Monday, May 23, 2011

Bike Rack!


Lately our time has been taken up with creating one of these.

A bike rack! Actually we made two.


Hallelujah.


For some reason several of our bikes don't have stands. This means a garage/yard full of bikes, trikes, scooters, bike trailer, you name it with wheels, EVERYWHERE.

And it drives me us bonkers! I was almost ready to give it all away and insist my children sit in front of the tv everyday instead! Bikes be gone!! What do people with really large families do?


We have several building works happening in our street. That means there are a couple of skips out on the curb full to the brim of wood and interesting bits and pieces. The idea came to us that perhaps if we found the right amount of wood we could build a bike rack to solve our problems.


We were able to make the entire bike rack for free! Which added to solving our bike problem cause nothing is better than free! Did not spend one cent on this. We had some left over house paint samples in the shed courtesy of Karyn! Did you know that all respectable bike racks are PINK? Just ask Miss G. She insisted it be painted pink and even tried the line  'my teacher said bike racks are pink'


When the girls were sitting around squatting pulling nails out of the wood and then hammering the nails straight again so we could reuse them I felt like we were out of a recent documentary we watched about a suburb in India that Recycles the highest percentage of things in the world. I was really pleased that we were able to take used nailed wood and turn it into something useful.
.

Who knew this would keep them busy in the afternoon for days!! It might have taken four days (slowly in spurts) to make the first one but the MR knocked up the second in a hour or so Saturday afternoon. I'm thinking more wood working projects to keep the kids out of my hair! (but only when The MR is home to do all the work ;)


We googled some bike rack plan ideas and found a couple here at wood workers workshop that gave us a starting guide/idea of what to do.

We liked the look of this style.

We added nails to hang our helmets off.


Painting their creation.

Hopefully this will help us keep our garage and yard more clutter free *fingers crossed*

4 comments:

chibbylick said...

I love the garbage bag smock! what a great idea!

Betty said...

I also love the shopping bag apron. I usually do it the other way around but the handles as straps seem good too. Well done on the bike rack. We may have to do something similar when we move. We recently found a babysitter for all our kids and went to see a movie! Was wonderful! First time alone without a baby in 2 1/2 years lol.

Maioha said...

I am really impressed!!!!

Debby said...

Love it! Love it! Love it! All of it! I am currently on a mission to "fix" the garage of all the bikes and scooters and paraphenalia for the 4th time in 4 months and "for real" this time! I was just about to purchase an expensive bike rack on line (with not so good reviews) when I stumbled upon your picture of a home-made bike rack! What a concept! Who would've thunk? Build one OURSELVES! And get exactly what we want! How easily we overlook the sometimes best solutions and "just go buy it". This is the one I want to make with my two boys who love to tear apart and build and pound anything they can get their hands on especially if it involves tools and paint! We will start today! The only problem is I cannot find the specs to this exact bike rack you built from the wood working link in your blog. Can you resend a link - or your own specs (lengths of wood, distance between slats, etc)- if you still have it? Thanks! Very Grateful Mommy

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