Ikea Karlstad Couch Hack

March 23, 2015

Design

...w minutes to figure out the arm dimensions. I don’t have a table saw, so I used my circular saw and some guides to cut up the plywood sheet. An afternoon of work putting the arms together and another day to coat the wood with polyurethane, the new arms were ready to bolt onto the couch. It worked perfectly and the couch is now much more sturdy. The last step was to “catify” the arms. I cut some strips from an Ikea doormat to the exact dimensions o...

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Make Irrigation Line Hold Downs With Coat Hangers

Mr. Homegrown

April 6, 2015

Gardening

2 Comments

...ain link tension wire to fashion tie downs for drip irrigation line brought a comment from Wilton Granger, who suggested using wire coat hangers instead. I ran out of tension wire recently and balked at spending $20 for another 170 foot roll. Remembering Wilton’s comment, I foraged some unused hangers out of my closet. Wire hangers indent some fabrics, anyways, so they might as well be used for holding down drip line. Plus, they are much easier to...

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Best veggies to cook in a solar oven

Mrs. Homegrown

August 5, 2016

Food, Recipes, Solar Oven Summer

2 Comments

...he choke out in the oven. (You may be able to start with cold water, but I used hot water to jump start the process.) The steam produced by this water keeps the artichoke leaves softer, and lessens the browning somewhat, makes the final product look more like a “normal” cooked artichoke. So, to recap, make artichokes by cooking them in a covered pan at around 250F for around 2 hours. It helps to cover the bottom of the pan with hot water, to produ...

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Ham Radio vs. GoTenna

Mr. Homegrown

January 24, 2019

Preparedness

1 Comment

...ly answer that question. I will say that ham radio has a few pluses and minuses. In order to use a ham radio you have to get a license which isn’t that hard especially since you no longer need to know Morse code. You are not supposed to use ham radio for commercial communication so if Johnny and I wanted to send messages over ham radio about our respective blogs that might be considered out of bounds. Of course, Johnny would also have to have a ha...

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Office to Kayak

Mr. Homegrown

August 10, 2016

Design

3 Comments

...st John Hartley figured out a way to turn some crappy office furniture and used suits, what he calls “post-industrial, post-bureacratic flotsam,” into a smart looking Greenlandic-style kayak. He has thoughtfully posted the project as an Instructable so that we can all make our own “Contingency Research Platform.” Judging from the huge amount of post-bureacratic flotsam at my local Habitat for Humanity store, there’s a lot of potential in turning o...

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