Well it’s been a long time since I have written an article. The reason I have been away so long is also what gives me even more things to write about, for I bought my first home… the same reason that I am sitting in IKEA while I write this. Being a new home owner is lending itself to a lot of geeky home improvement projects, like setting up my home theater as well as my home office. Those are things that everyone does though, not just geeks. I am here to share some things I found that geeks would love to add to their homes.

Today I would love you to check out the outlets I will be replacing some of mine with. They are outlets with USB ports built into them so you can charge any of your devices without using an adapter. I have seen a few variations of them, first starting with a power bar that included USB ports, but they are now built into the outlets themselves. The most common configuration I have seen, and are the type you can buy at almost any hardware store, are the type where one of the plugs in the outlet is replaced with two USB ports. This is a super logical configuration and does not require you to use a special face plate to go on top of it. But using it to replace an existing plug is a tough decision because you are losing a place to plug something else in. If you are building a new home or adding an outlet to your existing home this is an awesome choice because you’re not losing any plugs.

That brings me to the configuration I will be using. It’s an outlet with 2 plugs as well as 2 USB ports. They are a little trickier to install but look really sleek and allow you to keep your existing number of plugs. The outlet I will be getting is from thinkgeek.com and is called the u-socket. Here are some of the locations I will be putting them so you can start to think how these outlets could be useful to you:

• In my living room beside the couch
• In the kitchen for when I use my iPad while I cook
• Behind my side table in the front hall so I can leave things to charge that I need to grab on the way out of the house
• Beside the bed to charge my phone overnight without needing to plug in the adapter
• In my office so I don’t have to depend on charging things off of my computer tower

If you have any other ideas as to how you would use them and where, I would love to hear them, and thanks for reading!

In the past two weeks I have been very busy on the project. I have painted the emblem onto the front, added banding for strength, spray painted the handle, applied pipe insulation around the edge, created wear details in the pipe insulation, and finally spray painted the edging. I will list the materials and tools I used but there are obviously other options.

Materials:

• Acrylic paints (assorted colors)
• Nylon banding
• Door pull
• Spray paint (Aged Iron)
• 3/4″ pipe insulation
• Saran wrap
• Painting tape

Tools:

• Assorted paint brushes
• Bander
• Rotary tool

First off was the task of painting the yellow base color of the emblem. A very simple task, I started with a simple, deep yellow acrylic paint. I didn’t quite like the look of the yellow by itself so I mixed in some brown to give it an aged look.

As you can see from the previous pictures, I hadn’t painted the emblem onto the yellow background yet so I used the picture I had originally taken of the shield and printed out a large version of it to trace. I cut out the shape of the horse’s head roughly with enough of a border to allow room to tape it down without covering the pattern. I then used carbon transfer paper to create a usable on the actual shield. From there my fiancé painted the pattern with black acrylic paint.

My first step in preparing it for paint was to find something to cover the back and front of the shield that wouldn’t allow paint to permeate. I probably could have used more newsprint or another paper but I was worried that some wet paint would have soaked through. Instead I used Saran wrap held down with painting tape. To start I laid my first piece onto the front of the shield and taped around the edge. I then did the same with the next piece and once I had taped the edge down I covered the seam with another piece of tape. The process for the other side is the exact same.

From there I simply laid out some newspaper and elevated the shield on a paint can and proceeded to spray paint the foam edge. When one side was done I carefully flipped it over and did the other side. I then waited about 10 minutes for the paint to be dry enough for me to smooth out any drips that I saw around the edge and remove the tape and Saran wrap. I removed the covering at that time because if there was to be any places that paint had gotten through I could fix it before it had finished drying. With that step I am nearly finished with this part of the project.

This week I will be describing the processes I used to distress and stain the shield. This portion of the project has actually spanned two weeks but can be done in one. The reason it took more time for me is because I forgot how long it takes to stain wood. Once again the materials needed are very easy to get a hold of.

Materials:

• indoor wood stain (Ebony)
• paper towel

Tools:

• sander
• wire brush
• chisel or multicrafter (oscillating blade tool)
• paint brush

I really wanted to achieve an authentic look to the shield and to do that I had to distress it. I first attached a wire brush to an electric drill and went over most of the shield with it. In some spots I used pressure to create more texture. From there I wanted to replicate the appearance of a weapon strike. To do that I used a Multicrafter with an oscillating blade and started taking out chunks of wood.

From there I went on to staining; this is where I misjudged my time. If you haven’t done any staining, it’s a pretty simple process. The first step is to apply an even coat across the entire surface. Once that is done you have to wait for 10 to 15 minutes and then use paper towels to wipe off the excess. After it’s wiped off, it will take 4 to 6 hours to fully dry. While it’s drying it’s okay to flip it over and do the other side. Just use gloves or a paper towel to flip it and place it on a raised surface like a paint can. Repeat the steps on the back side and leave it to dry. When you come back, check if it’s as dark as you would like, if not add another coat. Repeat until you achieve the desired color. I only needed two coats and it turned out really well.

Next week I am going to paint the main yellow color and the emblem onto the front of the shield. If you need any directions clarified or have any other questions just leave a comment and I will answer you.

As the new year was approaching I realized I was talking a lot about how much I love DIY projects, but I have never really tried one of my own. So I decided that in the new year I was going to build my own custom costume. While playing Skyrim, I have spent a lot of time using the zoom function in the inventory to examine nearly every item I have picked up. While doing so I noticed that some of the items would be fairly easy to replicate. In particular, the guard outfits seemed like the easiest and would work as a good costume, especially if I placed an arrow in my knee.

So last weekend I started working on the shield portion of the outfit. For anyone who would want to know how to make it themselves I will outline my steps each week.

This is what the shield looks like.

When looking at the shield I realized I could make it with only a few materials that can be picked up at any hardware store.

Materials:

• 2 Pine boards 6x1x4 feet
• wood glue

Tools:

• scroll saw or jigsaw
• table saw or circular saw
• clamps or duct tape

I had previously estimated that the maximum diameter of the shield was going to be around 2 feet. The first thing I did was saw the two boards in half to create four two foot long pieces. When laid out side-by-side it creates a two foot by two foot square. From there, I was walking around my parents’ garage trying figure out what was the best way to create the circle I needed to cut out. I found an old garbage can lid which ended up being the perfect size for the final shield so I traced it onto the boards.

To cut it out I was thinking of using a jigsaw but I found that a scroll saw was much easier to create the shape I needed. It wasn’t perfect, but I will be covering the edge eventually anyway.

After the pieces were cut out I had to decide what was the best way to fasten it together while making sure it looked like it’s from the game. I found it best to just use wood glue as to avoid any visible hardware. When I started to get ready to glue the pieces together I couldn’t find my clamps so I ended up having to use duct tape. It was crude, but it worked really well.

One problem with the duct tape was that the glue application was a lot messier than it would have been with clamps. Because of that I had to spend some extra time sanding and this is how it turned out at the end of the day.

There are a few things I would have done differently. I would have used dowels to help keep the planks together as well as use a table saw to cut the planks in half.

Next weekend I will be distressing the wood and then staining it. If you have any questions about what I did so far, or any suggestions for the next phase of the project, please let me know in the comments below.