Kill A Watt Power Monitor

It's that time of year again, the time when electricity costs are higher than the mortgage.  It's hot outside and the air conditioner is running a good chunk of the day.  You can't very well turn off the air conditioner, but it's not your only item using electricity.  You can go around the house and turn off everything when not in use, put power switches on ~everything~ and...well...wear yourself plum out.  Some things are worth turning off, some not as much, some not at all, but how can you tell? Enter Kill-A-Watt.



Securing Your Garage Door

I was shocked when I saw how insanely easy it is to break into anyone's garage with just a coat hanger.  I've spent quite a bit of time, sweat and money getting my garage workshop the way I want it and the last thing I need is to have someone break in and have their way with it. Luckily it's easy to prevent.





Bottomless Stone Garden Planter

Through a friend of a friend I came upon the blessing of some free stone. It seems Tom had just completed work on his beautiful home and had quite a bit of scrap stone left.  Most of the stone was small and irregular, but it was also free. I collected as much as possible in the time I had available but what to do with it? I love stone, it is attractive, incredibly low maintenance and wherever you put it in the garden you never have to weed again...but I can't just pile a bunch of stone in my garden....or can I?  After unloading and staring at the stone for some time I came up with the concept; let's build some nice bottomless planters for the garden.  Lots of visual impact, lots of stone and it will make some decent dents in the places I need to weed in the future.  If you don't have a friend of a friend who just built a house look towards friends in the construction trades.  Frequently when houses are built scrap stone is simply discarded often buried at the build site itself.  Being friendly to crews when they are finishing up may just score the scrap stone you need to make this project.


World's Cheapest Noise Canceling Headphones

When I'm in the shop I usually like jamming to my music but the tunes don't sound good over the buzz of saws, routers and vacuums.  I do what I can to keep the noise down for my neighbors so turning the volume up to eleven is out of the question. Besides being rude to the neighbors, extreme decibel levels can be quite damaging to your ears.

I've tried wearing ear buds or headphones in the shop but even though you can still hear the music, you can also hear the tools and the two don't mix.  I looked at noise cancelling headphones but they can be insanely expensive.  What I needed was inexpensive headphones mixed with great noise cancelling capabilities.  I saw these inexpensive hearing protectors and when I ordered them they actually worked quite well, but still no music. I had some inexpensive headphones laying around and wish the two could be combined somehow.  Once I started playing, it was amazingly simple.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002KQZJS/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0002KQZJS&linkCode=as2&tag=dbuli-20