DIY Woodworking, Home Improvement, and Art Projects

Conducting your own home improvements is a fantastic way to add value to your property, and to make it more individual, without the expense of hiring someone else to carry out the work for you. If you are a dab hand at DIY, it may well be that you have already found a variety of ways to adapt and improve your home, using only your own creative vision and practical skills. However, it is worth considering how such domestic improvements could affect the amount you need to be paying on your home insurance, should you have increased the value of your home significantly. After all your hard work, you will no doubt want to be sure that your household is protected fully, and to its full value.

It may surprise you to discover just how much you could have increased the value of your home through DIY work. Interior aesthetics have a huge effect on the amount you could expect to put your property on the market for, should you ever decide to sell, especially if your home improvements are a little artistically inclined. The odd creative and original touch can be a major selling point, so if you’ve carried out extensive improvements or added a great deal of extra detail it might be worth having your property carefully evaluated before you renew your home insurance.

Your home insurance covers everything, from the very foundations and the vital structure of the buildings you live in to the contents of every room, electrical equipment, any possessions of exceptional value, as well as everything that is dear to you and makes your house feel like home. If you have played a major role, by employing all your handiest DIY skills, in making your home the place it is today, it will, no doubt, be even more in your interests to protect all your efforts. In this light, then, home insurance is one of the most important expenditures of the year and should be considered carefully each time it comes up for renewal. Doing thorough research will help you to have confidence in your final decision when you can rest assured that your property will be fully looked after, whatever happens.

Check websites, and listen to word of mouth. The internet holds a host of insurance providers, all offering their own special offers and deals. Have a look at the Kwik Fit Insurance website to see what they offer – they are well reputed for car repair, but have branched out and now include property coverage on their website. Check their house insurance policies for details of what they include in their coverage.

If you are a DIY enthusiast, who relishes in taking charge of their own home improvement initiatives, then it may be that you have acquired a considerable collection of tools and electrical items in order to help you execute your creative visions within the home. If you own an expensive drill, a snazzy tool box full of the latest gadgets, a digital spirit level, or, indeed, all of the above, your DIY equipment could tot up significant cash value, particularly if you insist on always having the top of the range tools at your fingertips.

Surprisingly, DIY equipment is often overlooked when it comes to our contents insurance and, in the face of the unfortunate events of burglary, flooding or fire. If you are anxious to make sure that your tools are covered in your insurance policy, there are a few factors you might like to consider before getting on the phone to your home insurance provider.

Whether your DIY goods are covered in your insurance may depend on whereabouts they are kept. They are most likely to be covered automatically if they are stored within the building of your house itself, in a cupboard or utility room, though if they have particularly high value this should probably be mentioned on the policy. If, however, you keep your tools in a garage or shed in the garden they may not be covered automatically unless you have a policy which includes garden cover as standard. Some insurers, such as Kwik Fit Insurance, offer a certain allowance for garden contents, but it’s worth looking at this carefully in case the value of your equipment exceeds the amount you may claim. Check the Kwik Fit Insurance website for details of what their contents insurance covers exactly in relation to the rest of their policies.

An alternative option is to insure all outdoor areas, such as the garage and the garden, separately if your existing insurance firm is not obliging about including this within your ordinary policy, though most will be open to some negotiation.

Do remember to check the wording of your policy carefully in order to check that you and your expensive items of DIY equipment are fully protected against any unexpected mishaps.

I was at my brother’s house over the weekend and we had one task – install 4 new recessed lights in the upper floor of his home that was built in the ’30s (I think.) This upper floor had some windows on either side of a long, narrowish central room. We needed to add some serious light in there to make it a more usable space. Basically when we asked ourselves how to install recessed lighting, we just turned to our dad, who has years and years of electrical experience, for both guidance and help on the actual install. So here’s the situation – our dad is the man, and that’s a thing that gets tossed around a lot – “oh, he’s the man”, etc., well, he really is, and he helped out in a huge way on this project.

Before I got there my brother, Dan, had done all the shopping, so we were ready to roll right away. I had a double-espresso in my belly and had also just scarfed down some breakfast burritos to fuel the long day of home improvement mania ahead. My eyes were wide, my camera was ready, and my laptop was open to start taking notes, and to get covered with ceiling-drywall dust!

