architheque

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Finally got around to making my own sun jars this weekend. They’re so cute! The instructions at Not Martha are the best I’ve seen so far, as she goes into the whole “which lights should I not buy” routine, which is very helpful when standing in the middle of the aisle at Lowe’s faced with thirty rather expensive options. I got my Malibu lights for $8.96 each due to a pricing error, so look sharp and compare the prices between the displays and the shelves. If you find a discrepancy, they’ll honor the lesser of the prices.

I frosted in the inside of the jars rather than the outside, and I settled on epoxy to hold the panels to the glass and Blue Tak to hold the batteries to the panel. The epoxy worked pretty well, but the Blue Tak didn’t work so well on two of my four jars. In the future I’d use epoxy on all of it.

The jars are darling glowing in the early winter dusk, and I think they’d make great presents!

If living in a drywall box sans any architectural consideration at all, with beige carpet and popcorn ceilings, offends you as much as it offends me, chances are you chose to live in an older building. Chances are, as well, you’re liable to freeze to death this winter. Ha, ha, ha….ah, the price we pay.

Myself, I live in a hundred year-old Victorian with huge single-paned windows all over the place. I got great light. I got lousy heat retention. And you know what? Flannel pants, sweaters, and fleece slippers only go so far. Sometimes, you just need to make the place warmer.

Obviously replacing your single-paned windows with double-paned low-E new ones is beyond your control as a renter. As is new blown-in insulation or upgrading to a heat pump with a higher SEER . But there are certainly some ways to be warmer this season that won’t pad your landlord’s property value while bleeding you dry. Personally, I’m not only living on a budget, but I’m also planning to move soon - so my strategies need to be really cost-effective.

First up? Shrink wrap those bleedin’ windows!

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I found this excerpt in one of my journals, dating back to 2004. It amused me so much, I thought I’d repost it.

I saw a bright orange six drawer tool chest in the sale papers today. As I’ve nothing more than a folding table heaped with various powertools on the back porch, I’ve been considering investing in some kind of appropriate container once I get settled on the other side of the country. Tabletop belt sanders aren’t the objects de arte I had in mind for my apartment. With enough bravado, do you think I could pass off a tall tool chest as indoor furniture? I already have a bright blue retro laminate dresser from a modern furniture store. I’m seriously thinking of getting a funky tool box and putting the TV on top of it in the living room. It’s that or get a second dresser. Clothes dressers don’t have those handy shallow top drawers, though, and neither do they come with ball-bearing drawer rollers, which are essential with heavier tools. Add another item to the list of things I must invent and market myself: tool chests for people who have no sheds, garages, basements, or workshops. Tool chests that look good in the hallway! Tool chests to fool your guests! Do I hear an “Amen, sister”?!

Do you think the above bright blue Clarke chest could be adequately worked into a living room scheme? Could it be coated with fun wood veneer à la Todd Oldham? Either way, I’d be a-okay with having a kitchen counter that looked like the red workspace on this page.

All ye of small spaces, what do you keep your tools in?

Happiness is a warm gun cool blue.

In addition to being super psyched that my copy of Florence Broadhurst: Her Secret and Extraordinary Lives showed up today (which I won in a contest on Apartment Therapy…yay!), I’m heaving a huge sigh of relief that I finally have a filing cabinet to stash “important stuff” in.

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I picked up this table on craigslist (From Sylvie at So Sylvie and Blossom Home, incidentally. It was nice to meet you!) and could barely contain myself with glee. I’m so glad to finally be finished with the refurbishing, not only so I can move on to other projects, but also because I’ve been dying to show everyone how awesome it turned out.

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Inspired by the lime green pegboard at Design*Sponge, and also a similar craft station in ReadyMade, I saw an opportunity to finally get all my jewelry where I could see it.

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I don’t know what has come over me lately, but I can’t leave Craigslist alone. Maybe it’s the weekly Craigslist roundup at Apartment Therapy that only seems to list $200+ items only in San Fran proper that has me daily trawling the more local South Bay page for more affordable items. Small successes, like scoring hot lime green Crate and Barrel bentwood chairs (for A, now in his apartment), or a vintage dresser for $15, keep me going, like mild fixes. I currently have four (4, count ‘em) Craigslist items in various stages of undress. Which is to say, I’ve procured them, plan to refinish them, and haven’t quite finished any of them. I was going to wait until the items were finished, then publish a play-by-play of their revival and rebirth. But that’s going to take too long. Plus, I could use some encouragement to finish what I start. Maybe if I get some admiring comments, the admiration will become my fix instead of new pieces, and I’ll attack my refurbishing with renewed gusto.

First posted “project”….one that I’m not even bothering to refinish at the moment. The fourth item acquired, it’s last in line for refinishing, and it’s perfectly usable (and photogenic) without the new coat of stain I have planned for it. It’s really similar to this (made in Yugoslavia just the same!) but was aquired for 8% of the cost.

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Via IKEA Hacker, I saw this DIY chandelier. Oh. My. Goodness. How gorgeous is that? I wish I knew more about electrical work - enough to be comfortable re-wiring things. As it is, I’ve nightmares about setting a fire in the attic through un-safe wiring. But when I learn more, or succeed in talking my dad into doing it for me, this chandelier, or something like it, is so completely MINE!

Okay, and their house is nice too.

And yes, I know I’m almost a year late on this one.

Wired mag is probably not where I want to see Martha Stewart, but I do subscribe to the following thought that she presented in an interview here:

Wired: One reason people like projects is because they get a sense of control over their environment and technology. It gives them ownership.

Stewart: That’s why I say, “You own it if you made it.” You don’t own the pie if you buy it. You just don’t. Doing projects really gives people self-confidence. Nothing is better than taking the pie out of the oven. What it does for you personally, and for your family’s idea of you, is something you can’t buy.

Making my own stuff does do something for me personally, and I have a really hard time finding the words to explain that to all the people I’ve met lately who don’t “do” anything but work, play, and consume. I guess when it comes to “making” or “producing,” either you understand the urge or you don’t. A lot of folks can’t see why I’d want to create more work for myself - why not just go home and watch TV for the rest of the day? But equally so, I can’t see why they’d want to, well…go home and watch TV for the rest of the day. There are so many amazing recipes to try, antique dressers to refinish, clothes to sew, walls to paint, vegetables to garden, books to read, blogs to browse, and ideas to be inspired by.

I’m a designer, a creator, and a tinkerer. Sue me.

Speaking of amazing recipes to try, this one came up through Apartment Therapy (Kitchen) that suggests something devilishly delicious to do with the scads of zucchini coming out of the garden: Chocolate Zucchini Cake. The write-up makes it sound much better than you’d first think. And I do have a new springform pan…