Dick’s Sporting goods has Coleman brand cockpit covers and spray skirts on clearence for what seems to be the Coleman Rebel. We picked up two cockpit covers for $5 each and two medium spray skirts for $5 and $15 from different locations. These don’t seem to be available anywhere online, and you can’t really call store to check for them but get them if you can! They fit our Old Town Otters perfectly. These Spray skirts feel a bit cheap and aren’t made for hardcore kayaking, but at the very least they keep the paddle drips out of the cockpit and when they start to fall apart we can make our own using them as a pattern. The cockpit covers seem to be of a slightly better quality and do the job of keeping creepy crawlies out of the kayaks while in storage.
Reviews about Stuff
Add an Elegant Hanging Light the Easy Way
For the longest time, we’ve wanted some kind of light above the sink in our kitchen. We finally settled on a simple DIY solution to this problem using the IKEA Hemma cord set. The cord set comes with a long electrical wire that has a normal 2-prong plug on one end, and a light socket on the other. The light socket has a removable screw piece to allow you to attach a lamp shade. The screw piece holds the shade securely onto the light socket end of the cord. The cord itself is quite strong and can easily handle a glass shade hanging from it.
The cord set comes with an open eye hook, but it didn’t work in our situation because there was no stud in the ceiling where we wanted to hang the light. We ended up buying a hanging plant hook kit. We had to modify the hook slightly because the plastic wire hanger that came with the Hemma was too small to fit over the end of the planter hook.
To fix this, I simply cut the end off of the hook with a small hacksaw. The metal was very soft and this took only seconds. If you don’t have a hacksaw, you could possibly use heavy duty wire cutters to cut the end off.
These hanging kits are designed to hold hanging planters which are pretty heavy and come with the parts to install on either a stud or directly into drywall. The drywall anchor is a spring toggle bolt, which is capable of hanging a lot of weight. This is a bit overkill for this project, but it doesn’t hurt. For other projects, you may want to check out which kind of drywall anchor would be right for you. To install this toggle bolt, I used a half-inch spade drill bit to drill a hole in the ceiling large enough to accept the toggle bolt when it is folded.
Once the hole has been drilled, simply insert the toggle bolt and screw the hook until it is tight against the ceiling.
We planned to power the light using a power socket under the kitchen cabinets by the sink but we didn’t want the plug just hanging down from the ceiling for two reasons; 1) Because it is unsightly and 2) because the Hemma wire was several feet too long. What we decided to do was to run the wire inside our cabinets and leave the extra wire on top of the cabinet. To do this, we used a larger drill bit to drill a hole bottom shelf and the top of the cabinets as close to the back corner as possible.
A 1-inch spade drill bit which was just wide enough to handle the plug.
We threaded the wire through the holes and tied a knot just before the bottom hole leaving enough on the other side to reach the plug under the cabinets. This knot should prevent any extra wire from coming through the hole.
To keep the wire out of the way and tidy inside the cabinet, we used small nails to tack it to the back side of the cabinet facing. This also help rout the wire neatly around the inner shelves.
We got a shade from a local Habitat for Humanity ReStore for $2.00. These stores are great because they have a wide variety of random construction pieces and furniture for great prices and the money goes to help Habitat for Humanity. The particular share we got was a bit too big to fit on the screw part of the hemma, so I filed down some of the plastic on the hemma’s light socket to make some room. I was only able to thread a couple of threads on the socket with the screw piece, but that was plenty to hold the shade.
All in all, the IKEA Hemma proved to be a great solution for us. There are tons of really great examples out there using it as well. It allows you to be creative and still coming up with a professional look. If you have used the Hemma for a DIY lighting project, we’d love to see what you did! Leave us a comment with info and a link.
Review of EyeBuyDirect – Part One: How to Get Prescription Glasses for Less than $30 A Pair
I like to say I am not cheap, I am frugal. I like quality and I would rather pay a little more for something that would last, but I also love to save money. Buying eyeglasses online was a bit of risky territory, but I did my research and put in my first order from EyeBuyDirect in February of 2011. I ordered a pair of glasses for $36.12 (including shipping!). I added a “Tint Key” of “Grey 60%” so I could use these glasses for driving. Essentially I created a pair of prescription sunglasses for only $36.12. Can you say sweet!
Read moreReview of EyeBuyDirect – Part One: How to Get Prescription Glasses for Less than $30 A Pair
Nathan Reusable Stainless Steel Bottle Review
There has been a big controversy the past couple of years about water bottles. It is wasteful to use single use plastic water bottles. To remedy the problem of excess garbage (since only about 23% of the drink bottles used each year are recycled) many people began using reusable containers such as Nalgene and SIGG bottles. It later came out that these bottles released the chemical BPA into the water. Even aluminum bottles leeched aluminum into the water. It seemed like there was no safe solution.
Having read a lot about what to look for in a reusable bottle, we began searching for the best solution. While shopping at T.J. MAXX Jessica and I stumbled on a large variety of steel and aluminum bottles. One brand of bottle seemed to have gotten everything right. The ones we chose were Nathan Human Propulsion Laboratories 700ml steel bottles.
My Review of Viovio
This summer I had an AMAZING wedding that happened very much in part because of my dad – who also happens to be my source of inspiration for this post. Of course I wanted to thank my dad in a special way, so I decided to create a personalized scrapbook, cataloging all of his visits and of course, my wedding. This post will serve to overview my experience with viovio, from uploading my book, placing my order, to receiving my order and beyond…