Posted by rocketgirlsf on October 5, 2009
Cerrado!
As promised, back to the whole point of RocketCityDigs: making the galaxy livable for small-space dwellers. Since we converted the office into the nursery (and we swears, we’ll finish that and post photos eventually), our magnet board has been woefully leaning against the wall in our sunroom. The magnet board itself is a DIY job: sheet metal screwed into plywood, and then half-covered in laminate for the essential dry-erase aspect. All told, cost about $30, with magnets, or considerably less than an actual dry-erase magnet board would cost. I didn’t know what we’d be doing with it until RocketMan said, “So I was thinking of hinging the magnet board to the bookshelf so we can use it again.”
Oh. OK.
(That’s generally my reaction to such proclamations of his home-improvement visions; I’d have been satisfied with just keeping it leaned against the wall until the magnets became a chokable issue for the Agent of Chaos, but that’s why I’m the blogger, not the builder.)
Abierto!
A few drill-noises and hinges later, and presto: a highly-visible magnet board, which, for me, is the very reason one has a magnet board; the last one hung on a side wall in the office, and I never glanced at it twice. Now, while sitting at the computer, I can check the calendar, see the hospital bills that still need tending, and add movies to the DVDs We’ll Buy When They’re Cheap And Used list. It’s a pretty ingenius use of the space, I have to say, although he’d prefer we put stuff we don’t want to see underneath (as opposed to our library; everyone likes to show off their books, after all). As I’ve said before, we love shelves, but shelves underneath stuff? Even better.
Posted in organization | Tagged: bookshelves, DIY, dry-erase board, magnet board, office, plywood, sheet metal | 1 Comment »
Posted by rocketgirlsf on August 24, 2009
The underside of the bed, plus Dave's feet.
I’d planned on blogging this earlier, but life (specifically, new life) interfered. For going on six months or so, RocketMan had been saying he wanted to build a bed—something with storage underneath. Weeks passed, months passed, and as I neared my due date and mentioned we’d better get a move on the big projects, he roped a friend into hauling plywood from Lowe’s, and at long last, after a lifetime of twin beds, futons, and a box-spring base, I’m actually sleeping on a queen-sized bed. Like, one with legs and everything.
The construction couldn’t be simpler: two sheets of plywood fastened together with 1×4s, all mounted on lengths of pipe (capped with rubber to protect the hardwood floor). Not only is sleeping more comfortable on the harder surface, but we have 12 inches of height under there, resulting in an additional 30 square feet of storage space—no small feat for a 680-SF apartment. (That’s 4% of the floor space, if you’re doing the math.)
Posted in bedroom, furniture | Tagged: bed, bedroom, DIY, furniture, pipes, plywood, storage space | 1 Comment »
Posted by rocketgirlsf on June 13, 2009
Wine Rack I
My second blog, way back, was about our custom-built combo bar, cookbook shelf, and wine rack. (Cocktail Hour, January 15, 2009) The wine rack itself was made of stacked cardboard tubing; it worked well, but didn’t fit bigger Pinot Noir and champagne bottles. An unpredicted drawback was that the space for it was limited. Who knew that, six months later, we’d have found our wine collection quadrupled?
It makes sense, of course: In the last 32 weeks, I’ve drunk the equivalent of maybe 1 1/2 bottles of wine; compare that to my one-or-more-bottles-a-week habit. A glass or two of wine with dinner adds up. I feel a bit guilty about that, actually. Not about cutting out the booze, but about depriving the nice folks at the Bush Market of a considerable Rocket-based profit margin in the middle of a recession.
In any case, in the last three weeks, we’ve come into two cases of wine: one from RocketMan’s brother-in-law, an amateur vintner who basement-bottled a very nice red blend that’s fruity but well-balanced. Another case came from CrushPad, an organization here in San Francisco in which participants pick grapes, taste various wines, and basically create their own wines. Throw those on top of the other bottles I’m not drinking, and we suddenly have a wine collection.
The new specs were simple: upgrade from cardboard; make the cylinders wide enough for fat-bottomed bottles; move it out of the bar. (One of the other motivators was our slow-cooker, which is a huge piece of equipment that had heretofore been living in our credenza.) After some research, RM found a version of the wine rack we were looking for in ReadyMade magazine (their example even had a chalkboard running up the side!). Off RM went to (guess?) Cole Hardware, where he bought two pine boards and a length of PVC pipe. After a day’s worth of sawing, measuring and a few restarts, we have our final product: a tall, slender wine rack that is attached to, but separate from, the bar, and one that stood our 6.5 test, as well. (Involves RM shaking the whole thing for at least 30 seconds.) The cylinders aren’t just stacked in there; he inserted long bolts every six holes to affix the sides firmly.
We’ll update a few months after I give birth, when it’s half empty.
Posted in bar, furniture | Tagged: bar, DIY, PVC pipe, storage, wine, wine rack | Leave a Comment »
Posted by rocketgirlsf on April 2, 2009
As I’m home sick with a cold, and no hope of symptom relief from my usual OTC drugs, I figured I’d pick an easy topic: shelves. Shelves are the small-space inhabitant’s zinc. It’s her TheraFlu. Her warm bath followed by Vicks Vaporub. Shelves save precious floor space, are reasonably easy to install, and best of all, they’re temporary. We’ve got them in every room in our house, and will probably have more by the time RocketBaby arrives.
Of course, in an earthquake zone, shelves have their problems; I wouldn’t want to be under one of our bookshelves in the event of anything higher than a 5.0. (RocketMan, BTW, seems to think the biggest concern with an earthquake is the building falling in, but I think I’m bringing him around to the reality that stuff falling is a more likely scenario.) As with many ideas I post here, they could put a ding in your security deposit; unless you’re going for the freestanding kind (which take up floor space! boo!), shelves require holes drilled in walls. But in the case of the shelves below, only twelve holes, in total, were required. Not bad for holding up 48 feet of books.
