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Your socks. You probably rarely think about them. They spend most of the day completely hidden. And yet, they can be the crucial ingredient that gets us through so many important moments: a brutal hike that seems to go nowhere but straight up, or a particularly harsh winter week where you feel so cold and wet you imagine you might never be able to be warm again. … Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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Making a bandsaw box is a great starter project for learning how to expand your talents in the shop. Just a few steps transforms a block into a great desktop or nightstand box. I had a used block sitting around from another project, and this just seemed like a natural way to make it into something useful. … Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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Apple pie. For my money, it's the best desserts to grace our tables and slide down our gullets in the past bazillion years. Sweet, tart, warm, gooey, and crumbly... it's no wonder it's an American icon. But why limit this goodness to your oven? Let's take a journey with the recipe, step out of the kitchen, and head into the great outdoors (or your backyard) to create a rustic cast iron apple pie cooked over an open flame.
… Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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Like many hirsute men in the world today, I am privileged by a culture of men's style that has embraced the beard. Because not only do I think it's a bit more flattering of my face, but the beard is a style of convenience – shaving daily is… Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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In order to be your best, you need to make the most out of your mornings. More than anything else, how you begin your day sets the template for how the rest of it will go. Here are nine things you can, and should, do every single day to be your… Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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Knot tying. It’s a thing. If you read any "men's lifestyle" content, you've no doubt seen an exhaustive list of "essential nots every man needs to know." And then you proceed to read their list of seven, or ten, or fourteen, and by the time you get to the bottom of the list, you can't even remember the name of the first one, let alone how to tie it.
… Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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I love a full-on furniture project, replete with solid joinery, elegant design, and high-quality materials. But, as any maker knows, those can take weeks or even months to sketch, mill up stock, test, fix mistakes, and rub on a finish.
So, do you know what I love even more? A simple woodworking project you can complete in a single day, or better yet, an afternoon. Something to get you some shop time, create some sawdust and shavings, and be put to practical use by dinnertime. … Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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We live in an era when everyone has a camera in their pocket at all times. One that would have cost $500-700 a decade ago. And you can use it literally with a click of button, and chances are, you'll get a decent exposure.
So it’s easy to see our photographs as only pixels on a screen. This is why a community like Instragram works so well: it makes photography special again. When you can take a photo of anything at any time absolutely free and be able to send it up into the cloud with zero effort, editing, curating, and capturing become the new acts of care that give smartphone photos a new sense of meaning. … Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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Let's start with this: I like to eat. Really, really like it. I have all the respect in the world for people who can live by the adage "consume for nutrition, not for taste," but I will never be able to count myself amongst 'em.
I'm a level-10 introvert who works from home, and often, the process of procuring food for myself is the only thing that gets me out of the house during the dark days of winter. I live in Portland, Oregon, one the greatest food cities in the country, and I have a list in my phone of to-be-visited food establishments a digital mile long. It's updated almost daily.
And, because I like to eat, I like to cook. I'm a full-time DIY blogger who gets to make cool stuff, photograph and write about it every single day, and, yet, a Tuesday night dinner compiled from whatever's in the fridge often feels like the most creative thing I do all week.
So... cookbooks. They're fantastic, and they provide both inspiration and a depth that you can't find on food blogs or Pinterest. (And I love food blogs.) You don't have to buy all of these, but you should definitely check them out from the library or peruse next time you're at the bookstore. Because they read as well from cover-to-cover as a novel, and they'll actually teach you how to eat better. … Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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For me, getting into podcasts was like easing into a warm tub on a cold winter's day. At first it seemed uncomfortable and a little too much, and now I can't imagine getting out. I'm in deep. And it might be too deep if I hadn't worked out a way to take control back from the unending feeds of too many good shows. Liberation is possible when we take control of our own podcast destinies and create a program for how to listen––to make podcasts work for you, instead of sitting on your phone or computer like a homework assignment you dread to complete.
