DIY Life

Say bye-bye to your boring, cookie-cutter front yard. Step one: add interest, diversity and texture with thoughtful landscaping. Step two: spice things up a bit (and express yourself too) with some fun yard art. Yes, you can buy yard art at hardware stores and plant nurseries. You can even buy high-priced yard art that is manufactured to look all rough-hewn and rustic, just like it was -- er -- homemade.

Suggestion: instead of parting with your precious cash, devote an afternoon this weekend to creating your very own yard art. I stumbled upon some terrific resources while surfing the Web today, in particular a site called Free Woodworking Plans. Here you'll find a bunch of easy DIY yard art ideas, complete with full instructions and patterns you can print out and trace onto whatever surface you're using.

Dust is a major problem in my shop and most home wood shops. My tiny shop has more dust than projects in it. Not only does my enormous "portable" wet/dry vac suck at sucking and is even worse at filtering, it's a major roadblock to sweeping up at the end of the day. I've long dreamed of buying one of those big suck-your-brains-out dust vacuums that they sell at tool centers. However, even those have bags for filters and I never liked the way the old household bag vacuums would billow dust every time you turned it on. I imagined that the big monsters probably did the same thing only more. That can't be good for the lungs!

Enter Bill Pentz, woodworker, geek, and DIYer extraordinaire. Bill designed and built his own dust collection system that out performs just about everything on the market. His system really sucks!!

Most manufactured dust collection systems available to the home woodworker provide miserably low air volume and static pressure. According to Bill, none of the dust collection systems available in retail outlets provide even half of the air flow necessary to actually keep the dust from escaping large tools like your table saw, planer, jointer, or router table. The dust that does get swallowed up is often just spit back out into the air. Many of the filters don't actually filter the size of particles they advertise. Of course, we all could have guessed that much of marketing departments! In addition, course sawdust and the inevitable chunks of debrit damage even the best cartridge filters. A cyclone seperator like Bill's keeps all but the tiniest particles from getting to the filter allowing it to last indefinitely.

Here's a quick DIY fix to get your deposit back when you move out of wood floored rental property or if you've invited everyone and their cousins over for a big party and realized that your wood floors look like ...well, you know. I came up with and have used this technique upon moving out of our last two rentals with great success. With this low cost, quick and genuine method, there'll be no need to completely refinish a gently worn wood floor by sanding and applying several coats finish just to get your money back (which would probably cost as much or more than your damage deposit in the first place).

All you need for this project is a small can of clear polyurethane (I prefer semi-gloss, but gloss could be appropriate too), a pair or two of nitrile gloves (I keep them stocked in the kitchen for handling meats), some clean smooth rags (that you will throw away), and your favorite mop (with a clean head). keeping a can of mineral spirits on hand is a good idea but hopefully you won't have to use it. A quart of polyurethane should be more than enough to do a two bedroom apartment with wood floors throughout.

Anyone who's ever been in the unfortunate position of having to plan a funeral knows that funerals are shockingly expensive, and that the coffin itself can be a large part of the cost. But if your wood shop skills are decent, it's totally possible to build your own coffin, to be used when necessary (even if "when necessary" means "at your next Halloween party").

Aside from that, there are some people out there -- who know who they are -- who think that coffins make smashing home decor. This kind of undertaking would be perfect for them as well. I realize that some of our readers will find this morbid: sorry about that. (Sunshine and kittens to resume soon!) Everyone else will find more details after the break.

When my father hears, "Woodworking project," he comes a-running, so I am lucky to have all the soap molds a girl could ever ask for. But if you love to make cold processed soaps and haven't figured out a good mold, you may want to try to build one yourself.

North Country Mercantile posts their ideas for making wooden soap molds, which are very similar to the ones my dad makes for me.

Need more details than North Mercantile gives? Try the directions for a Mitre Box soap mold at About, or RJ's instructions for making wooden soap molds.

The best thing about making your own molds? You can make them any size you'd like, based on the size bars you'd like to produce. North Country lines theirs with plastic wrap, I use plastic grocery bags (reduce, reuse, recycle, don't you know) but either one will keep your soap from sticking to the wooden mold.

For a small investment in lumber, you'll reap huge rewards when you use your completely customized wooden soap molds, made by you.

If you are a skilled chess or checkers player than you are probably careful and thorough enough to master this project. Or, maybe you are a hobby woodworker and your planning that perfect gift for a chess loving friend. Whatever the case, if you are looking to build an heirloom quality all-wood chess or checker board than this tutorial is all you'll need. Alex Franke walks you through step by step with loads of tips and pictures along the way.

This is not a hack, but a real piece of art, and you'd never guess by looking at the board that it could have been pulled together with quality scraps of leftover wood. If anybody tries this project, let us know how it goes.

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.

Welcome to day nineteen of Toolstravaganza, our 30-day giveaway of tools of all shapes and sizes. Today's prize is a simple bench vise, made of heavy-duty cast iron. The jaw width is 9" and the capacity is 10 1/4". This vise features sliding dogs for securing long workpieces to the bench. And while the vise will grip something tightly, the quick release gets you back to work in a jiffy.

To enter to win today's prize just leave a comment on this post. Be sure to check your email and validate the comment so it appears. Entry period is 5AM-11:59PM EST on August 4th. Full rules after the jump and on our Toolstravaganza contest page.