My dad has been fiddling with electrons for a long time and he has this ‘magic bucket’ full of cool tools for electrical projects that pretty much goes wherever he goes. There are going to be pictures of the magic bucket later, so keep your peepers peeled. For this project you won’t need every single thing that he’s got in his kit, but here are the essentials that we used on this one. These links will go to Amazon and ToolBarn eventually because I love shopping at both of these places, I have ordered satisfactorily many times before, and you can pretty much find anything you’ll need.

Wire strippers
Wire cutters
Small and large phillips screwdriver
Small and large flat screwdriver
25′ tape measure
Wire nuts of various sizes
Hammer
1/2″ wood staples
Pen knife or small x-acto knife of some kind
Drywall saw
Pencil (not overly sharpened ideally)
Dust mask
2′ x 4′ 3/8″ board (dimensions aren’t important, but it needs to be big enough lay on, and light enough to maneuver in the space above the ceiling, whatever that looks like in your situation)

Other helpful items to consider:
Electrical tape
Compact LED flashlight(s)
Band-aids
Work towels (that won’t ever need to find their way in front of the important-type guests)

I am sorting/editing all the pictures this week and organizing/expanding on my notes, so there will be more posts in this series soon. Until then, cheers!

In my travels across the often-barren Interwebs I stumble upon some cool, useful sites once in a while that are worth more than just a quick link on some list somewhere that will sit and collect dust on some old page, in some forgotten directory, on a wheezing, sputtering old server in the broom closet of an abandoned junior college where the doors are boarded over and the windows have been covered with old newspapers and plastic sheeting.

So, with that being said, I found this site called DIY Guides, and I think it’s worth a visit. Right now many of the articles are about things like repairing plaster walls, wallpaper removal and repair, etc., so if you’re doing a project involving either of those two things, check it out for sure. The articles are pretty easy to follow and written for DIY folk like me and you.

Cheers!

Howdy neighbors – I wanted to share some of the initial color test pictures from 2008 when I was trying different aniline dyes on maple and walnut and oak woods.  This is just a taste of what I’ll be adding more of later as I detail out all the steps in my guiar building project…

[View with PicLens]

Warmoth Custom Guitar Parts – Guitar Home Page

This is one great company here, folks.  I have only made one purchase with Warmoth so far, and that purchase is still not fully realized, but I would buy again from this class outfit any day.

Not only do they have an amazing selection of all the stuff you need to get creative and make your own guitars, they have an up-to-date forum and a tasty customer gallery that is full of inspiration.  I found a lot of great ideas going through their customer guitar gallery.

I did a lot of the work on my guitar build last year, and I have been playing more often again lately so I am in the mood to finish the project this summer.  It got me thinking of where I started in the process, and one of the first places I went was Warmoth.  Check ‘em out.

Cheers!

Bodies, necks, electronics – oh my!

Background

I am an obsessive researcher. Once I get an idea in my head, especially if it’s something I am going to invest a lot of money in, or something I am going to be making, then I seek out as much information as I can on the subject…really anything I am interested in is an excuse to spend hours and hours learning about every possible aspect of it.

I started playing guitar again at the end of ’07 after a couple of years off. I was in school full time and working 50+ hours a week so I wasn’t able to devote enough time to my guitar. So now that I’ve graduated I have many of those hours back. Right now I am playing a vintage sunburst ’95 Epiphone Casino through an Epiphone Blues Custom all-tube amp. I also play a Grand Symphony Taylor acoustic with a Rosewood back and sides, and a Red-Cedar top. Both guitars sound gorgeous and I literally enjoy playing so much more now that I have quality instruments.

I like a variety of music but mostly I tend to find myself listening to singer-songwriters and late ‘60s and early ‘70s music. I like some heavier stuff like old Black Sabbath, and some Indie rock like Weezer, too. I have always loved instrumental music as well; particularly surf rock from the likes of The Ventures, The Shadows, The Challengers, Man or Astro-Man, and Satan’s Pilgrims. The guitar that I needed to complete my triangle of sound was one capable of jangly, tremolicious surf pop sounds, with the ability to turn it up and make it growl when necessary.

