitation. This leaves me covered in rain water at best and a slurry of mud, grease, pesticides and human milkshake at worst. In step the fenders to make my bike slightly less cool, slightly more geeky and supremely functional.

Last night was game four of the Penguins v. Flyers series. So in between the second and third period I set my cell phone alarm and went out to the sun room to install the front fender...

Parts unpacked and spread out

Front fender assembled

Front fender installed (still needs a little tweaking)

Back to hockey with rear fender left wanting

Today is the start of the Lebanese food festival in the far west end. Among other things this weekend I will be grubbing all three days on kibbi, zalabia and shawirma. After dinner at the festival tonight I will hopefully come home and install the rear fender in preparation for a ride tomorrow morning.

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Sam Adam's apart from making a killer beer takes pretty pictures too, especially of bikes.