As soon as a child has learned to crawl, they are overcome by the desire to explore the surrounding space, where there are all sorts of curious things. And here parents are often helped by a well-known invention — a baby playpen. Its wooden lattice or rope netting limits the baby’s movement within this fenced Read more…
Some old friends once invited me to their dacha. A bike ride, a look around the garden plot. Then tea and a chat. I agreed and went one weekend. Summer, fields, a thunderstorm! Everything was planted, tended, and weeded. Inside the dacha house it was cozy and simple. But on the stove top there stood Read more…
The early nineties were marked by particular unpredictability — prices for everything rose not by the day, but by the hour. Of the buildings ordered for my country plot, the builders erected only the walls of a log bathhouse measuring 5×3 m without a roof, and then disappeared. There was nothing left but to finish Read more…
After a long DIY construction project of my own — or rather a major renovation of a purchased country house — it turned out that we would have to move in not only to “bare walls,” but also practically with empty pockets. I think some readers of this magazine I respect so much may find Read more…
I offer hobbyists a homemade desktop drilling machine that uses a hand drill. A hollow tubular column is mounted on a sturdy base, and a rod is installed inside it so that it can move. On one side of the rod a toothed rack is cut for the vertical feed drive, and on the other Read more…
I offer you a shelf of a very simple design, consisting of just five parts. The reason for making it was that I had accumulated a large number of baby-food jars. The shelf is designed to hold five jars, although their number can be increased or decreased by changing the dimensions of the corresponding parts. Read more…
It is well known that metal hacksaw blades are made of excellent steel, so any fragment, even a small one, can be considered a starting blank for a wide variety of cutting tools. The options given here are far from exhausting the variety of devices that can be made from broken saw blades. First of Read more…
As is well known, sun, air, and water create the most favorable conditions for recreation. So it is no surprise that on a hot sunny day so many people gather on sea beaches and by the banks of a river or pond that there is literally no room to spare. Unfortunately, well-equipped beaches are few. Read more…
No matter how popular flower beds are among flower-growing enthusiasts, they usually differ little from ordinary garden beds. And this impression is not saved by attempts to refine them with all sorts of brick borders, fences made from random pipes, or, worse still, car tire covers. Besides, such flower beds have a permanent “registration”: they Read more…
Prepared cement mortar needs constant mixing, otherwise it hardens quickly. But that is easier said than done; doing this work by hand is extremely tiring — it is hard to lift a shovel full of mortar. How can one try to use one’s strength more efficiently? That is how this labor-saving device appeared in my Read more…
