Hey, what’s it called again when you buy a bigass house with three full bathrooms and none of them contain a working shower? Oh, right. Irony.

That was the story of my life for the first two weeks I owned the Liberty house, and it was mostly due to the fact that the house hadn’t been winterized properly. None of this, by the way, was the fault of the previous owner. In fact, other than some questionable layout decisions in the master bathroom (which you can see photos of here, or with a video impression of just how awkward that toilet placement is here), all of the work the previous owner is exactly the type of work I would do myself. Which is to say some of it was pretty high-end, and a lot of it was half-finished.

On the high-end side we have this jetted shower from Delta faucets, which isn’t exactly a cheap throw-er-on-there kind of fixture.

When I turned the water on in the house and this thing did it’s best impression of a car wash possessed by demons, my heart sank a little… I figured replacing this trim was probably beyond me, but I was determined to give it a shot anyway.

I started by turning the water off at the supply lines and then worrying at the different parts of the trim to get it to come apart. I figured this was installed at least 6-7 years ago, so crossed my fingers when I ordered the replacement trim that it would still be compatible with the rough valve.

Here’s what it looked like once I got everything off…

And the rather intimidating pile of parts I had to work with…

I started with an open mind and the instruction booklet in hand, which is good because the first thing I attempted was to replace the adapter assembly in the back of the valve…

And as it turns out this part was not compatible with my older valve. However the old gaskets didn’t appear to be rotted and I held them up to the new ones and there was no discernible difference in size or shape, so I decided to put the old ones back in and see how it would work. The new cartridge seemed to have the same hole placement as well, so I felt pretty confident this would work.

My confidence waned when I tried to install the new cartridge and found that the “key” on the new cartridge was a different shape from the old one (and there were two instead of one).

The new had the triangle shaped notch and the old was square. Luckily it was a plastic piece and so I just made a few slight “modifications” with my utility knife.

And check it out… totally fits!

The cartridge is held in place by the bonnet nut, which is what I’m screwing on in the image above. Then the large o-ring…

And shiny new sleeve…

Then the piece I’m pretty sure is called a “stem extender”, which is basically the guts of the on/off switch for the jets, and fit nicely without any utility knife adjustments.

And the sleeve for that as well…

Then the new face plate, which I’m also pretty sure is called an “escutcheon”, but since I can’t pronounce that word and would feel like and idiot saying it even if I could, we’re going to go with face plate on this website.

The jets simply screwed into the valve after the face plate was on…

And then– the five year old in me rejoices– stickers!

And the actual handle/switch for the jets, which is held in place with a small set-screw.

The final bonnet assemblies just screw on to finish off the jets…

And the last thing was to install the “volume control handle.” I’m just going to admit that this was the first time in the process I made my WTF face at the instruction book. There is a whole lot of stuff in there about the temperature control knob and testing the water with a thermometer, and frankly, I just stuck the damn thing on and called it a day. Personally I don’t feel quite right if I haven’t scalded at least two layers of skin off when I shower anyway, so I wasn’t so worried about it.

The exciting thing was…

It worked!

Despite a little MacGyvering, I have a fully functional shower, without any leaks, drips, or fountains shooting out from behind the trim.

Now, you may be wondering how the jetted shower itself works, because you know I tried that thing out almost immediately after getting the water running. So here’s the thing… I’m what you might call “vertically challenged.” I’m 5’2″ on a good day, and this trim is positioned perfectly for someone who is a foot taller than me. I love the idea of the jetted shower, but in practice it pretty much get a facefull of water whenever I turn it on.

However, this shower is located in what will definitely be a guest bathroom on the first floor so I fully expect it to make the day of any taller people who stay over at my house, and that’s good enough for me. It’s possible that I’ll put something similar to this in my master bath as well, it will just be positioned a little more strategically for us smaller people.

Here’s an interesting look into my psyche: While I’ve made it very clear on this website that I’d rather have a two foot long chunk of wood shoved under the skin of my finger than do laundry regularly, there also appears to be no lengths I wouldn’t go to (and by that I mean “no space too small for me to wedge myself into”) to get the washer and dryer hooked up and working properly. You know, so I can glare menacingly at them every time I walk by the laundry room and feel guilty for not folding my unmentionables into cute little origami ducks, or whatever.

