DIY frugal projects

[hermione]

We're very DIY in our family. We just can't ever justify the cost of buying something - even furniture when we can make it ourselves. We're not professional carpenters, in fact we're on the butt end of amateur carpenters, but as long as it holds together and looks okay, we're happy with it because we've saved money and we have something that matches the rest of our house. (We sort of have our own quirky style.)

We've made cabinets out of pine boards and my sister decorated them by decoupaging old greeting cards on the doors and twisting wire handles.

Here's our blog post on it with pictures:
Cabinet Secrets: Uses for Useless Things

And we've turned an old Christmas tree trunk into a table and a music stand:
Make Something Useful Out of Your Christmas Tree

We bought a lot of old furniture from GoodWill when we bought our house and fixed them all up to look nice and match.

[rainysparadigm]

I love the replies everyone has had! Much creativity!

Another one that came to mind was (again to due with pets...hmm...), we really wanted a larger fish aquarium but if anyone has priced those lately...ouch. Ridiculous. So we scavenged craigslist and found a 45 gallon and stand/decorations for $75, in need of a little work. We brought it home and scraped it down - much needed. Then we cut a piece of wood to fit over the top of the stand because it was open and thus, unusable. Nailed it down and spray painted the entire thing from an ugly green color to black. The hood was broken and unsafe so bought a cheap strip light and just cut glass to fit underneath. It's been running beautifully for months now. Since the tank is wood trimmed we are considering using wood colored contact paper to trim the stand, and we may pick up some handles for it since theyre mismatched, but we havent rushed around to that part. It has character lol

jpd: another great use i have found for those zipper bags is putting them with our travel stuff. When we travel I put the bathroom products such as shampoos and body washes in those. Then if anything accidently spills or gets squished (which just somehow no matter what always seems to happen lol), less mess, And thats not to mention water from showers. Less messier than using a grocery bag too. I cant believe now that I ever threw those away lol

Our entertainment center is a bit of a fixer upper project. Its unique and we love it, but it needed a paint pen as well and the back of both cabinets was open, but nothing some wood and nails from home depot couldnt fix.

If you have any artistic flair, a project my friend does is gathering empty wine and other interesting bottles. She strips them of all labels and then paints them with a variety of effects, and often hand draws designs on them. Her favorite are halloween/gothic things. Other times she sticks short candle sticks in them and lets it melt over the bottle. A half dozen or more of these standing together along the windowsill or high cabinets actually looks pretty cool and original.

Our kitchen is "coffee" themed, so one thing we did was buy coffee cups (from the dollar store no less) and put 5 of them on the counter. Into each one went a set of cooking utensils: wooden spoons, whisks, plastic cookware, etc. It looks great, cheaper than buying holders made just for utensils, and all my stuff is convenient. We also took an over the door towel holder meant for the bathroom, and put it over the pantry door. On the towel prongs we hung oven mits etc (coffee decor) and in the little holder at the top normally meant for hygene products, we put bags of coffee. Functional and adds to the theme. Then a colleague won a coffee grinder from a cafe, and it came in a nice little wooden box with a coffee motif. She was going to chuck the box but I took it instead and filled it with teas, and left it on my counter. Love it!

I have a 5 headed dragon sculpture that I love, but it was broken in a mishap and one of the dragons lost his head. It looked horrible and I was really upset, but a friend used some sculpty and shaped a new one based on the remainders. He then baked it all together and painted it. I showed it to several people who had even seen the ornament before it was broken and no one could tell which head had been replaced! That is 100% his credit though - amazing what talents people hide!

Some current projects I'm working on, suggestions are appreciated:

1. I would like to build a nice looking set of bookshelves, with minimal carpentry. I prefer wood opposed to metals in my decor, so if anyone has ideas lemme know. The only way I know is hanging brackets and adding shelves, but it will look odd in the house.

2. I really like kitchen nook tables, with the benches and all that. I'm pondering if I could find a properly shaped table and then just add benches to it myself. Not sure about adding backing though?

3. I also would like to setup an outdoor canopy that would resist the occasional heavy windstorm we get here. Anyone with exp on this would be appreciated.

4. Also want to make curtains, any ideas? My windows are bare!

5. We bought a set of two decorative bath towels, black with a strange little silvery emblem on each one. but they never really worked in either bathroom. Any idea what to use these for besides towels? lol too nice for something like washing floors.

I'm also repainting some candler holders to look nicer in the house decor, and am on the lookout for a coffee table in need of tlc. we'll see how those go.

oh! one more thing. we bought this http://www.luggagepoint.com/lpProduc...i_sku=9213:225 and dont like it as a dvd rack. they dont stay on and the cats tip it over. can anyone think of a creative use for it??