So with a particular sound in mind I went searching for the right instrument to produce it. The thing that I noticed right off the bat was that most of the surf rockers used Fenders…typically a Stratocaster or Jazzmaster. I absolutely love the original Jazzmasters. The shape, the tone, the finishes available – all of it – but they are quite expensive and the stock tremolo bridge is suspect. The Strat is an American icon and comes in so many flavors it’s quite a confusing choice.

So after looking at hundreds of Strats of all styles and finishes with an almost infinite combination of pickups, neck contours, and body woods, I realized something. Since I am so damn particular and really wanted this axe to be something special, I decided to not decide, and just make my own.

This is a list of some of the posts to come chronicling my custom build:

• Research:
  • materials and finishes
  • wiring and pickup options
  • hardware options (bridges, tuners, etc.)
  • places to buy it all
• Buying the parts:
  • Where I bought the stuff
  • Why I bought what I did
  • Other purchases along the way…
• Building the guitar:
  • Part 1 – testing finishes
  • Part 2 – preparing the body
  • Part 3 – applying the dye finish
  • Part 4 – applying the lacquer top coats
  • Part 5 – finishing the neck
  • Part 6 – assembling the final guitar and testing

Since the upgrade to WordPress 2.3.3 I have added some spam blocking tools.  I have also cleared out the 15,000+ comments awaiting moderation…all of which were spam.  The impetus behind getting caught up with the comments is I am working on a new project and documenting it here on the DIY Blog.  It’s a surf guitar based on a Fender Stratocaster design.  So for the near term, this blog will focus less on pure home improvement stuff, and more on DIY art and related projects.

I am really excited to start this guitar project.  I plan on capturing most of the process on my new Mini-DV camera as well.  Anyway, please send a comment if you’d like because the flood gates have opened again!  I’d love to hear what everyone has to say about these projects and/or answer any questions you may have.  Thanks for stopping back in!

I apologize for the weirdness around the DIY Blog lately. I have been doing some updates like upgrading to WordPress 2.3.3 from 2.3.1, and changing themes. This is not a simple process because the last iteration of the blog had a bunch of plugins and formatting that I added to the template. So, please be patient–ironic because I haven’t dropped a regular post for about six months anyway–as I finalize the upgrade to the new version of the DIY Blog.

If anyone has any suggestions on improvements, features to add, etc., please let me know – spartacus27 (at) gmail.com. Thanks!

It’s been awhile since I have stopped by and written of any projects. In truth it’s been awhile since I have done anything but think about new projects. We just ordered a new refrigerator to replace the 25 year old Amana that was in there when we bought the place. It has held up admirably, but it is time for it to retire. With a new, sleek, black refrigerator coming on Tuesday, we felt it was time to complete the last big project in the kitchen; Putting a faux finish on the fake-brick wall – say that three times, fast!

The faux bricks are standard dimension, but only 1/2″ thick, and they were installed before we came to the house. They are a typical, bright red-clay looking brick, slightly rounded edges, and they were put up with the same technique as tile, but never filled in with grout. So right now the bricks are floating over a messy layer of gray mud. The idea is to get some sanded grout powder in a different color, mix it up, apply it in small sections, and make sure it is flush with the brick faces. Then I will go back when the grout is dry and use acrylic paint and glazes to give the bricks some variety and make it look like a two-hundred year old wall.

For this project we’re using:

• Cheap plastic picnic table cloths from the dollar store to drape over the counters to keep things clean.
• 10 lb. box of powdered, sanded grout.
• A corded power drill with a mixing extension to blend the powdered grout and water.
• A dollar store bucket to mix the grout that we can throw away later because it is a pain to remove it.
• Regular trowels and metal spatulas/scrapers to work the grout into the gaps between the faux-bricks.
  • Update – looking back on it, it would have produced better results, and been cleaner, to use a baker’s bag to apply the grout.
• A few old rags to wipe away the excess grout from the brick faces while not smoothing the grout too much.

We’ll be taking pictures before we start, and as we make progress, so if I can get off my lazy ass I might show you what it looks like. At this point I probably have 300-400 pictures on my memory card ready to download from other projects. Cheers!