Which is exactly how I found myself located here for the better part of an afternoon last Sunday.

(You’ll have to excuse the quality of some of this pictures since there wasn’t room for me and the big camera behind the washer, so I resorted to iPhone pics.)

Really, hooking up a washer and dryer should be a fairly simple thing. Some hoses, some cords, maybe a pipe clamp or two, and then next thing you know you’re rolling around in a Downy scented cloud of awesomeness. Or. Or you might find yourself head-down, dripping water from the face, stretched inexplicably over two major appliances and a sink trying not to electrocute yourself after your second trip to Lowe’s for the day. Either one of those scenarios is entirely feasible.

For me it went a little like this: The first little washer/dryer hook-up project was to install some filters on the hot and cold water supply lines. I’m still getting some pretty serious black debris coming out of all of the faucets and it’s yet to be determined if it’s coming from the well and will be filtered out by the softner, or if I’ve got some galvanized pipe hiding in the walls somewhere that needs to be bleached and eventually removed. As an interim solution I scoured the plumbing aisle at Lowe’s looking for something that would help keep any gunk out of the washer, and miraculously found these…

I thought I was going to have to MacGyver something out of an under-sink filter or some screening and O-rings, but for one of the first times in recent memory I actually found exactly what I was looking for in a convenient 3-piece package.

This was actually fairly simple installation. I just removed the existing O-rings from the hoses, inserted the filters, and attached the hoses to the supply lines.

(That’s me demonstrating what I assume is the “correct” way to install these filters, but I’m not basing that on any kind of actual fact.)

What I can tell you is that as long as you tighten the hoses properly, everything seems to work fine. If you don’t tighten the hoses property? Face full of water. Just sayin’.

The second step was to install the dryer vent with one of these handy pipe clamps.

Then I thought I’d just plug everything in, and we’d be a go. Except this happened…

That’s a four-prong dryer cord and a three-prong outlet. Fantastic.

If you ever find yourself in this position you have two options… change the outlet (which is probably a better idea as far as electrical codes go) or change the cord.

I’m still at the point with this house that I have to shut off every single switch in the breaker to cut power to a single outlet and since my chances of getting the crap zapped out of me increased exponentially with changing the outlet, I took the easy way out and decided to change the cord.

Here’s how this works…

The cords are meant to be easy to swap, at least on newer dryers. The access plate was quick to remove with just one screw:

Then we have the innards:

As you can see, all cords are attached with screws, which makes taking everything apart quick and easy.

Here’s me communing in my socks on top of the dryer with the four-prong and three-pong cords:

Since the wires on the three-prong cord weren’t color coded I double checked in the manual that the wires on the ends were hot, and the wire in the middle was neutral. Then I attached everything by feeding the cords through the “cord clamp”:

(For reference, if all is right in the world then your black and red wires are hot, and white wires are neutral. Anything green or copper is a ground.)

Each wire got screwed in place (and the green ground from inside the washer was attached to the neutral wire as it had been previously):

And after reattaching the cover and plugging that baby in… voila!

Putting a new cord onto the dryer sounds like a daunting project, but it’s really not. The pain-in-the-ass part only comes into play if you live 30 miles from the nearest hardware store and don’t check that your outlet and plug match before trying to hook everything up.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have 15 pairs of work jeans waiting to be folded into origami versions of my favorite tools.

This post is a long time coming. Almost two years, in fact, since I was invited to visit the Delta Faucet Headquarters with a bunch of awesome bloggers, and decided I was totally having one of these Delta Touch2O faucets in my future kitchen. At the time I expected that future kitchen to be in a whole other house, in a different part of the state. But hey, things happen.

So my Touch (donated by the awesome folks at Delta) sat forlornly in its box, collecting dust, waiting for the day when I would unexpectedly buy a house while sitting in a bar. Luckily that day came sooner than anyone could have anticipated, and the next thing you know, I’m wedged under a sink, installing this baby.

That looks like a lot of parts, but don’t be intimidated. It was infinitely more difficult to remove the old faucet (there was a hammer involved) than to install the new one. I think it took less than 30 minutes, and here’s how it went down.

