A Cheap and Easy DIY Sewing Cutting Table

...would be better but there’s not enough room in Kelly’s 10 by 12-foot shed. Making a cheap and easy work table When I built my workshop I discovered a formula for creating work surfaces. I used a similar process to make the cutting table. Step one: go to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore or ReUse People of America and find two or more matching kitchen or bathroom cabinets. Step two: get a sheet of melamine at the big orange store. Step three: cut th...

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Diyas: oil lamps from India

...te appeal to you, may I interest you in diyas? Diyas are little clay lamps used in India. They usually burn ghee, but any vegetable oil works well in them, too. I just found them being sold at our local Indian supermarket. There, the fancy molded ones, like the one pictured above (one of many shapes) were 3 for $1.00. The simplest ones, which are basically teardrop shaped pinch pots, go for 5 for a dollar. That’s a lot of fun for a dollar, and a g...

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An Early Resolution

...come in disposable cups. If I try to imagine how many disposable cups I’ve used in my life–say the earth (justly) vomited them all back at my feet–how high would the pile be? As big as my house? So I’m making a resolution. Instead of berating others, I’m declaring a personal moratorium on to-go cups–all disposable cups for both hot and cold drinks, actually, because why not? I banned plastic water bottles from my life long ago. Why it took so long...

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Everything Must Go Part 4: How to Fold Your Clothes

...d arranged in two shoe boxes. It works amazingly well. My underwear drawer used to be the most chaotic of all drawers, and now everything exists in sushi-like tidyness. I am not sharing an image of this with the Internet. You will just have to imagine it. It’s pretty simple. Two shoe boxes, one holding socks, the other holding bras, panties and hankies. Two rows in each box. Let me stop here and talk about the folding itself. When I first read abo...

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Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities

...category: fun to read about but I’ll probably never do. I’d include igloo making, boat living and camouflage here. But you never know . . . And, thanks to Cool Tools editors Elon Shoenholz and Mark Frauenfelder, you’ll find a few Root Simple reviews tucked into Cool Tool’s 463 pages. And, yes, one of the first items mentioned in Cool Tools is a book on decuttering, perhaps as a caution to use Cool Tools as a guide to what is useful, not an invita...

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