Life Hack and DIY Lifestyle

Category: Life Hacks

Christmas Tree Stand Stabilizer

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I had an issue with my artificial Christmas tree stand in that the screw ports to keep the stand stable had worn out (the tree is probably 5 years old). Therefore the screws to keep the tree in place were loose and couldn’t be used at all. This led to the tree stand collapsing on its own and the whole tree falling over. You can see a picture of the stand which kept falling over below.

This is the type of tree stand I had issue with as it would collapse.

To fix this problem I decided to add a stabilizer to the tree stand. The stabilizer was a block of wood, where I cut a hole down the middle to fit the middle part of the stand and also cut spaces for the legs. I used a spade bit in a power drill to cut the hole and used a Mitre say to cut the spaces for the legs. The stabilizer holds the tree stand in place so that the legs can’t move (and therefore they can’t collapse). I also spray painted the stabilizer green to match the tree.

Here is how the stand supporter looks.

Overall I am really happy with how the tree stand support came out. Your can see more detail on how to build it in the following video:

Life hack – Fixing a broken laundry bin with duct tape

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This is a really easy life hack but helps demonstrate the brilliance of duct tape.

I had a laundry bin which developed a crack in it as shown in the picture below.

I decided instead of throwing this bin away (which cost about $10) I would try to repair it using duct tape.

The fix was really simple, I just pressed several strips of duct tape on the crack on both sides and made sure they were pressed on very solid.

It turned out really well, this is how it looked after it had been fixed:

See more details in the following video.

Building a chess piece (Rook)

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This was a simple project where I build a rook out of wood. I traced a rook piece, then cut it out with a jigsaw and spray painted it. This is how it looks:

The project turned out pretty good I thought. It is far from perfect but I like how it looks. Here is a video which provides additional details:

Make your own dog treat / dog bag carrier

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In this project I made my own dog treat or dog bag carrier / container. We had bought our own which were $8-$10 each, and seemed kind of a rip off considering how easy they are to make.

Here is the dog poop bag carrier (left side) and dog treat carrier (right side) which we bought. They were $8 to $10 each.

The steps to make the carrier was simple. First find a small container to use to hold the bags or treats, which should only cost $1 or so. Next you need to make the loop to connect to your dog leash. To make this, cut a small hole in the container (small enough for a zip tie to fit through) and then place a dowel in the container. Wrap a zip tie around the dowel, then make a loop on the open end of the zip tie. Next, close this loop with another zip tie.

After this you are done it should look something like this.

This is a dog bag carrier I made. You can see the dowel in the container and the zip tie loops for attaching it to the leash.

It is hard to picture making this with just words. For more details on how to make it watch the following video:

Life Hack – Stirring paint the easy way

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This is an easy life hack for when you need to stir paint and using a paint stirring stick is not enough. To solve this problem you can attach a blender attachment (egg beater) or a similar tool to your power drill and use this to stir the paint. They actually make tools specifically for this purpose as shown in the picture below.

This is a paint stirrer (for power drills) which I found on Amazon for $7.

The situation I ran into was I had a can of paint which was very watery (as shown in the picture below). I tried mixing it with a paint stirrer but it didn’t really work.

The solution I tried was putting an egg beater in a power drill and using that to stir the paint. It actually worked really well, you can see the set up in the following picture. Also I was surprised at how little splashing occurred in the paint when using the egg beater for stirring.

I think it would work better with the actual extension designed for stirring paint, but even the egg beater worked well.

You can see more details in the following video:

Life hack – Make your own Mitre Saw dust hood

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If you ever had a mitre saw, you have probably run into the issue of how much saw dust it creates and how to clean it up.  My mtire saw came with a dust collection bag, but it doesn’t really work and the dust gets everywhere.  Previously I just vacuumed up the saw dust with a shop vac, but it seemed like a lot of effort.  I tried connecting the shop vac hose to the mitre saw dust collection port and turning it on when sawing with the mitre saw.  This reduced the saw dust by a little bit but the saw dust still shot out of the sides and front, so it didn’t help that much.

I asked on message boards what others had done and it seemed that the most common solution was to use a mitre saw hood.  This is a covering to block the saw dust from going beyond the mitre saw hood, and kind of looks like a tent.  Companies do make these mitre saw hoods for sale and they can be found on Amazon.  However, on Amazon these hoods are $150 or more which seems like a lot for such a simple product.  An example of a mitre saw hood can be found here, note the price of $160.

This saw dust hood for a Mitre saw sells for $160 on Amazon.

Besides the price these hoods seem really bulky.  My current mitre saw backs up to the wall and there is only a few inches of space behind it.