The old faucet was a 4-hole model with one for the faucet, one for the handle, one for the sprayer, and one for the soap dispensers. (Side note, soap dispensers inexplicably gross me out.) Since the Touch only needed two holes, I had to decide where I wanted the faucet and handle located.

Then I started with the installation, following the instructions.

1.) Wire comes out of spout shank.

2.) Metal washer and spout insulating element get snapped together.

3.) Dry fit assembly. The spout and white gasket on top of the “counter”, the large mounting bracket (used for top mount sinks only) washer and insulator, and nut to be attached from underneath.

Here’s what it looks like from under the sink:

And that part is done.

4.) Gasket goes around the valve with 101 wires and tubes coming out of it.

5.) Tubes and wires are fed through the proper hole and the the valve (aka handle) is secured with the mounting bracket. It comes with a wrench to do the job, or you can use one of your own.

6.) This fancy thing is called a solenoid, and the metal part is the retaining clip. Of the tubes and wires that are attached to the valve, the two long ones go to the hot and cold water supply lines, the wires attach to the side of the solenoid (we’ll get there in a sec) and the solenoid itself is attached to the “short tube”.

It slides right over the top and is held securely by sliding the retaining clip in place.

7.) Install the hose by sliding the hose guide on the leading end of the hose.

Thread the hose through the spout. You might have to give it a little jiggle or two at the end.

Attach the sprayer.

m

Dock it in place. (The secret is magnets!)

8.) Attach the other end of the hose to the bottom of the solenoid by pushing it in place.

Snap the clip over it to secure.

9.) And for the fun part… wires! (It’s not that bad.) Attach the ground clip to the bottom of the spout.

Pull the protective cap of the wire from the shank (it looks like headpones) and plug it into the jack on the side of the solenoid.

Snap the battery wire on to the battery pack. Note: Follow the actual directions and install the batteries after the wire is attached. I did not. The world didn’t stop turning on its axis, but those batteries quit working like eight hours later. It could be because they sat in the box for two years, or it could be karma for not following the directions. So… fair warning.

10.) Install check valves onto water supply lines. They have little pieces that go inside them… don’t forget those. Also this is the one spot where I chose to use teflon tape.

11.) Install hoses onto check valves. One thing I love about all delta faucets is that the pex tubing runs all the way through the faucet to the supply line, which means you don’t have to attach the hoses both at the supply lines and up on the faucet (which is a pain in the ass) like with most other manufacturers. For this reason alone I’d only install Delta faucets.

12.) Then, it’s moment of truth time, turn the water on at the supply lines. Move the valve into the “on” position, and spend ten minutes “touching” the faucet on and off and alternately giggling like a school kid and basking in your DIY plumbing glory.

It took me about a day to get used to it, and then I had that small issue with the batteries needing to be replaced, but I’ve been living with this faucet for over a week now and can tell you this: It’s way more fun doing dishes now.

Truthfully, I never used the little sprayers that come with most standard sink faucets, but I put the head of this one off the base and use it as a sprayer all the time. There’s no fighting with hoses or water pressure, it just goes nicely back into place when you’re done.

It will be a little while before the rest of this room starts moving into dream-kitchen territory, but the sink is well on its way!

When I decided to rent an old farm house with a bunch of falling down buildings on the property there was a general debate going on in my family about whether or not I’d a.) lost my mind, or b.) become a full-blown hillbilly. Which, duh, I own donkeys. The question kind of answers itself. Especially when I find things these old moonshine jugs in one of my garages and am all, “Hey, I think those will look great in my living room.”

What? I washed them first. And, you know, added a little wiring…

This counts for at least one vote in the non-crazy category, right? Because I have to say, for minimal effort– not including scrubbing years worth of grime off the jugs– these Moonshine Lamps were a pretty quick, easy DIY project.

I started with a little research on lamp-parts. You can buy lamp kits online or at most hardware stores. Instead of going with a kit I decided to buy the parts piecemeal so I would have a little more flexibility with how I put it all together.

