apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Forget MacGyver, Michael Weston is the man these days. He's done things with cell phones you would not believe!

*swoon*

Oh MacGyver...I love you.

I don't really have a MacGyver moment I just had to express my adoration for the man. ;)

I actually have had a few recent design related MacGyver moments.

While re-organizing and re-designing my dorm room a few weeks ago, I made a coat rack using 6 wire hangers, a piece of cardboard, torn magazine paper, rubber cement, and 2 kinds of tape (scotch & masking).

I also recently finished making a room divider (in the theme of Atari's 1978 classic, Space Invaders) out sketchbook paper, yarn, scotch tape, and a few staples.

Ok, I know I have MacGyver moments because I say to myself, "oh! smart monkey!"

But at the moment I can't remember exactly what all of those smart monkey moments were.

I really should keep a list of wisdom to pass on.

In my last apartment I rigged up a system of yarn, hooks, and plastic toy army men (to add weight) so I could open the blinds of all the windows in my room without getting out of bed. It was brilliant.

My "I-Don't-Need-A-Man-Tool"

One long wooden dowel (4 foot long, 1/2" wide) with a nail hammered 1/2 way on one end and bent. I don't need a man to grab things off a high shelf, hang a ceiling plant or tear down cobwebs or even squish bugs that are out of reach... heh heh...

When hanging drapery rods, I was trying to figure out where in relation to the window I wanted the rods hung. I do my best DIY late at night and there was no one around to hold the rods up for me to see. So I set my camera up on the self timer then ran and held up the rods for the picture. The pictures were hysterical, but worked like a charm! I was able to get perspective without a second pair of hands.

Personally, I am more intrigued by MacGruber.

While I can't think of all my MacGyver tricks..I do have quite a few...I have used a cut potato to unscrew a broken light bulb from a socket...It does work ..but turn off the power....
My Brother in Law used to work on the set of his series (Vancouver BC) and I own a large mahogany pillar used in his show!! It was for the episode about a stolen Faberge egg..I have never seen the episode but am proud to tell people who ask about it...MacGyver is always present in my house.

okaysamantha wins so far. I, like kimg924, count on myself to be pretty resourceful and good with the problem-solving, yet cannot remember any really good examples. I even go so far as to get actively annoyed when someone is selling tools and gadgets that are simply unnecessary, because it's silly to fork over $12 or $45 for stuff that can be rigged out of the home junk stuff, and yet I've never used a shoe as a hammer or anything like that. This does not help me remember my accomplishments, but whatever it is would not have a chance next to opening all the blinds without getting out of bed.

Here. I once worked in an engineering office and there were no tools, so I assembled an office chair using a dime for a screwdriver. That's the best I can come up with at present.

I have had several "I don't need a man!" moments, too.

My proudest was when I had to move my SLEEPER SOFA (not the cute, foam Ikea-type sofas; the real deal heavy-as-hell, queen-sized spring mattress type with all the bulky metal fittings holding it onto the sofa) from my living room, through the dining room, the slightly-too-small kitchen door, and the way-too-small kitchen, down the basement stairs. There was a moment when the back half of the thing was wedged in the kitchen door and the front half was wedged on the counter and under my wall cabinets that I thought I may have forever lost use of my kitchen. I had to move the refrigerator to get the sofa off the counter and to make a straight shot to the basement stairs, then remove the basement railing just to get it on the stairs. That's where I finally gave up-- it stayed on the stairs for about a week.

Unfortunately, I hadn't thought to bring my laundry upstairs prior to this adventure, so picture me crawling over a sofa on my stairs every morning as I went the basement to find clothes for work. I finally got around to removing the railing post which allowed me to turn the sofa off the stairs into my basement den.

On second thought, maybe this isn't my *proudest* moment. :)

One day, despite meticulous cleaning and properly sealed food, my place was invaded by ants. I didn't want to use pesticides (my cats get into EVERYTHING) and those ant bait things don't work on the neighborhood ants for some reason.

I sprinkled cayenne pepper at all of the cracks where ants were entering my living room so they would stop coming in (ants do NOT like that stuff). Then, as I don't own a caulking gun, I used my hot glue gun to glue the cracks closed.

I lured the ants who had already gotten in onto a dustpan with the help of a few sugar cubes, then set them free outside.

Four years later, the hot glue is still holding up, and the ants are staying outside where they belong.

Laugh and enjoy:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/xieta/2777808391/in/set-72157603804509588/

i've never really counted or even organised in my head all of my macgyver moments. but, they happen out of necessity, when i need to call for a creative solution to a problem.

for instance, my ac broke so i bought a cheap unit on sale & cannibalised it. it ended up being far cheaper than having someone repair my old one, or buying another one with the same features:
http://flickr.com/photos/blackfeathers/sets/72157607016610731/

i've taken apart remotes and placed foil on the worn out button contacts to restore functionality. i've also pulled out a resistor to a tilt sensor to increase battery life (from weeks to months) on a universal remote:
http://flickr.com/photos/blackfeathers/sets/72157607734827820/

i've put together multi-booting oses on appliances turned computers in 2000 -but everybody does that. i've used conduit piping & pipe fittings to make modern curtain rods after. i've done a few ikea hacks that's been done before. this one for example: http://flickr.com/photos/blackfeathers/sets/72157607014052490/

sometimes browsing stores (like ikea, hardware, electronics, office, online, even toy stores, or whatever) gives you ideas that were unrelated but that you never thought of before.

