Day: June 20, 2022

DIY: Bed Rail Table

Writ­ten: June 2022

What: A plat­form or table set on the rail­ing of a loft or bunk bed

Sup­plies: Wood, ruler, saw, wood screws, sand­pa­per, drill/driver, wood glue, clamps, wood filler (opt), stain/paint (opt), adhe­sive craft foam (opt)

Time: 1–3 hours depend­ing on skill lev­el and exclud­ing dry­ing time for glue

Process

Wood, mea­sured, designed
Cut prep
Cuts fin­ished, now sand­ing
3 lev­els of sand­ing
Glue!
Glued, placed, clamped. Now wait.
Pilot hole drilling, screw dri­ving, and done! Unless you want to fin­ish it by fill­ing holes and paint­ing

Product Application

It fits!
Took into con­sid­er­a­tion the post
Grabs onto the rail­ing
Move­able
What I’m using it for

Notes:

  • I set mine a lit­tle loose, but if you want it tighter, then you can add craft foam padding. The adhe­sive backed ones would also add a side ben­e­fit of being non-mar­ring when you slide it along the rail
  • Fin­ish­ing the wood table/platform would give it a much more pol­ished look and you can match the paint col­ors. Plus, wood filler would nice­ly hide the screw holes
  • The super skin­ny piece of wood (it was a paint stir­rer) was there to com­pen­sate for the post and pre­vent rock­ing

DIY Simple Dog Urine Collection Stick (No Bending Down!)

Writ­ten June 2022, updat­ed 7/2024

What

Pole for col­lect­ing dog urine for sam­pling

Sup­plies

Any stick or pole, hose clamps, col­lec­tion con­tain­er, screw­driv­er

Time

10 Min­utes

Mate­ri­als Used

  • 25–38mm Hose Clamp (x2)
  • 10–16mm Hose Clamp (x1)
  • 48 in x ⁷⁄₁₆ in (L x W) Gar­den Stake (x1)
  • Ster­ile Col­lec­tion Cup (x1)

Cost

ItemAmount
48in Pow­der Coat­ed Met­al Gar­den Stake$2.33 (1 qty)
60 pc Assort­ed Hose Clamp Kit$12.99 (1 kit)
Ster­ile Col­lec­tion Cup$7.99 (5 qty)
Total$23.31
Total per Col­lec­tion Stick$4.59

Process

  • Make a ring to place the col­lec­tion cup in with­out it falling through all the way
  • Use a small­er clamp to con­nect the pole to the large ring
  • Place col­lec­tion con­tain­er of your choice into ring
  • Make sure your pet isn’t afraid of it before using to col­lect
    2 clamps togeth­er
    small­er clamp
    pole con­nect­ed

    Notes

    • Used a plas­tic gar­den stake because: it’s rigid, has ridges on there to pre­vent the clamp from shift­ing, easy to clean, resist rust with plas­tic coat­ing
    • Any width gar­den stake or pole can be used. I just hap­pened to have the ⁷⁄₁₆ inch one
    • The largest hose clamp avail­able was the 25–38mm, but the nice thing about them is that you can just con­nect small­er ones togeth­er (by feed­ing the ends into the neigh­bor­ing tight­en­er) to make a larg­er one
    • Adding a non-slip han­dle is as easy as wrap­ping vet wrap which can there­fore be changed out when you want to. Or what­ev­er you want to wrap it with