Here’s what I used:

• 2 big filthy glass jugs
• 2 lamp cords with outlet plugs
• 2 detachable lamp “harps” to hold the shades
• 2 light sockets
• A set of threaded “nipples” (hey, I didn’t package the things)
• Corks special ordered to fit the jugs from here
• Ceramic drill bit

After figuring out all the pieces and parts that I needed my first (and really, only) challenge of this project was drilling a hole in the glass jugs for the cord to enter. Luckily I had seven more bottles hanging out in the garage if this didn’t work, but– as with everything– when you have the right tools things go pretty smoothly.

I set the jug in the sink on a kitchen towel and let some cold water trickle over it, then I rested the ceramic bit on the glass and started drilling.

Note: I said “rested” not “pushed”. Drilling through glass or ceramic is a patience game. I never used more pressure than the weight of the drill, and once the bit broke through the glass and I was just widening the hole, I even lifted some pressure off. It took about 2 minutes of drilling to make a hole this size.

I didn’t push my luck and drill any more than was necessary for the cord to fit.

Slow and steady with very light pressure is the key (which I totally learned from this experience.) After I successfully drilled the holes then I went back and washed the jugs inside and out, then started playing with some of the wiring while they dried.

Here’s the basic assembly for the wiring:

Cord runs through nipple, connects to socket. Nipple runs through cork, holds harp, and is attached to socket. Easy enough.

The first thing was to get a hole through the cork stopper for the nipple to screw into. When I was looking at lamp kits most of them came with a black stopper to hold the nipple and socket in place, but not only was the stopper the wrong size for the opening of these bottles, I also wanted something a little more natural looking. Instead, I measured the bottle openings and ordered a couple different sizes of cork stoppers online.

Cork isn’t the easiest material to drill cleanly so I used a bit a few times smaller than the hole I needed, and I made sure I had some extras on hand which turned out to be a good call. Not such a good call? Drilling into cork right in the middle of the kitchen floor. As someone who views vacuuming with the same degree of excitement as having a splinter shoved under my fingernail, you’d think I would be more cautious about where I make my messes. You would be wrong.

In the end I had two corks fitted with nipples, and a small pile of cork-bits for the cat to roll around in and track through the entire house in the 15 minutes (okay fine, 45 minutes) it took me to get the shopvac out.

I thought I might have to use some silicone to keep the nipple in place, but it was actually a pretty snug fit without any adhesive. I may revisit that later, depending on how everything holds up.

The next thing I tackled was the light socket. Most sockets have the word “press” embossed on them somewhere, and when you squeeze the socket you can pop the bottom off and get at the guts of the wiring.

So here’s something new I learned about wiring during this project: If you look at a standard lamp cord, one of the wires will have an intent or colored stripe on the plastic sheathing of the “cord”… this is the neutral wire (attached to the bigger outlet prong). When everything goes together, this attaches to the silver screw. The other wire attaches to the gold screw, and then you’re in business.

Here’s a look at everything as I assembled it:

Cord through the jug, then the stopper, then the base of the harp, then the bottom of the socket. Then and only then do you start attaching the wires.

I may or may not have gotten excited about getting things to light up and forgot to put the base of the harp on the first time around, but I got there eventually.

And the moment of truth:

All that’s left is adding a lamp shade.

Unfortunately I bought the one kind of shade that doesn’t work with this style of harp, so this is just a mock-up of how it will look eventually, but you get the idea.  All in all the lamp cost about $25 to put together, not including the shade.

I love the glass, but I’m thinking it might need to be dressed up a bit with a fun label like this:

{The work of Simon Walker found via Found, Flea & Free}

But for now, I’m just happy to have a little extra light.

I actually feel like I should start out this post by apologizing for the pictures it contains. Actually, if you’ve eaten recently, or are thinking about eating in the next, oh, eternity, you might want to skip this one. Unless, of course, you have a sink that is draining poorly and a strong constitution, in which case, read on.

This is one of those pesky little issues I’ve been meaning to deal with in the Farm House Rental since I moved in. The one bathroom sink wasn’t draining at all, which made things like brushing my teeth and washing my face a huge chore.