Whether you're loading up your podcatcher for the first time or are a seasoned pro, you're familiar with the mass of stuff available. The waves and waves of quality content, the extraordinary, out of the box topics, the brain-tickling, the heart-tearing, and the tear and laughter-inducing episodes that begin to fill your playlists can freeze you in your steps. … Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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Many will make resolutions on New Years, vowing to drop the additional pounds leftover from the holidays, and generally making more healthful choices starting January 1st. And while new beginnings can be a helpful motivation, we think the best time to actually get started on new goals is actually now: late winter and early spring. So, while we hope you made some good progress in the first few weeks of January, the real question is: how's it going come February 1st? … Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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For the sake of this article, let’s just assume for a moment that you’re convinced of the merits of listening to bluegrass and old-time string music...
… Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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When I was younger, my mom always gave us a list of chores to do before we left town for an extended weekend. At the time, I didn't fully understand why my clothes needed to be put away or why all the dishes needed to be washed if we weren't going to be home, I just wanted to get to the hotel so I could jump in the pool. Luckily for me, my older brother is an absolute neat freak and he would get up early and finish most of the tasks on the checklist before I even got out of bed. Fast forward 20+ years, and I completely understand why my mom always made us complete that list of chores before we left town. Being older and slightly wiser than my 8-year old self, now I make sure to always do these 11 things before departing for my next adventure: … Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
If you think of the elements of cooking that feel the most like a chore, cutting vegetables can rank pretty high on the list (just under scraping off blackened cheese from a sheet pan.) But when you’re holding your knife correctly, it can be one of the most satisfying parts of the cooking process...second only to eating.
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Practically speaking, you’ll significantly reduce your kitchen prep time while making sure that all of your digits stay intact. So, more efficient and safe.
Who doesn’t want to save minutes and fingertips?… Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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“… my landlady, by the way, doesn’t like the Germans because when some playful Nazi pilots lived in her house some months ago, they threw a hand grenade into her chicken coop, and they had to eat the winter’s supply of chickens all at once.”
This is one of my favorite lines from our family's treasure: my grandfather’s back-and-forth correspondence letters during World War II. Frank T. Waters was an editor of the military newspaper, Stars and Stripes. At several instances during the war, he sent correspondence back home to his mother, family, and friends sharing daily life overseas and fighting the biggest war of the 20th century.
Going through these letters is a truly amazing glimpse of a soldier's life during war-time Europe in the 40s. I counted 207 letters, official correspondence, orders, postcards, etc, so far. Reading these, I discover my grandfather was smart, curious, and pretty funny. Here are some of my favorite bits:… Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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There's a great adage in the home decor and organization field...you've probably heard it on one of those room makeover TV shows. The phrasing varies, of course, but the central idea, "When you run out of floor space, you've got to go up."
… Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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It happens. Going about your life, you come across memorable sayings. In movies.. books... pasted on top of inspirational images on your friends Facebook feed. And every once in a while, one of them sticks.
If forced to pick one, I suspect my greatest fear is regret. You know the image: an old man sitting in a chair, thinking back over all the the chances he never took. And that's why this quote hit me. It goes like this: … Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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Last night, my wife poked me in the ribs, and showed me this image. "Guess what that is," she said.
"Oil paint mixed with water?" I guessed.
"No...those are clouds hovering over Jupiter." … Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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When I was a kid, my parents' old Mr. Coffee broke. Because money was tight, it wasn't replaced for some time. I remember waking up one morning and finding my mom making a cup for herself by perching the brew basket from the broken maker over a mug and pouring boiling water from a kettle.
