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Great Stuff: Wind Jammer Caulk-in-a-Can

January 8, 2008 by Chris Metcalf | No comments

If you’re between the ages of 18 and 30, and you live in a place like Seattle, there’s a good chance you live in an old apartment building like I do, and there’s a good chance your windows are drafty as hell in the winter.

Wind Jammer
Wind Jammer

If so, pick up a can of this stuff. “Wind Jammer” removable caulk. Its made by the same company as Loctite, and I found it at Home Depot. Comes in a convenient can so you don’t even need a caulking gun (because you live in an apartment and unlike me you probably don’t have one). Caulk up your windows in the winter so they’re not drafty, and peel it off in the spring. Your building manager will never be the wiser, and you’ll be much happier.

I’ve had it on my windows for the past month or so and my apartment is toasty warm now. I definitely recommend it. And I’m not being paid to say this (yet).

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Plumb Away: A good excuse to clean your bathroom

October 3, 2007 by Chris Metcalf | 5 comments

So, I thought I was really bright a few days ago at Fred Meyer, picking up supplies to fix stuff around my apartment. A flapper valve for my running toilet, some gaskets for a dripping faucet, and a can of “Plumb Away” to clear out a slow-running bathroom sink.

Little did I know what I was getting myself into…

Plumb Away: A good excuse to clean your bathroom
Plumb Away: A good excuse to clean your bathroom

Of course I followed the instructions. I filled the sink with water, covered the backup drain with a wet rag, and pushed downwards on the can as if it were a plunger to force my pesky plug out of my plumbing.

And then my world exploded.

I live in an older apartment building. Older as in probably about 60-70 years old. Which means I have about 50-60 years of crud built up in my plumbing. All that crud, with the exception of the crud actually clogging the sink, chose exactly that moment to leave my plumbing. And exit promptly all over my bathroom.

As it seems, the extra large backup drain of my sink also provided an extra large exit for said crud, all of which promptly forced its way out past my carefully placed rag, and all over my bathroom. Covering my sink, my shower, my walls, and even myself. No innocent bystanders were spared.

The results? I was left with:

  • A bathroom covered in crap that was older than me
  • A sink fully of lemony fresh fizzy water
  • A drain that is still completely plugged

And, while wiser for the experience, I’m still $9 poorer, and I still don’t have a completely working sink.

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Woot Wine Hacks

September 13, 2007 by Chris Metcalf | No comments

Woot Wine ships their wine packages with these frozen “ketchup packets” full of water in them to keep the wines cool during shipment. They always suggest reusing them, but I never figured out why.

Whiskey Hacks
Whiskey Hacks

Tonight I figured out that they make an excellent reusable “ice cube” for whiskeys and scotches. Unlike normal cubes, they don’t water down your drink when they melt.

A friend of mine spent a good amount of money for a similar (but more elegant) solution for her father, involving cubes of granite that one would freeze and then put in their glasses of expensive scotch.

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IKEA Hacks: Corner Wall Unit

August 28, 2007 by Chris Metcalf | 8 comments

I’m mostly posting this for the benefit of the folks on the IKEA Hacker blog because they’ll probably get a good kick out of it. I’ve long since moved out of that apartment, but I think the concept is still solid and that somebody else will probably benefit from it.

About a two years ago, I moved into my first post-college apartment with my friend Eli. One of our first steps was to hit up IKEA to pick up furniture, given the fact that we were, A.) Cheap and B.) Cheap.

We took a bunch of measurements and headed off to the store with our tape measures and our credit cards in hand. Little did we know that we’d be struck with the spirit of Martha Stewart herself and end up devising the perfect interior decorating plan.

Eli and I, being of a similarly cheap nature, both owned identical IKEA couches, the Lillberg, if I remember correctly. We also figured out that the Norrebo bookshelf unit was approximately as wide as the windows on the two windows on either side of the corner of our apartment. And “two shelves high” was as high as the higher of the windows. We also discovered a corner TV unit (I believe it was from the “Lack” line but I can’t find it now) was just about the right height and of a matching color to both the Norrebo and the Lillberg units we already had. So we formulated a plan.

  1. Build up a two shelve high bookcase unit against the wall with the taller window.
  2. Put the corner TV unit (obviously) in the corner
  3. Use the remaining third shelve of our Norrebo package to build a window seat against the other window.

But the true genius was realized when we discovered that the remaining cushions for our second (my) Lillberg couch were exactly the proper width and height to put on top of our new window seat.

The results were impressive. Even Eli’s (now-ex) interior designer girlfriend was very satisfied with the results.

The Apartment
The Apartment

Not bad, eh? All it took was a few extra random nuts and bolts scavenged from my toolbox and a little bit of extra time.

Update: There seems to be as much interest in the view from my old apartment as in the actual “hack”. The location is on Alki Ave SW in West Seattle, right at the east end of Alki Beach.


View Larger Map

The body of water you see is southern Puget Sound, and the mountains in the distance are the Olympic Range.

I have more pictures from my time on Alki up in my Flickr photostream.

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How-To: Dirt Cheap Wall-Sized Whiteboards

June 16, 2007 by Chris Metcalf | 37 comments

Update^3: Somewhere between Wordpress, TextMate, and the Markdown plugin, my post got corrupted and ended up in mixed HTML/Markdown. It should be fixed now.

Updated Update: FYI… As the weather gets hotter and more humid here in Seattle, my board has started to noticeably warp and it doesn’t lean nicely on my wall anymore. This obviously won’t be a problem if you mount the board directly to the wall, but if you want a freestanding board like me, you may want to look into using a stiffer backing board such as real plywood or OSB, or build a stiffer frame. I’m going to look at building a frame out of 1″x1″ on the back of the board to stiffen it up.

Update: Welcome, Makers! Hopefully this time I can keep my site from crashing too much.

Disclaimer: I can’t claim to have come up with this myself. I was actually inspired by a post in Cool Tools, an excellent blog full of excellent ideas like this. But I think its a cool project anyway, so I thought I’d write it up.

I’ll admit it, I’m a geek, and a very visually-oriented geek at that. I like to draw big pictures and lists and doodle. At work, I’m fortunate enough to be constantly surrounded by whiteboards. At home, I’m not so lucky.

Unfortunately, big whiteboards are expensive. A quick Google Products search finds plenty of 3′x4′ whiteboards selling for hundreds of dollars. Even a smaller whiteboard at Office Max will run you at least $30.

Fortunately, the same material that they make most commercial whiteboards out of is available at most big-box lumber stores like Home Depot for less than $15. “Showerboard”, which is basically cheap plywood with a waterproof white plastic coating on one side. Its the same stuff that they make cheap showers out of – four walls of showerboard plus a cheap plastic base makes a decent stall. It also makes a great whiteboard.

White Board
White Board

More details after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

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