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Originally, these shelves were in the office, but since the office has been designated as the new nursery, we had two problems to solve: move the office, and move the shelves. We decided that the sunroom was the best place for both; it already had a bookshelf, and the computer had been in there before I moved in five years ago. In addition, it’s one of the only rooms that still had open wall space. Alas, no recent before pictures to share, unless I find where RM saved them on the computer.
The construction is simple, and based on Elfa shelving: spines screwed in at the top, running the length of the unit to the floor, where another screw holds the spine in place. Fortunately, our apartment has good bones, with wood crown molding and solid wood baseboards, both strong bases for the books—and in this case, our computer monitor and tower.
The wood spines are adjustable shelving spines screwed to 2×2 pine wood posts; the shelves themselves are mostly 3/4 inch plywood, either 8 or 12 inches deep. (A few of the shelves are white-lacquered pressed wood, leftover from a previous shelving project.)
These shelves were constructed in the same way, but instead of posts that go floor to ceiling, they’re balanced atop the credenza ($25 from Goodwill). Bookends vary, as you can see: some are shelf dividers from The Container Store; some bookends we had lying around; and others are, say, a begonia, a TV diorama, or a giant glass head filled with rocks (Pier 1 Imports, $9.99. I still don’t know why they had five shelves of those heads, but I’m glad they did.).
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 The library |
 Closeup of bracket, post and spine. |
 Inexplicable glass head |
The best part of the new shelves? No more stacks of books piled in corners or doubled up on shelves. We liked the units so much we even installed them in our bathroom. (That’s for a later blog.) All in all, here’s the damage we did. Aside from the shelf dividers, everything came from Cole Hardware. RM would like to remind our readers that they’re all “in-town” prices—Home Depot would’ve been cheaper, materials-wise, but not if he’d had to rent a car. Like with all of our projects, this one involved a great deal of schlepping, with special thanks to RocketMan’s brother, who was visiting during the construction. As a New Yorker, he knows from schlepping.
| Item |
Price |
Total |
| 2″x2″ 8′ pine posts (6) |
$3.79 |
$22.74 |
| 2′x4′ 3/4″ thick plywood sheets (4) |
$21 |
$84 |
| 8″ shelf brackets (10) |
$2.79 |
$27.90 |
| 12″ shelf brackets (8) |
$3.29 |
$26.32 |
| 48″ adjustable shelving spine (4) |
$5 |
$20 |
| 72″ adjustable shelving spine (2) |
$7 |
$14 |
| Shelf dividers (4) |
$7 for 2 |
$14 |
|
GRAND TOTAL: |
$208.96 |
Because you read the whole blog, you get a prize. FISH!
Courtesy of the Monterey Bay Aquarium and The RocketCam.
Posted in organization | Tagged: bookshelf, bookshelves, Cole Hardware, container store, DIY, elfa, office, plywood, shelving | 1 Comment »
Posted by rocketgirlsf on February 20, 2009
I’ve made no secret of our love for found furniture and recycled goods — half of our apartment furniture has been literally picked up off the street. (See the dresser from the bedroom blog.) Sometimes, RocketMan finds a bit of trash that’s every bit as useful as furniture, even if he doesn’t know how useful it’ll be when he finds it. And sometimes, when we’re purging old items from the apartment, we land on something we just can’t bear to part with. We’re also big fans of lighting concepts (I’m a fan; RM is the true connoisseur), so naturally, the favorite answer to “What should we do with this?” is “Make a lamp out of it!”
Making lamps is, as far as I can tell from a distance, totally easy. Well, actually it ranges in difficulty from totally easy to Who Had This Idea So I Can Smack Her? (Laine and Dave, send me pics of the awesome Ski Boot Lamps and I’ll post them.) These lamps both fall in the Totally Easy category, fortunately, and were constructed and finished within a day.
 Canola Lamp The Canola Lamp
RocketMan came home from the restaurant one weekend with this empty jug that formerly housed roughly a quarter-keg of Wesson canola oil, and we had our traditional conversation:
“Why did you bring that home?”
“I don’t know. I like it. Maybe a lamp?”
“Well, clean it first.”
Clean it he did, and after a few experiments, he landed on this design: a hole cut in the bottom to vent the heat (light bulbs is HOT!); and the light itself is just one of the long cords ending in a light socket that you can pick up at a hardware store or, in this case, Urban Outfitters. (I bought it for a lamp I’d had in my old apartment.) The socket was slightly larger than the spout of the jug, so he slipped it through from the inside and glued the fixture to the lamp. Add a 40-watt bulb—brighter than we usually use—and presto, a lovely golden light that fills a room nicely. All for the bargain price of nothing.
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 Vacuum lamp The Hoover Lamp
When I moved into the RocketDigs fiveish years ago, I brought with me a vacuum cleaner that had been designed after cell phones became popular. RocketMan wanted to toss this old beauty, but my love of household appliances (see the toaster) wouldn’t allow it. The Hoover Lamp was thusly born. This one’s even easier than the Canola Lamp—after removing the bag and the tubes, RocketMan jammed a wire-framed worklight into the base (see below). Because it’s a decorative lamp, it’s plugged into a timer set for 7 PM – midnight every night. The light it sheds is diffuse, patterned, and has all the charm you’d expect from a 30-year-old vacuum cleaner.
Well, all the charm I’d expect.
 Inside the Hoover |
Posted in found objects, lighting, living room | Tagged: canola, cord set, DIY, homemade, hoover, lamps, lighting, vacuum cleaner | 1 Comment »