Still, I had a pretty good idea about what I was going to find when I started dismantling things, and it took me the better part of two months to work myself up to this. Back when I was in college, my rather less DIY-prone roommate once had to use a plunger to unclog a toilet– I happened to catch a glimpse of her heading into the bathroom carrying the plunger out in front of her like a sword and wearing a rain poncho, chem lab goggles, rubber gloves that came up to her elbows, and a bandana across her face like an old-school train robber. Which, about the time I was partially wedged in this mess…

Seemed like not such a bad idea.

Here’s a pretty good idea of what goes on under the usual bathroom sink. I’m by no means a plumber or plumbing expert, but I’ve installed enough bathroom sinks now to guess that either somewhere in the bend of the P-trap, or possibly where the stopper and pivot rod connect, something was keeping the water from going down.

I tried removing the actual P-trap, but like many things in this house (the hot water washing machine hose, and anode rod in the hot water tank, for example) the damn thing was rusted on so tight that no amount of leverage and swearing from my 5’3″ frame was going to get it off. Well, I mean, I own a hammer, I could have gotten it off, but it seemed likely I would break some things in the process.

Instead I focused on this little problem area. In a proper setup, the pivot rod there goes through one of the holes in the clevis, which is what makes the stopper open and close when you pull on the rod behind the faucet. Clearly that’s not what I had going on here…

In order to remove the stopper I had to remove the pivot rod by unscrewing the little plastic nut that holds it in place.

Then, brace yourself, I got this…

Ugh. Ugh. I can’t even…

That’s a mixture of hair, grossness, and pure evil.

Then I pulled the stopper out of the sink and I really think the only thing that kept me from vomiting was that I knew I was going to write this post and have to admit it if I did.

It would have been better (for cleaning purposes, but worse for curbing my desire to take a bath in straight bleach) if I could have pulled the trap and drain apart and cleaned everything that way, but instead I settled for digging out the clog with a long screwdriver.

There was about three times this much gunk when it was all said and done, but I seriously couldn’t bring myself to look at or take pictures of it. (I’m actually writing this entire post in code view, specifically so I don’t have to look at it now.)

After I thought I’d reasonably cleared out the drain I shoved a paper towel in the hole where the pivot rod was and then ran the water for a minute to make sure it was draining fine without the stopper in place. (It was, thankfully.) Then I soaked all of the sink parts in an bleach bath for 30 minutes.

In the meantime, I literally cleaned every square inch of the bathroom first with bleach, then with a swiffer, then with my steam mop. That right there should tell you how grossed out I was by this, because half the time it’s a battle for me just to pick my clothes up off the floor, and here I was all channeling Mr. Clean.

Once everything was clean and ready to be reassembled, I started by putting the stopper back in the drain, with the hole at the bottom of the stopper lined up with the hole for the pivot rod. Then the pivot rod went back in (through the clevis, this time) and I tested everything out to make sure it worked.

Would you look at that…

And, no water left standing in the sink.

I am still really grossed out by this (and you may think I’m over reacting, but holy hell… this isn’t my house, and that wasn’t my gunk clogging up the sink) but I am also really glad I finally got this taken care of. And I really can’t wait to have Hillside cottage with it’s brand new bathrooms built.

Anyone else have tips for tackling a clogged drain?

First of all, I am admittedly not a chicken expert (yet) but I’m pretty sure this isn’t actually a “coop”. It’s probably more of a chicken-packing-crate or something, but that just doesn’t have the same ring to it. One thing I feel comfortable stating unequivocally however, is that its intended purpose was not storing books and hot beverages (the chicken poop covering it was a big hint) but look what happens when you go and give a girl power tools.

Other than the part where I basically got to second base with this behemoth on the car ride back from the resale shop, this was a pretty easy project. Almost embarrassingly easy when you consider how long it took me to actually get it done.

Here’s how it started…

I used a stiff brush on the chicken poop. (Talk about things you never thought you’d admit in public. My life is so glamorous.) And then I hit the top of the coop with the orbital sander and some 100 grit to get rid of any potential splinters, but not enough to take away the nice aged look.

Here’s a pro-tip: scouring poop off of old wood is infinitely more bearable if you’re also inhaling copious amounts of spray-paint fumes at the same time. Just sayin.

After several experiments in aging, I finished off the casters with a coat of gold on the brackets and a mist of flat black over it.

