Tuesday, October 11, 2011

MTA Posters could be easier to read

It's the weekend, you're late to meet up with your friends and you run down the subway stairs only to be confronted with a poster covered in text. It takes valuable seconds to run through all of the information, to visualize a calendar in your head, to check what date it is, what time it is... meanwhile a train pulls in across the platform and you don't know whether you should take it!

I'd like to propose that we do away with most of the text that the MTA put on posters in favour of visual elements, after all - doesn't a picture tell a thousand words? I'd like to think that this type of poster would also be useful for those who don't speak English, since it should adequately explain the basic information without using words.

Here's an original poster from my line;


and here's an alternative version I propose;




Comments, improvements welcome!

Monday, October 3, 2011

Baby Cam/ Web Cam

Hagan's room is now available live! 

UK viewers may have some luck watching him play in his crib around 6am our time, 11am GMT. Otherwise he'll usually be napping at 1pm (6pm GMT)

Monday, June 13, 2011

Shoe shelving display via an Ikea hack


So the wife wanted some more shoe storage for *ahem* not her shoes, but mine! Unsatisfied with most of the storage solutions out there I came up with a plan to kill two birds with one stone. Building shelves which would take up a minimum of space and also cover up our unused ugly hallway door which has about 11 layers of paint on it (but probably a beautiful wooden door underneath!)

As luck would have it, IKEA were having a special on Ekby Laiva shelves for $1.99 each:
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30178704
(they might still be if you're lucky!)

After some measuring, designing and number crunching we came up with a plan to cut the shelves in half lengthways, leaving a nice narrow shelf for a single pair of shoes, using the other half as an anchor for the shelves so that no brackets are needed. As you can see each piece mounted to the door also helps prevent the shelf below it from pivoting upwards;

The whole project took me around four hours, but I'm pretty pleased with the results and can happily report that the raw materials cost a mere $30!

Oh yes, and I also had to repair the door jamb first to re-hang the door;


There was a lot of sawing but luckily I have a circular saw :)


Here I am, part way through. Drilling pilot holes so as not to split the particle board (or MDF as we like to say in the UK). On the right hand side you can see the wood glue ready for the next shelf. My first couple at the bottom were a little wibbly so I used a more generous amount for the rest.


And here we have the finished product !