Your
Brand New Archaeological Gem
By David Shamah,
The
Today we see just the ruins,
but once upon a time, it was beautiful – a veritable wonder of the world. Try
and picture the way it looked for a moment, in all its ancient glory. Shiny and
bright it was, with striking color and shining brilliance. Yes, once people
just like us romped there, and if you listen carefully, you can still hear the
sounds of the children as they joyously play their children’s games in the
warm, protective glow. It was truly a glorious edifice, once, constructed by
old world craftsmen who built things to last.
Of course, there is no
accounting for the taste of whoever put this thing together, and when you stand
back and take it all in, you realize – that kitchen has got to go! I mean, look
at those colors! What were they thinking? I’m all for preserving archaeological
treasures, but that’s what we have museums for. I realize that the ’56 Sears
L-shaped is a “classic kitchen”, but I was never a classy kind of guy; it’s
time to do a little redecorating.
I was never any good at
sawing and hammering, so I probably would want to have a professional carpenter
do it myself. But if I were to take up carpentry, even on an amateur basis, I
could probably save myself a ton of money on the project. And thanks to the
Internet, an amateur can do a minor – or even major – home improvement job far
more easily than ever before! There are all sorts of downloadable and online
tools to help plan, measure, develop and build anything from a table to a whole
house, along with all the detailed instructions you need to put the thing
together. Many of these tools were developed by the world’s great
do-it-yourself retailers to customers figure out what they need to buy to get
the project done. Not all these retailers have local outlets, but the tools
will be useful to anybody doing remodeling – a meter is still a meter, unless,
of course, it’s 3.281 feet (note that some of these sites will list
measurements in feet and inches; use http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/conversions.html
for metric conversions) .
Mention “do-it-yourself
furniture” to someone almost anywhere in the civilized world and they’re likely
to retort “Ikea,” the retail king of prefab furniture. Ikea was originally a
Swedish company, but now it is a worldwide empire of its own, and the company’s
Web site has a couple of great tools you can download to help you visualize how
a room might look after remodeling. Ikea’s tools, the Kitchen Planner and the
Office Planner, let you drag and drop cabinets, desks, walls and furniture onto
a room (pick a size), and rearrange them to your heart’s content. If you’re
planning or building a new house, you can change the contours of the room or
the location of the walls, etc. – and if you’re just looking to replace a few
cabinets, lay out your kitchen the way it is now and replace the parts you
don’t like.
The cabinet sizes and colors
are all listed by their Ikea store label, so you can thumb through your catalog
and pick the pieces and sizes you like. The program lets you put it all
together on the screen – and when you’re done, press the 3D button to see it
come to life, with the colors and styles you’ve selected! A good piece of
marketing but a great piece of software, you can download the Kitchen Planner
from http://www.ikea.co.uk/ms/en_GB/rooms_ideas/kitchen/download.html
(in metric measurements) and the Office Planner from http://www.ikea-usa.com/ms/en_US/rooms_ideas/office/download1.html
(
The Ikea downloads are
great, but since they’re from Ikea, you’re limited to the selection provided by
the store (not that it’s such a limited selection). But if you really want to
let your imagination fly, you should give the Ladies Home Journal magazine
Arrange-A-Room tool a try (find it on http://www.lhj.com,
and click on the Arrange-A-Room link on the left). This on-line tool works on
the same drag and drop principle (for all systems; requires Shockwave) as the
Ikea planners, but it’s got layout grids for every room in the house, including
bathrooms, dens and bedrooms. You can set the size of the room and set up
windows and doors to their sizes and locations, and even place electrical and
phone outlets on the wall! After you set up the layout, you add the furniture
or furnishings for the specific room from the very extensive list provided. Once
you’re done, you can save the room or print it out to take when you go
shopping. This way, you don’t have to go into contortions and sign language to
explain to the guy in the store exactly what you’re looking for; just show him
the room printout and you’re all set!
Better Homes and Gardens,
another decorating magazine, has an on-line tool called Color-a-Room, which
will help you figure out patterns and colors, along with design (find it at http://www.bhg.com, Color-A-Room link on the
left side; for all Windows systems, requires ViewPoint
Media Player which is automatically installed). You pick a canned bedroom or living room that
more or less fits your room setup. Then, you can choose different color
combinations for fabrics, walls, tiles, upholstery, and carpeting. This is the
kind of thing you used to have to spend a week on at the store, mixing and
matching colors and styles! If you’re into this kind of thing or are really
interested in doing some redecorating, you’re going to have hours of fun at
this site! (Both lhj.com and bhg.com require free membership and cookies, and
both have a preponderance of annoying popups, but the
services are free and very cool).
Lowe’s, the large American
do-it-yourself chain, sponsors a great Web site (http://www.lowes.com,
click on Design Tools link at top of page) loaded with tools that can
practically build a project by itself! The Project Calculator tool will tell
you exactly how much of an item you need to buy for a project based on area or
size. Use this calculator when you’re painting a room, for example; it takes
into account walls, floors, and second coats in its calculations. If you
register with the site, you can also use the Lowe’s Interactive Workshop, which
supplies nice video how-to presentations on all sorts of projects, an a virtual paint tool which let’s you mix and match almost
any color in existence. And the Build It Virtually tool will show you tools and
specific steps to build small projects, like benches and backyard swings. If
you’re specifically interested in kitchens and bathrooms, you’ll find a similar
set of tools at the
All this decorating talk is
nice, but who can afford it in this day and age? I’m with you, friend. You want
a nice living space, but you want to spend as little as possible. And home
improvement, besides being a drain on your bank account, is like a drug – once
you start, you’re hooked! But you don’t have to spend a lot of money to spruce
up your home; there are plenty of on-line resources that can point you to cheap
or even free ideas for redecorating. http://www.thebudgetdecorator.com
is exactly what the site name advertises, and it’s got easy to follow
instructions and photos for a number of very low cost decorating projects. http://doityourself.com/ has excellent,
detailed instructions for home projects both large and small, from properly
changing a shower head to building your own deck or garage. At http://www.decoratorsecrets.com/,
you can learn how to decorate like a pro and save lots of money. This site, at http://www.decoratorsecrets.com/bestofweb/default.asp,
also has links to many manufacturer sites that have additional ideas and tips.
And if you need real cheap detailed building plans, someone at the Colorado
State University Cooperative Extension has already gone through the trouble of
putting them together for you at
http://www.cerc.colostate.edu/Blueprints/Housing.htm. You can find plans for
anything from a doghouse to a 5-room log cabin, in PDF form, and the plans are
only $5 apiece! So if you’re feeling frustrated with Pesach cleaning, feel free
to smash and trash all you want; now you have all the info you need to rebuild
easily and inexpensively! You can be sure that years from now, your descendants
will still be oohing and ahing
over the great archaeological gem you have bequeathed them.
Send e-mail to ds@newzgeek.com or check out http://www.newzgeek.com.