While they dried, I also tackled scraping and cleaning the inside of the coop, and tacking some loose parts back in place.

Then, because I knew I wanted easy access to store things inside the coop, I decided to remove the wood dowels from the back side. It was a perfect job for my Sonicrafter.

Once the wheels were dry I bolted them in place…

And there you have it. Chicken coop turned coffee table.

Let me just say this. Once you attach four bigass steel casters to something, it becomes infinitely harder to carry up a flight of rickety basement stairs. This is now the heaviest piece of furniture I own. But well worth that five seconds where I thought for sure I was going to do a header down onto the basement floor.

I love the way it looks, even though I think it will “go” a lot better in Hillside Cottage (you know, once I finally find property and build it) than it does in the rental. And since my obsession with collecting books is second only to my obsession with collecting tools, the extra storage is awesome. (Plus, as you can see, using my new old drill as a paperweight allows me to indulge in both obsessions in one 6 sq ft space.)

Either way, for less than $40, I’m pretty sure this is my favorite coffee table ever. Even if it was once covered in chicken poop.

Immediately after I bought (and briefly dated) this old chicken coop, I started scouring the internet for some big industrial vintage casters. Let me tell you this, vintage casters are commanding a premium these days… turns out I’m not the first person who tried to turn a chicken coop, old chest, or some pallets into a coffee table.

Fine.

The universe is always trying to make me do it myself. So instead of buying vintage industrial casters at $40 a pop, I bought brand new ones for half the price.

I tested them out on the old and if we’re being completely honest here, still somewhat poop-covered chicken coop.

Two things became immediately obvious. First, my coffee table is going to be awesome. (Picture less poop and all kinds of books stacked inside.) Second, those new casters stand out like a sore thumb. However, if there’s one thing I’m good at after living in a garage for a year, it’s premature aging.

I recommend the kind you can do with spray paint instead of the kind that you do by not sleeping for an extended period of time.

I started by masking off the bracket so the wheels could be painted flat black. (Which I did under the Christmas tree so that it felt like I was making some headway on wrapping presents… which, actually, I may just have come up with the 245th way to use painters tape.)

This was a vast improvement over the bright metal, but the brackets were still looking a little young.

Good thing I was aces at construction-paper crafts when I was a kid.

I started with a light coat of the dull gold. Since this was an experiment I went a little darker on one bracket than the other. I also added some bronze to the one on the left, but both brackets got a dusting of “rust”.

I’m not sure which one I like better. I wish I could get the gold metallic paint without the actual metallic.. it’s got a little more sparkle than I was hoping for. I also considered using the torch to heat up and discolor the bracket metal, but I have no idea where that thing is at right now and if I wait until I find it, this table will enter the no-man’s land of unfinished projects.

Here’s the “darker” version…

And the lighter version…

I may try to do one strictly bronze as well, but either way I’ll be painting the bolts on the brackets flat black as well.

What do you think? Are they looking older than their age?

During the Great Migration of One-Thousand Tools that has occurred over the last several weeks, it became clear to me that this…

Was lacking a certain amount of organization. I know, those of you that tend toward OCD just went into a seizure. Sorry about that.

So to make the moving, finding, and storing of my small tools a little easier, I decided to build some quick cheap wooden toolboxes.

To make 4 boxes approximately 6x8x18 I used:

• 2 – 1x6x48″ pine boards
• 2 – 1x8x48″ pine boards
• 2 – 1″ diameter dowel (48″ long)
• 1-1/2″ screws

I bought select grade pine and it was still less than $50 for materials, so these boxes ended up being around $12 apiece.

These are the two I completed this weekend, one for miscellaneous pliers and screwdriver, and one for hammers, levels, chalk-lines, etc.

There are hundreds of different ways you can build a basic toolbox. As with most of my projects I choose to wing it instead of using a plan. These were meant to be quick, cheap, and fun, not a masterful piece of workmanship.

I started by cutting the 1×8 down for the ends and bottom on the miter saw, which I also used to slant the corners of the end pieces.

This is originally how I planned to attach the pieces…

But after some consideration I decided the side panels should set flush with the bottom instead of on top of it. That meant ripping an inch and a half off the width of the bottom pieces on the tablesaw. As you can see by the varying quality of pictures this project took place over several days and locations. (The iphone pics above are from my garage, and the next ones are from my basement.)

Once all the pieces were cut I drilled the holes for the handle by clamping each set of ends together, marking one of them, and then predrilling through both too make sure the hole would be aligned.

Then a quick sanding…

And since I decided to have some fun with these, a little spray paint as well…

I was making these up on the fly and it turns out I get more clever the longer I inhale spraypaint fumes. I also debated for a good 15 seconds over “pinchers” vs “pincers”… I went with “pincers” specifically because it gives me the mental image of a lobster with a screwdriver in it’s claw. Absurd? Yes. But also amusing.

So here’s how the assembly went down. (I even brought the pieces up to the kitchen so I could get better assembly pictures, if you’re wondering why there are random kitchen utensils in the background.)

First I tacked everything together with my cordless finish nailer. The sides to the bottom first…

Then the ends…

And I used one nail through the dowel to secure the handle.

Now I could have just used wood glue on the joints when I tacked it together, and with a few more nails it would have been good to go.

However, apparently the wood glue didn’t make it with the rest of the tools in the move, I decided to use screws for added strength instead.

I used four in each end, and four in the bottom of each side.

If I was going to be something made out of wood and screws, this would be it. Sturdy, if not wholly attractive, and can carry around a whole lot of tools without taking itself too seriously.

The final two boxes have yet to be assembled, but I’m thinking one is going to be for paint brushes and spackling knives, and the other will be for electrical equipment. And I have to say it feels great to have built something in the new place, finally.

What do you think… would you treat your tools with more reverence, or are these toolboxes right up your alley?

Back when I built the shelving for the closets in the Memorial House, I had this idea about building some custom doors for them that mimic the style of the front door of the house, which we all know makes my little heart go pitty-pat.

Well, this is one of those ideas that was bound to end with something getting hit by a hammer– hopefully not an innocent bystander– because truthfully I’m not sure I’ve ever even just installed a pre-hung door by myself (usually there’s at least one other person involved that I try to stab with a shim at some point) much less built one from scratch. And of course, give the fact that I’d be taking on a totally new and challenging project with a high likelihood for failure, I thought it would be the perfect time to invite a bunch of mustached dudes with cameras to come film me while I did it.

(I actually work with these guys in my day job — the one where I’m not usually covered in sawdust– and after I asked for some tips about putting together this video they offered up a Sunday and many hours of their free time to come help me do this thing right. I am incredibly grateful and lucky to work with people who are so passionate about what they do.)

Other than the fact that there were going to be a bunch of people silently staring at me with video equipment while I attempted a totally new project, I was also pretty worried about the fact that telling the real story on camera is totally different than writing it down after the fact. You know, when I’m showered and sane again.  But the video team did a fantastic job of cutting six hours of work into this six minute video, and still telling the whole story, including the parts where I screw up and have to try really hard not to start throwing hinges around.

So, without further ado, here’s how you build a custom door and jamb with three cameras, to microphones, and seven people staring at you.

At the end of this video the door isn’t completely finished, but it’s what I could get through in a day. The jamb needs to have a door stop installed, and the door needs to be stained, polyed, and finished with hardware. I’m hoping to wrap that up and have some good “after” pictures in the next couple of weeks, once I’m settled in from the big move.

Thanks again to the video team for making this thing look completely awesome and professional. You never know what exciting things may come out of this, but I know for sure what came after it was a very long nap.

A recurring theme here over the last couple of weeks has been watching me desperately trying to dig myself out from under a mountain of unorganized papers, which pretty much describes the regular chaos of my life. (You can see some of my other attempts to get it under control here and here.)

Hello contents of my filing cabinet. Nice to see you heaped into a pile on the floor.

I had one more project up my sleeve to help get things organized. I wanted an easy, portable way to file papers that looked good enough to leave out in the open. (So basically not those plastic filing cases that get stacked in the closet, I’ve got plenty of those.)

I was inspired by these wine-crate-esq filing boxes from Ballard Designs, but 1.) They don’t make them anymore, and 2.) when they did make them, I’m pretty sure they were more than $50 each.