For me, seeing this bit of kitchen MacGuyvering became a truly paradigm-shattering moments. Until then, I thought coffee required an electric drip machine — that it was the only way coffee could be made at all. But seeing this patient pouring of water over grounds, it became clear that the machine wasn't necessary. Some things you really can make yourself. … Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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I'm a huge fan of having a few rows of dog holes in my workbench top. And, more than anything else, I use them to secure a holdfast - an ancient and genius piece of design that secures your work to the work surface with a simple tap from a hammer or mallet. When your ready to release it, just hit the back and it's free. Seriously - it's ten times fast than clamping, and you can fasten your work anywhere across the bench top. Brilliant.
To speed up the process even more, I wanted to come up with a permanent way to protect the wood from the force of the steel being banged into it. You can use a hardwood scrap between the holdfast and the workpiece, but I figured there's reason to spend twenty minutes once and protect my work forever. No digging around for scraps required.
… Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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A few months ago, in the midst of a day full of projects, I had a bit of an a-ha moment. I was in my workshop, using the table saw to slice up some Baltic birch plywood, when a timer on my phone went off, reminding me to take a break and go chop a bunch of vegetables to add to the slow cooked stock I was simmering in the kitchen. … Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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When you work from home and don't have things like paid time off, it's tough to decide when to take a day off when you're not feeling well. There's no one you actually "call in sick" to, and since you're simultaneously both always and never "at work," there really isn't anything from which to stay home. You're not at risk of infecting any office mates, and, for many of us, not working means not getting paid.
And then there days like today. When you get up, acknowledge you feel truly terrible, but still manage to open the laptop and pretend like you're going to get something done. And then its horrible and you're so completely ineffective that you finally admit it would just be better to try to rest, heal up, so you can actually accomplish something tomorrow. Because if you don't, you'll just be muddling through at compromised strength for the next week, which is a much bigger loss than just taking a nap in the first place. … Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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I'm a lucky guy. My family has allowed me to dedicate half our basement into a dedicated shop space, complete with a custom woodworking bench and a growing collection of tools. It's bright, clean (at least right now), and I'm slowly turning it into a functional workspace that will allow me to be as productive as possible.
But it took me a long time to get here. For nearly fifteen years, I worked out of dining rooms and back porches and portions of the garage, lugging my tools around in plastic totes and home center toolboxes, setting up shop on the washing machine, folding tables, and 1/2" plywood scraps screwed to 2x4s.
And, in the early days, it was that lack of a proper workbench that prevented me from thinking I could could use hand tools. Without a vise and hold downs, how could I safely secure my work for handplaning, chiseling, or sawing?The answer: a batten, which will take you 5 minutes to make and turns any flat surface into a work bench. Let's make one! … Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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Okay, friends. This is one of my all-time favorite DIY hacks. I learned it more than fifteen years ago from a book I got from the library, and committed it to memory. I only need it about once or twice a year, but it works every. single. time. I'm always super grateful to have it on hand, and so today, I'm sharing so you too can stop busting your hand and banging your knuckles every time you need to install a hook somewhere. … Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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Every so often, a new idea is presented to the world that seems to have already belonged there for years. Like a perfect pop song, it's fresh and exciting, yet feels like it's been part of you for your entire life.
… Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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The first week of January is often about adding things to our list. "This year, I'm going to do this every day, or execute a hundred of those..." Instead, perhaps 2018 is the year you drop some of the stuff that just isn't serving you well. We have a few ideas. … Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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As far as the truly great characters from U.S. History to which we might look for timeless advice, it's hard to beat Benjamin Franklin. (We still love you, Mark Twain!) Franklin was born into a family of very modest means, but he manage to use his basic education (he stopped going to school at age ten) to become a successful author, scientist, statesman, printer, politician, inventor, humorist, civic activist, diplomat, and $100 dollar bill appearer.
… Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
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In the summer, it's easy to get those deep, blackened and charred flavors in your weeknight meals. During grill season, you simply head outside, and cook your meal over an open flame.
And then comes January, where the produce is poor, and everything lacks that certain zing that the warm sun and fire-seared foods provide. … Continue reading on ManMadeDIY.com
