Manolo for the Home

It doesn’t get much simpler (or cheaper) than the DIY $10 hanging pot rack! I found this easy instructional on Wise Bread ages ago while searching for kitchen storage solutions. We weren’t sure how our landlord would take to us drilling onto the ceiling, so we planned to implement the idea in our home. Now that we have said home, we’ve discovered that our ceilings are just a tad short for hanging kitchen gear without risking black eyes and bumped heads

Materials necessary include:

• 1 piece of 4 foot re-bar
• 1 package of black chair tips
• 1 can of el cheapo black spray paint
• 1 package of eye hooks
• 2 packages of s-hooks
• Spray paint in whatever color you fancy
• A little bit of duct tape

Have you ever used surprising materials to create something fab in your home? Tell us about it in the comments!

I’ve been in a really crafty frame of mind lately since I mastered the basic functions of my hand-me-down sewing machine. Making one thing (let’s say a cute tote) puts me in the mood to make something else…usually something a thousand times more complicated, like a new sewing machine table. What it all boils down to is that I spent my entire morning looking at online tutorials instead of, um, working. Luckily, I can pass along the fruits of my not so laborious labors to you.

I found an especially simple DIY table tutorial in the pages of the WaPo Express, courtesy of Julia Beizer and her fiance, Tom. All you need is a table, a whole mess of beer caps, some wood bits for the trim, a little glue, and a tub of epoxy. Oh, and some time, because each 1/8″ epoxy layer takes two days or more to dry.

According to Julia, this rumpus room appropriate table is simple to put together — which is good for lazy DIYers like me. It can also be pretty inexpensive, depending on the beer you prefer and the table you choose. In fact, the priciest part of the whole works may just be the epoxy, which costs upwards of $20 per pint!

The NYT Home & Garden section (a bit of rad I recommend everyone read) had a wonderful piece on Eliphante, a Cornville, Arizona home built by an artist and his wife over the course of twenty-eight years. When the late Michael Kahn and Leda Livant began building on the property Eliphante inhabits, they didn’t even own it. Driftwood, stones, pottery, shards of glass, construction scraps, and even astroturf became building materials in Kahn’s somewhat capable hands.

Was there a floor plan? Did they discuss the number of bedrooms, the layout of the kitchen?

“We didn’t think in those terms,” says Ms. Livant, who is 82. “We thought shelter from the elements and a beautiful place to live in: stained glass and pottery and wood, sleeping loft and a fireplace. Michael had no definite plan except to work and see what the natural shape would be. If you stay with a preconceived notion of what you want, it could be too restrictive.”

There are, of course, more photos under the cut!

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You know I love color. I love bright playful colors enough to somehow overlook the fact that a purple toaster will run you a sick $300! So you’d think that I’m sitting here with credit card in hand ordering myself a pink tool belt, right? Wrong. The Beard will tell you that I am the DIY queen, whether you’re talking about epoxying the hell out of something wobbly or refinishing a cabinet I found in someone else’s trash. Sure, there are some things I won’t do–big appliance installations, for instance–but I’m competent when it comes to small home improvements.

I think that double X chromosome construction workers rock. More specifically, I think they rock because they have made a career for themselves in what is still considered a tremendously masculine profession. The construction trade has its own line of accessories…safety glasses, hard hats, work boots, and such. These typically come in shades of brown and black with the occasional bit of gray. They come in these colors for one simple reason: they are going to get very, very dirty.

How long will those Tomboy Trades pink boots stay pink? How long is a Tomboy Trades baby blue tool belt going to be baby blue? If they’re still pink and blue after a couple of weeks, you’re doing something wrong. Construction work is dusty…there are solvents and paints and oily liquids to contend with. Thus the brown! The lack! The gray! And how about that Charlie’s Angels-esque design on the hard hat…I’m sure that’s gonna command plenty of respect down at the construction site, right?

You could pair it with this for spectacular effect: