DIY Life

This is the second part of my article on installing beadboard in a kitchen area, after the demolition of some '70's era wall tile. You may see the first part here. We now move on to the carpentry work itself, and I'll show you a couple other things I did in the ongoing process. Take quick look at the gallery to see where I'm going.

One of the most fun and educational things you can do with your child(ren) is to start your own garden.

You don't have to make it a veggie garden, although eating what they grow does tend to intrigue the little ones. You can do a flower garden, a butterfly garden, or a cactus garden, to name a few.

I am also going to teach you how to add another twist to it. You and the small ones can build a garden that moves!

Why make a mobile garden? A mobile garden means you can change locations so you can use different plants at different times of the year that have different sunlight requirements. It also means that you can bring the garden to you when you want to work on it. Details after the break!

When I first got into the carpentry trade, I learned to hang doors from scratch. There were a lot of tricks and special tools to build the jamb, install the hinges, and make sure everything was plumb and level. The homeowner really did need a professional carpenter to do the job and to keep him from pulling his hair out. Those days are gone. Today you can buy prehung doors in many styles.

Are you thinking about installing a new entry door for added curb appeal? Are you in the remodel mode and adding an interior door? You can do it yourself in just a few hours!

Prehung doors come with the door already installed in the jamb so the tedious hinge mortise work is over. There are just a few things you'll need other than the door:

• Hammer, nail set, and finish nails
• 4' level
• Bundle of shims
• Utility knife
• Hardware (door knob, dead bolt, etc.)

Ready to get started? Here's a great article that digs into the details of DIY door installation. This is a project that is easy for one person but it's handy to have an extra set of hands. In no time you'll be nailing up the trim and painting!

Shake up your living room! Bookcases don't have to be boring. Have you noticed that the big home decor stores have quietly introduced bookcases sporting more unusual styling? Like this one from Crate and Barrel, for instance. Yet this is something the DIY'er might like to try his or her own hand at. Need ideas? I found this wonderful example from Lowes sister site, LowesCreativeIdeas: it's a "Zen" shelving unit -- "inspired by the clean lines of Asian design." Visit the site to check out their photo of what the finished project will look like. Isn't it just gorgeous?

A rundown of materials needed and instructions are on the site, along with diagrams and the finished-work pic. However, you can download a pdf of full instructions from the site, too. Nice. The Lowes elves estimate the total cost to be around $120, which is substantially less than it would cost you to buy ready-made. On the down side, this looks like it would be fairly time-consuming for a beginner woodworker like myself. (Read: completion date estimated sometime in 2010.)

Here's a thought: "fake it, don't make it." I wonder if you could cut corners by using pre-made storage cubbies, like this one of mine pictured above. You could attach them within A) a frame of your own design or B) an unwanted bookcase with the shelves removed. Once painted to match and installed, no one would notice they are not all one unit.

Back in the days before mass-produced imports, being a DIY'er sometimes meant making your own tools. My dad belongs to that generation, as do some of the men in my husband's family. Relatively few people have the gear or know-how required to do that these days. Sad, huh?

To revisit that self-sufficient era, head to Frank Campbell's A Woodworker's Bench Notes. In addition to all sorts of carpentry instructions, wood-working plans, and generally handy tips, this great little site also has a page dedicated to the site creator's dad, Hugh Campbell. Here you can view photos of some Campbell-creations, along with explanatory notes. Included are photos of a jig saw, a drill press, and a power hack saw -- all of them home-made in the 1940s and 50s. Guess what? They are all still working today.

There's also a newspaper clipping from 1946 attesting to Campbell's status as a local inventor. It tells how Campbell dealt with the problem of transportation around his farm after a particularly heavy snowfall by building a caterpillar snow toboggan. Other impressive inventions included a "garden tractor" that incorporated old car parts, and a swathing machine, the frame of which was constructed from an old truck.

Hey woodworkers, here's a great little project: make your own small folding table. You know the kind I mean. The little square ones that are perfect for eating TV dinners off. Fabulous instructions, complete with photos and other illustrations, are on the site HandymanWire. The whole thing looks suitable for both experienced handymen/women and beginners, alike.

Yes, you can buy similar tables in the big box stores. They cost anywhere from $15 to $25 and up. Convenient, yes. But making your own will be so much more satisfying, don't you think? You will, however, have to allow some time and patience for the construction. Of course, you will also have to budget for the wood and hardware. Here what you'll need:
(1) 8-foot length of 1x6-inch wood. The designer of this particular table recommends cedar if the table is to be used outdoors.
(2) 1 1/2 x 1 1/2-inch brass hinges. Brass is required if the table is for outdoors use, otherwise any hinge will do.
(1) 5 x 1/4-inch bolt
(1) 1/4-inch nylock nut
(18) 1-inch #8 brass screws. Again, any screw will work, but brass is required for outdoors use.
Woodworking glue

Who couldn't use a little table like this? I love that it folds down for easy storage. Stow it in the garage or behind the couch, then pull it out when you need a little work space or a spot to rest your coffee mug.

If you're not stretching rubber bands across a cardboard cigar box, it's not all that easy to make your own guitar-type instruments. You have only to watch a video of someone making a guitar to notice that it involves some advanced and specialized wood-working. The body must be built up and finished, and the whole process can take months. However, if you're talking about a banjo, you don't necessarily need to build up the body: they usually have more in common with the body of a drum than the body of a guitar anyway.

Instructables user TimAnderson has created an awesome tutorial for a cookie tin banjo. You won't get out of wood-working: you'll be making the rest of the banjo out of an old bed-post, and creating your own tuning pegs. But it's still much easier than building the body of a guitar.

You can use Anderson's previous tutorials on the subject, linked from the project page, to build other components of the banjo, like the tuning pegs. And when you've finished creating your own banjo, you can visit the Banjo Hangout. They'll give you some ideas for what to do with it.

Yesterday, I wrote about a great website that will help you figure out which glue is the best one you can use for a particular job. In the comments, a reader associated with home expert Danny Lipford's site noted that they'd also just posted a useful guide to glue, and because our readers are awesome, I thought the article deserved its own post.

Jerri Farris's article isn't a substitute for ThisToThat.com, and it doesn't really cover glues that would be used for most craft projects, only those you're likely to use in home construction and improvement. It doesn't go into great detail about the differences between specific brands of glue, either, or the differences in the chemical compositions of some of the glues it discusses. ("Instant Glue" may be a retail category and general name, but last time I checked, its formal name was cyanoacrylate glue. It's an acrylic resin. Leaving out this info makes an article user-friendly, but disappoints us geeky types.)

However, if you've ever wondered about the difference between two-part epoxy and contact cement, or where it might be appropriate to use Gorilla Glue, Farris's article is a helpful read. You'll learn to take care of your glue supply, and you'll never again try to use wood glue where you should be using Liquid Nails.