I'm happy to say i married my own MacGyver, not Richard Dean Anderson but the most resourceful person i know. I swear the man can fix and/or create anything.

when we first started dating, i would refer to him as MacGyver all the time and my family just didn't believe it, until one Thanksgiving my sister pulls up and her car alarm kill switch is malfunctioning at the most inopportune moments (like idling at a traffic light!) So Rich (my hubs) exclaims "I can fix it! do you have any tools?" much laughter and doubt all around (except from me as i know he can fix it, really the man can fix anything). Flurry of activity produces nothing more than a swiss army tool and a butter knife. So Rich gets to work, dressed in coat and tie and successfully performs the necessary repairs, overrides the kill switch and redirects the horn blowing thing that car alarms do.

Did i say he works at a desk job? from looking at him you would never in a million years know his alias is Bob Angus MacGyver Vila.

ever since that Thanksgiving my family calls him MacGyver and whenever he goes to visit my mom or siblings he's called to consult on various home repair / construction projects.

I am the luckiest girl on the planet, not only did i marry my best friend he's super duper handy to boot!

i turned one ponytail holder into two for pigtails.

I used dark blue duct tape to trim a whiteboard cut to fit the top of a foosball table:

http://flickr.com/photos/areneetay/3305644730/

and then I used contact paper to transform cardboard file boxes into something decorative:

http://flickr.com/photos/areneetay/3305645020/

and does using hand-me-downs, clearance, yard sales and craigslist items to furnish my house count?

Alright, this is bad, but true. Recently, I had to remove the door from the hinges (leading to the basement), so that the Sears deliverymen could bring in a new washing machine and remove the old one.

When I put the door back on the hinges, the door, for some reason, began squeaking. So, I removed the door, again, from the hinges, applies a couple drops of Eros (personal lubricant) into the hinges, and reattached the door. It worked. I may even try the Eros on my bicycle chain.

I didn't know he really existed, I thought he was a creation of SNL.

these are hilarious! thanks for the pictures too!

Once the shower drain under the cabin froze solid and I had no hair dryer, portable heater or even a long extension cord so i crawled into the crawl space under the house and started and tended a mini fire directly under the bend in the pipe until it warmed up and the ice in the pipe melted. Please don't tell my husband.

Other best MacGuyver moment was making a hash pipe in Cairo from an apple, drinking straw and the screen from the bathroom faucet...

I do things all the time, with an art teaching background to draw from for creative solutions, so they don't immediately come back to me as anything useful for others...

This one is lame, but it springs to mind... In my old apartment, I didn't have a lot of lamps. (Enough, but not extra.) When I turned off the livingroom lamp and headed for bed, it was often REALLY dark, and sometimes I would mis-judge the exact place where the bedroom door was -- with minor collisions to remind me.

I put a little piece of glow-in-the-dark material (polymer clay I had on hand for crafting) at eye level on the corner. It would get sufficiently charged by the lamplight that I could see the corner well enough to reach the bedroom door and it's light switch without incident. (McGyver would yawn...)

When I was in high school I threw a party at my mother's beachhouse (she let me...that was suspiciously generous of her). Unfortunately the only music system was an old 90's stereo...but it was hooked up to speakers throughout the house. I'll never forget when my best friend Magen busted out with her iPod and grabbed some tin foil and somehow managed to connect her iPod through the ancient stereo system into the speakers using only Reynold's Wrap.

Amazing.

I had a MacGyver moment, but it didn't involve anything around the house.

Once, as a student in Italy, I ended up having to use a rather unfortunately placed bathroom in a restaurant. It was a standard one-toilet one sink bathroom with no stalls, just open the door and there it is. What made this bathroom so unfortunate was that the door opened outward to the most crowded part of the restaurant (absolutely full of people. The door also didn't lock. And the toilet was too far away from the door to hold it shut while "on the job".

I knew that as soon as I sat down someone was going to come and open the door, exposing me to the whole freaking place. So I took off my belt, made a loop with it, and snugged it up around the door handle.

Sure enough, about ten seconds later I ended up in a tug-of-war with someone trying to get in. It may not have been a complex MacGyver, but I am still proud of my situational analysis and reaction!

overheard Richard Dean being less than gentlemanly to a woman at a bar. he didn't take kindly to me sticking up for her. long story short, I ended up securing an indian burn that had him crying uncle. that is my proudest MacGyver moment.