Look fwd to more posts!

[gt0163c]

Originally Posted by rainysparadigm

1. I would like to build a nice looking set of bookshelves, with minimal carpentry. I prefer wood opposed to metals in my decor, so if anyone has ideas lemme know. The only way I know is hanging brackets and adding shelves, but it will look odd in the house.

oh! one more thing. we bought this http://www.luggagepoint.com/lpProduc...i_sku=9213:225 and dont like it as a dvd rack. they dont stay on and the cats tip it over. can anyone think of a creative use for it??

For the DVD/CD rack, a couple of things come to mind. If you can either bend or remove the bit on the bottom that goes towards the back and, theoretically, helps it stand up, you could do a couple of things with it. You might be able to mount it on a wall vertically, possibly such that the bottom sticks out a little bit more than the top. You don't want it to look weird, just enough so that the CDs/DVDs stay in there more easily due to the assistance of a bit of gravity. You also might be able to mount it horizontally, again, if you can figure out how to make the bottom stick out a bit more than the top that would help.
You could use it as a dish drying rack. Or, mounted on a wall horizontally and with the back towards the ground it could become a wire basket of sorts, maybe even a bathtub/shower rack. Not exactly sure how you'd mount it...have to think about that some more.

For bookcases, there's a couple of options. I've always built mind with permenant shelves, as opposed to shelves that can be moved up and down. The easiest way to put in sturdy, permanent shelves is to use a few strips of thin wood, 1x2 works well, around the sides and back of the upright portions of the bookcase and then sent the shelf on that.
So, a front view looks something like this (although your right hand side would actually line up, but I think you get the idea):
| |
|_________|
|- -|
| |
|_________|
|- -|

If you don't mind painting the wood, you can use inexpensive lumber (pine 1x for the shelves and 1/2" pywood for the back and sides). And you can cover the wood with inexpensive fabric, unbleached muslin works best, but even old bed sheets will work. To do this, after you've assembled the bookcase, cut the fabric to fit the wood. You want to wrap the book case as much as possible. I lay the piece on it's back and then drape the fabric over it. Fold the material around the back of the case and then cut where the shelves are. I generally make an X shaped cut so that I've got four triangles of fabric, one each on the sides, one on the top of the shelf, one on the bottom of the shelf on top of it (if I could draw pictures, this would be a lot easier to explain). If you don't want to use inexpensive paint (neutral colored oops paint works well), you can make up a solution that's about 1.5-2 parts white glue...not the washable kind...to 1 part water. Basically, you want the mixture to feel a little sticky and slimey when you put your hand in it, but it will still be fairly liquidy.

Then, using an old paint brush and working from one side or corner of the bookcase, paint the wood and the back of the fabric. Do a little bit at a time. Press the two painted fabric to the painted wood and paint the top of the fabric. When you get to edges of the cloth, paint outward so that the little strings and stuff lay flat. You can overlap/fold the fabric at the corners, where necessary. You'll have to do this in a couple of stages, letting things dry in between so that you can get the fabric securely tacked down in the front, back, sides, etc. Once you get that done, you can go back over and repaint, texture, whatever to make it match your decor.

Hopefully this all makes sense.

[kav122]

I had a crappy old table with really unique lines. Since it looked very traditional, didn't really match our style, I spray painted it bright green. Here is a picture (I hope it is ok to post pictures here, as I don't have a webpage to link to).


And here are some flags for our son's room that I saw on this neat (but too expensive for me) website. I made them for extremely cheap and made curtains to match

Also, I was telling AmandaJane that I am making a container garden, and I tried freecycle for large containers, with no luck. I couldn't bear spending $10 or more for each large container, so I found smallish laundry baskets on sale for $2/each, and lined them with heavy plastic. I will take a picture of them so you can see them.

Also, we ripped up that old carpet (it is white and we have a dog and a 1year old--yeah, doesn't work Oh yeah, and it is older than me!) and are redoing the floors ourselves.

[lucille]

Originally Posted by rainysparadigm

I love the replies everyone has had! Much creativity!

2. I really like kitchen nook tables, with the benches and all that. I'm pondering if I could find a properly shaped table and then just add benches to it myself. Not sure about adding backing though?

3. I also would like to setup an outdoor canopy that would resist the occasional heavy windstorm we get here. Anyone with exp on this would be appreciated.

4. Also want to make curtains, any ideas? My windows are bare!

I'm also repainting some candler holders to look nicer in the house decor, and am on the lookout for a coffee table in need of tlc. we'll see how those go.

