DIY Life

Today on Unclutterer, they featured a fantastic conceptual design from Boiler that transforms your floorboard into a miniature picket fence, creating a perfect place to store all those ugly, hanging wires.

From the site: The Picket Fence adapts to older homes and cleanly manages the electrical necessities of the occupants. The baseboards have a certain thickness to them, typically much thicker than an electrical cord. By sticking these pickets onto the baseboard, a space is created between the wall and the picket points. This space serves as a track for routing all of the wires cleanly around the room. They can go wherever they like and double back as much as they need to, all concealed behind a picket fence. Because of the gaps between the individual pickets, a plug can jump out wherever it is needed.

What a clean and interesting way to hide wire clutter! This could easily be turned into a DIY weekend project with little more than an Exacto knife, durable foamcore, and some double-sided taped. Give it a try and let us know how it turns out!

Air infiltration into your house is the number one enemy of your home heating and cooling efficiency. Wall switches and electrical outlets which are located on the exterior walls of your home can serve as ports of entry for outside air. Insulating these potential thermal leaks is simple and cheap to do.

You can get inexpensive foam outlet seals at any home or hardware store. They are simple die cut foam shields which go between your outlet plate and the wire box in the wall. These foam insulators can potentially shut off air leakage entering your home from behind switches and outlets.

The process is simple and goes like this:

My wife I chose our last apartment based largely on the fact that the other tenants' complaints that the landlord never stopped by or cared much about the condition of the property. This was a welcome change from the pair of knit-picky, nosy, voyeuristic landladies we endured during our first years of marriage. However, that meant that minor home improvements were up to me if I wanted them done in a timely manor.

Most of the outlets in the apartment were so worn out that lamp cords would fall out the moment my hand let go. At best walking across the floor caused lights to flicker and the radio to shut off. Fortunately, fixing the problem is as easy as homemade sin and dirt cheap (so you don't have to worry about investing much pocket change into someone else's property).

All you need to do the deed is a 39¢ outlet from the hardware store (or Walmart's hardware dept.) and a #2 ("regular" size) flat screwdriver. Most electrical outlets are designed to accept both flat ( | ) and Philips ( + ) screwdrivers so if you have a Philips grab that too (it can be easier to use) but it's not necessary. A novice should expect to spend about 15 minutes from start to finish.

If there's two things I know about us as humans, it's this: we all have valuables, and we all have a surplus of wall outlets. "But what about homeless people," you counter. "They have neither valuables NOR wall outlets." Well my argumentative friend, that's a good point, and to that I say, "how many homeless people do you think will read this post?" The answer, of course, is one, but luckily she's never been a fan of my writing, so we can safely continue with the assumption that no homeless people will ever see this incredibly important article.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah: how to hide your tiny stash inside a fake wall outlet. If you find yourself with an over-abundance of small valuables, as I often do when I happen across a handful of Dr. Pepper-flavored jelly beans, the best place to store them is somewhere close-by and out of sight (duh!).

This instructable suggests using a non-wired electrical outlet for your hidden mini-vault, but I think it work even better with a cable outlet for two main reasons: 1) the coax plug would double as a little handle, making it easer to open and close your secret chamber, and 2) the guts of a coax cable outlet take up a lot less room than an electrical box.

So, next time you have a filthy, sweaty wad of Benjamins that you need to hide, give this little project a try... or, if you're looking for something a bit more secure, send me an e-mail and I'll gladly spend hold on to it for you.