Harvesting Grey water...

If you want to collect waste water please do some research into it first, there are things to consider in terms of storing and preventing bacteria buildup, filtration and numerous other things, we've installed a simple system that will only be used in the summer and any water will only be stored temporarily, so no longer than 24 hours

For a while now we've talked about trying to save more water, we have 5 waterbutts for collecting rain water, but we felt we could collect the water from showers and baths.

So to that end we've installed a very simple system to divert the water from the bathroom waste to a temporary storage tank (waterbutt) for use in the summer months for watering the ornamental plants.

It's a really simple install, it does involve some basic plumbing however, I've used solvent welds for this as I prefer that to push fit.

The valve we're installing is made by a company called Watertwo and it costs about 30 pounds, and here's a link to their website - https://watertwo.co.uk/the-watertwo-device/

Here's the rough installation guide -

Thanks for visiting.

Homemade propagation station...

A lot of plants can easily be propagated using water, we usually just use jars of various sizes, but I thought I'd make a proper propagation station, you can buy ready made ones in all sorts of different styles and shapes, and with different types of glass, but I wanted to recycle some old spice jars and some old pallet wood so these cost nothing to make, I'm surprised at how well they turned out, and they look quite good as well.

Here's how I made them -

Rooting cuttings in water works for many different plants, and these are a good way to see the progress of roots growing, and they cost nothing but a little time to make.

Thanks for visiting.

Homemade blackcurrant brandy...

One of the many things we do in preparation for Christmas (and winter) is to make liqueurs, we normally use our homegrown blackcurrants or blackberries (we're doing both this year) we pick from the hedgerows, either way the method is the same, basically it's infusing a spirit (brandy in this case) with the flavour of a fruit of some kind, the same way sloe gin is made, we're just not big gin drinkers so this is a good replacement for gin, many different spirits can be used, vodka being one of them.

It takes a few minutes to prepare then it can be left alone for a couple of months, once it's ready it takes a few minutes to strain the fruit out and bottle, if you start this a few months before christmas you'll have a nice warming winter drink for very little effort and money.

Thanks for visiting.

Making an adapter for our vacuum cleaner...

We recently acquired a new hoover (vacuum cleaner) but it didn't have a brush attachment, we could have bought one, but it was quicker to make one of our old ones fit, all I did was use part of another attachment that I don't use, not a huge saving money wise but a saving none the less and it saved time in trying to find the right sized attachment online and getting it posted to us.

I could have cut out some of the steps as they aren't really needed.

Here's the video -

Thanks for visiting.

Handmade pin cushion without a lathe...

Another pin cushion I made recently, this one was made without using a lathe, and it's made from a piece of spalted birch with a tie dyed pink cushion, and in a droplet style shape.

It's something that can easily be done with hand tools and is a bit different from the usual round pin cushions I've made, it's a really easy wood working project and one that you can get creative with, this one like all the things I make is made from reclaimed materials, so not only is it a good project it's cheap as well.

I do sell some of the things I make and I've now listed the pin cushions on my website, there's a load of other stuff on there as well - www.the-shed-and-beyond.co.uk

Droplet shaped pin cushion - 

And here's the video I took while making it - 

Thanks for visiting.

Repairing our 15 year old tumble dryer...

 This is a job I've been meaning to get round to, we've had the same tumble dryer for 15 odd years and it started to make a horrible grinding noise, it was an easy enough fix once I'd found the parts for it.

Cosmetically the dryer is looking tired, but it still works fine and honestly we don't use it that much as we prefer to dry clothes outside where possible, but for rainy days it's a handy thing to have.

We could have bought a new dryer, but didn't want to spend that much money and repairing was the cheaper option and fingers crossed it'll last a few more years now.

Here's a video of me fixing it - 

Thanks for watching.

How to fix a lampshade ... ...

Like a lot of people we have a large lamp in the front room, and up until recently all was well with said lamp (which reminds me, must get round to making that 'Beware ! low flying toys' sign)

Whilst the lamp itself is fine it appears the shade bore the brunt of the impact, so I figured well, might as well see if I can't do something with it, rater than bin it.


The shade -

Missing some important bits.

It dawned on me that making a way for the shade to fit onto the lamp wasn't going to be that much of a problem, I had already tried to weld the bits back on, but failed, but figured something else might work.

So I took a slightly different route, using a bit of hardboard, now I should point out that the lamp uses one of those energy saving bulbs, and as such it doesn't get very warm, I could get away with a bigger wattage bulb, but it would make things too bright, and perhaps a bit too warm, I'd rather not start a fire if I can possibly avoid it.

So here's what I did, firstly I marked out a square of hardboard, and then put the shade on it, then drew round the outside of the shade, the idea being that the hardboard would then be a bit bigger than the inside of the shade, and would make a nice tight fit.

Firstly I removed the remaining bits - 

Blank canvass, so to speak.

 

Then I marked out a square onto my hardboard and found the centre, then I put the shade onto the hardboard, getting it as near to the centre as possible.

All marked up - 

Onto the next phase.

Now at this point you may be thinking "You've made a mistake" how are you going to fit that onto the lamp ? the answer is simple, I cut out a hole roughly the size of the fixing on the lamp (I used the old fixing to work out the size) then using one of my many hole saws I cut out a hole in the centre of the hardboard.

Fixing hole cut - 

It's a bit bigger to allow for aligning.

The next job was to cut out the circle I had marked out on the board, but then I thought it might be a little boring, so I decided to try a little experiment.

I drew stars on the board - 

Might have over done it a tad.

I used a transfer type method to get the stars onto the board, I basically printed out some star shapes of varying sizes onto a bit of paper, then went over the outlines in pencil, turned the paper over and using the pencil I transferred the star shapes onto the board, by scribbling over each shape.

Stars being outlined - 

I used LibreOffice Draw (like OpenOffice Draw) for the shapes.

The next bit took what seemed like ages to do, but I cut out each star shape on my scroll saw, I was sick of cutting out the shapes after a while, not really, any excuse to mess about with power tools.

Stars all cut out and fitted to the shade - 

Catman approves.

You can see how the new part fits into the shade, it basically rests under the rim of the shade, which was the reason for making the new part slightly larger than it needed to be.

View from inside the shade - 

And it's done, saved having to buy a new one.

And here's what it looks like when the light is on - 

I quite like it.

Now, had this lamp been an up lighter it would project stars in light on the ceiling, but it's not, although I'd be lying if I said I wasn't now thinking of a way to turn it into an up lighter.

Here's what happens when you shine a light upwards - 

Pretty cool I think.

As it happens the lamp does actually project the stars when I use different bulbs, so now I'm wondering whether to make another shade that has bats or spider webs on it especially for Halloween.

Thanks for reading.