I then saw some messages about people who made their own mitre saw hood out of a baby tents (a very small tent used to protect babies from the sun).  I looked into this, but the cheapest baby tents on Amazon were still $40 or more.

So I started to think of my own solutions.  All I really needed was something lightweight and fairly flexible to cover the mitre saw and contain the saw dust when in use.  What immediately came to mine was an Ikea bag, as I already use an Ikea bag to cover the Mitre saw when it is not in use so me kids don’t try to touch it.  Ikea bags are cheap, you can get a 10 pack of Ikea bags at Amazon for $20, see the following link: Amazon Ikea Bags

People pointed out the bag handles could get caught in the saw so I cut all of those off. I have one bag on each side of the mitre saw, with the bag held up by a cut pool noodle. The pool noodle has a screw inserted which also connects to the bag so that they stay in place. So far having these bags on the sides to collect saw dust has worked really well. Also the best part is the materials only cost $5 ($2 per bag and $1 for the pool noodle). This is how the final product looks:

This is the dust collection system with a bag on each side of the Mitre saw and enough space provided to avoid any accidental tangles.
This shot shows the pool noodle supporting the bag to keep it open.

The following video describes this in more detail.

Life Hack – How to have ice water while on the go

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This is a useful life hack for the summer time when going on a long hike, or anytime you need to keep water cold for a few hours when you won’t have access to a fridge or cooler.

The life hack is to take a fill a water bottle half way with water, lay it on its side and leave it in the freezer. Then right before you leave for your outing fill the other half of the bottle with water. This will keep the water cold and over time the ice melt and you will just have icy water. The only tricky park is it takes some planning to freeze the water beforehand.

This brief video shows this in more detail.

Life Hack / Things I like – Laminators

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One product when is pretty cheap and also very useful is a laminator.

Here is a photo of a standard laminator

I bought one back in 2013 and it is still going strong. Basically the laminator makes any sheet of paper you have tear proof and very difficult to destroy.

I use it to help preserve awards my kids get at school or camps, which are often just a piece of paper and usually get ruined really quickly. 
Also I have made signs with it for high traffic areas for the kids to remind them to take their shoes off, lift the seat up in the bathroom and things of that nature. In addition, I use it to preserve my kids art projects.

An inexpensive laminator on Amazon can be found here (for $30):

Swingline GBC Laminator, Inspire, Thermal, 9 inch Max Width, Quick Warm-Up (1701855)

In general you can get a servicable laminator for $30 or less.

Here is an example of a sign I made with the laminator.

The laminator has a ton of uses and is a great thing to have. I go in a little more detail in the following video:

Life Hack – Salvaging wood from things you get for free

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To cut down on costs and avoid having to go to the store, I thought of other ways to get wood for my projects. What I have started doing is getting furniture for free on Nextdoor (a neighborhood app where people can post things for sale or things they are giving away for free, among others) and then using that wood for woodworking projects. Note I would only do this for projects that don’t need to be that exact or pretty. The recent project I did were planter boxes which were going to be painted and full of dirt anyway, so didn’t need to be that pretty.

Make sure the wood is solid and not something hollow (like an Ikea table, you can see more on this in the post here: https://lifehackanddiy.com/ikea-table-main-ingredient-cardboard/)

It takes some work to isolate the wood into something you can use. For example, I got a dining table and had to remove some of the molding and leg fasteners. However, the wood is solid and sturdy.

This is an example of some wood I have salvaged. I started sawing the table top into boards and was also going to salvage some cabinet doors.

Here is some stuff I made out of the salvaged wood:

This stool is made out of table legs. I know it is ugly, but it is functional.
This planter box is made out of cabinet doors, pieces of a dining table and some shelves.

I got over salvaging wood in more detail in the following video:

Life Hack – Get money for reducing your energy use with OhmConnect

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This life hack is an easy way to get some extra cash. OhmConnect is a company which will give you rewards points (which you can redeem for cash) if you reduce your energy use during your designated Ohm Hour (a one hour block of time). The way it works is that during certain hours PG&E may have to fire up its dirtiest, most polluting power plants. To prevent this, OhmConnect tries to reduce energy use during these peak hours. More details on how it works can be found here: https://www.ohmconnect.com/how-it-works

If you are able to reduce your energy use to below what is forecast during you Ohm Hour, you will get points. 100 points equal 1 dollar. You don’t have to pay anything up front or purchase any additional equipment, you just need to provide your PG&E account info.

Also, if you sign up under me I get a $20 referral bonus and you get a $10 bonus. So sign up, here is the link: https://login.ohmconnect.com/ref/780225