Look fwd to more posts!

For kitchen nook benches go see if you can find Christopher Lowe's website. He used to have a show on Discovery. He had a bench seat with a back and box storage underneath that he used for a bunch of different things, they frequently used one to be a bench at a dining table. I think they had more than one style and they were made out of cheaper woods and look fairly simple to build.

We have an outdoor canopy. It is one of those garden gazebos with a metal frame, it is bolted to our deck. We have extremely high winds all the time. It has bent a bit and some of the original bolts came out. When the weather gets nicer we are going to re-fit some of the side connections with a better bolt system. It has held up rather well considering. What I would look for is one that will fit in your area and has a sturdy looking frame. We spent about $150 on the entire thing. We couldn't have bought materials that cheap. If you have somewhere to anchor a canopy like between corners of the house and a tree or something, you can get huge beige canvas painters dropcloths fairly cheap. With some large grommets and carbiners you could possible do an inpromptu canopy.

For curtains do a google for DIY curtains or curtain patterns. Curtains are pretty basic and I know there are some how to's on how to measure windows and how much bigger to make the curtains.

[lucille]

On a side note. My old 1970's edwardian revival dining room table is in Elle Decor March issue. Some showcase house has the exact same table in it. Mine cost me $50 about ten years ago, but it really needs to be refinished.

[kav122]

Originally Posted by rainysparadigm

4. Also want to make curtains, any ideas? My windows are bare!

5. We bought a set of two decorative bath towels, black with a strange little silvery emblem on each one. but they never really worked in either bathroom. Any idea what to use these for besides towels? lol too nice for something like washing floors.

My absolute FAVORITE book for curtains is "Duvet Covers and Curtains" by Jean and Valori Wells. It is an OhSewEasy book. It has exactly how to measure for any type curtain and how much fabric to get, etc, etc. It even has a shower curtain pattern. I love that book!

I was thinking that maybe you could turn the towel into a pillow? or even some ties on one and some elastic on the other and make a "top" and "bottom" wrap for when you get out of the shower? I don't know

[Dani]

Originally Posted by rainysparadigm

oh! one more thing. we bought this http://www.luggagepoint.com/lpProduc...i_sku=9213:225 and dont like it as a dvd rack. they dont stay on and the cats tip it over. can anyone think of a creative use for it??

Look fwd to more posts!

If you want to use it for its intended purpose, try an earthquake safe bracket that will attach it to the wall. They're at Home Depot/Lowe's type stores.

[Kathryn]

"Frugal DIY projects" is my middle name. Lots of little stuff like furniture refinishing projects, did all the window coverings in the house, etc., but the major projects are

(a) major kitchen remodel. Cost us about 9 grand, which to some people may seem like a lot, but we got new cabinets (IKEA boxes) with custom hickory doors, bosche/thermador/meile appliances, granite countertops, tile floors, along with non-trivial structural and electrical work for that pricetag by doing everything ourselves, buying as much as we could from the salvage yard and everything else by comparison-shopping until my eyes bled online and on eBay.

(b) landscaping work--this has been a long, slow, ongoing process and very much a work-in-progress, but we've done some pretty major landscaping improvements over the years that would have cost untold thousands of dollars if we'd bought new materials and paid someone to do it--like a largish backyard pond and a couple smaller water features, a pergola that we made out of the neighbor's dismantled playset (the slide of which we
re now using as a bridge on the big pond!) I've raised a lot of perennials from seeds rather than paying $5.00+ a plant at the nursery. Right now we have an ungodly amount of free gravel and landscaping stone and timbers in the driveway that will eventually be part of a new-and-improved patio design that ties together the big pond and the pergola and everything into a backyard retreat.

(c) The Cabin Project. We bought a vintage log cabin in need of major reno for dirt cheap, and are hoping to do most of the work on it ourselves (install indoor plumbing/bathroom, upgrade electrical, demo down to the logs, new decks). We want to reframe the roof to increase the ceiling height of the 2nd floor, which we will probably hire out.

My best friend from HS is an architect, and she's just volunteered to help us with the plans, yippee! Again, we plan to use salvaged and second-hand whenever possible.

[triathing]

We took a one-inch dowel and cut it down to 24 inches. Took a half-dozen 7/16" dowels and cut them in half, down to 18 inches. Inserted the smaller dowels into the large one to make a place to hand drying plastic bags. Decided it could be used to dry pasta, too. Then the cat came along, and voila! New toy (hopefully not when there are pasta or plastic bags, though).

FWIW, we used 7/16" dowels because we've got a 7/16" bit on the drill. It's still maple syrup season in Vermont ...