First I searched online for some wine crates I could turn into my own file boxes, and then I realized all of the time I was spending on the computer could actually be better spent playing with my power tools. Duh. So, I got my butt out of the chair, went out to the garage, and built myself these out of a couple of old pallets.

Here’s how…

Step 1: The Epic Dismantling of Pallets

I started with a rough plan and some tools (nail pullers and hammer) to help me dismantle the pallets.

Let’s just say, they resisted the dismantling.

However with the assistance of even more tools (pry bar, jig saw, rage) I finally won.

Step 2: Reassembling the Pieces

I built the “short ends” of the crates first, using 2 6″ boards (approximately 14″ long) and some small pieces of wood left over from my rustic wood wall art. Everything was attached with 3/4″ staples.

Here they are all put together and looking pretty.

Then I used 3″ pieces (approximately 15″ wide) to attach to two end pieces together. Again, more staples.

It was all pretty easy. Soon enough I had some bottom-less crates.

It occurred to me that I didn’t actually need a bottom to the crates because they’re for hanging files, and I didn’t want to add a lot of weight to them with a big solid board on the bottom. In the end I compromised with myself  (yes, there was an actual out-loud conversation involved) and added a couple of ledgers inside the crate…

And then stapled some furring strips to them.

There are a lot of ways I could have added a bottom to these–some 1/4″ chip board, more pallet wood, 1/8″ luan. But I went with the quick, easy, and within-reach method this time, and it worked great. You’ll never really see the bottoms of the crates anyway.

Step 3: From Crates to Hanging Files

This is any easy way to turn any crate or box into a hanging file. I used a couple of aluminum strips (which can be easily cut down to size with some tin snips)…

And my Rockwell Sonicrafter to put some 1/8″ channels in the crates, which I then slid the aluminum strips into.

And now they’re ready for hanging things.

It was super easy. I ended up spray-painting the hanging rods with black paint and calling it a day.

Step 4: Labeling With a Blender Pen

The crates were ready to go, but I thought they could use a little “fancying up” with some faded labels.

I read about this technique when I was debating about what to put on my rustic wood wall art panels, and you could totally use it for something like that as well. All you need is a “blender pen” (clear marker you can get at craft stores) and a photocopy (not a laser printed copy, but an actual copy machine copy) of the image you want to transfer.

First, I created my fake label in Illustrator (but you could do it in word as well) and then I reversed the text so it was a mirror image of how I wanted it to look.

Then I printed it out, took it to a photocopier, and made several paper copies. (I made sure to throw the printed versions away so I didn’t get confused later.)

To transfer the image to the crate, I taped it ink side down onto the wood.

Then I used the blender pen to “wet” the back of the paper. The pen contains a chemical that releases the ink from the paper. (And gives off some fumes, so if you don’t like getting high from markers, definitely work in a well ventilated space.)

I worked in small sections, wetting with the blender pen and then rubbing the letters with the back of a spoon (don’t be afraid to press hard.)

After I removed the paper I was left with this, a perfect faded label.

The blender pen I used was a Chartpak Woodcrafter’s Marker (I also had Prismacolor version that did not work at all, so I think the type of pen you use will really make a difference here.)

Step 5: Organize Your Life

With these two crates I basically doubled the amount of paper storage I had in my expensive wood filing cabinet.

First of all, this thing is heavy. There will be no moving the filing cabinet in front of the TV so you can sort papers and watch Die Hard at the same time, thank you. Also, it was always a little awkward to fit in a space with the desk. (Does it sit next to the desk, under the desk, across the room? The mental anguish was indescribable.)

And then of course there was this…

Which, thanks to some gray hanging files from Office Max, now looks like this:

I actually have way more paper storage than I need at the moment, which is a totally awesome feeling. I also know where my passport is now, in case I need to leave the country in a hurry. (One never knows.)

Eventually I’ll have an office with some shelving in it that will hold these babies, but they’re so pretty I don’t mind if they just sit in the middle of the floor for a while longer. And the best part? The total spend for this project was under $5. Can’t beat that for some organization.

This project is linked up to my favorite party, The Lettered Cottage’s How-To’s Day: