Get Your Man Card Back! 7 DIY Projects For Men
What’s going on, men? Women have seemingly taken over the realm of DIY. Even the connotation of the term “do-it-yourself” has become more arts and crafts than built by hand. A quick web search of DIY projects will show you more jewelry boxes than toolboxes. Still, despite this common perception, there are some macho projects out there; you just need to know where to find them. Which is why we’ve scoured the web to put the “man” back in “handyman.” Here are seven, bold DIY projects perfect for the average man. All sourced from some manly, and some not-so-manly, websites to which we think you’ll want to subscribe.
1. Make Your Own Sports Drink
The first rule in any sport is to stay hydrated, but instead of paying for the overpriced and unhealthy sports drinks, why not make your own. We found these instructions for making your own healthy sports drinks on everydayroots.com. This all-natural drink – made mostly from fruit – is packed with vitamins and electrolytes. It’s sure to keep you feeling energized while you work up a sweat on the rest of your projects.
2. The Best Beef Jerky
Men like meat and nothing hits the spot quite like a nice piece of jerky, but when you buy prepackaged jerky from the store or the gas station, it is usually ridiculously over-priced. Save yourself some money and make your own. “The Best Beef Jerky in the World,” can be made from recipe found on one of the manliest websites around, www.artofmanliness.com. The recipe yields five pounds and the only equipment you need is a knife, a large container with a lid, aluminum foil, and a plastic or wooden spoon. Aside from the jerky, every minute you spend on artofmanliness.com will make your chest hair grow.
3. A Leather-Bound Cover for Your Tablet
If you want to show someone that you’re “kind of a big deal” and you “don’t quite know how to put it,” just show them your leather- bound, DIY iPad case. This guide for creating an ironic kindle cover out of an old book that I found on squidoo.com, can be easily adapted to any tablet. It’s a simple six-step process of hollowing out a section of an old book, then using glue to seal everything into place. When you show up to work and open your copy of War and Peace only to reveal your iPad, even Ron Burgundy, one of the manliest of men, will be amazed.
4. Barn-Style Closet Doors
We’ve never seen Clint Eastwood’s closet doors, but we like to imagine that they are some of the manliest sliding doors in the world, like the ones you’ll be able to make after you read this tutorial from babyrabies.com. We hoped this site was about babies with rabies, but instead it was about people who are rabid for babies (odd, we know). Nevertheless, their DIY guide to hanging barn doors for your closet was one of the most detailed that I researched. This step-by-step tutorial contains detailed schematics that will make you feel like a master carpenter and the finished product will make the answer to the question, “Do I feel lucky?” a resounding, “Yes!”
5. An Outdoor Cooker from an Old Keg
Man’s love of beer, meat, fire, and ingenuity all come together to create the wondrous keg grill. It is truly a miracle that the world didn’t end on the day this was invented. The most amazing part of this project is that it requires no welding. The instructions for creating this monument to machismo can be found at instructables.com. The easy-to-follow instructions include plenty of photos of the process. To be extra helpful, the photos contain several notes to alert you to potential problems. Just imagine the looks on your buddies’ faces when you invite them over for a barbecue and they see the splendor of your keg grill. Then when you tell them that you built it yourself, they will all be jealous of your manly DIY skills, until one of them takes on the next project on this list.
6. A Masonry Fire Pit
This project is the perfect combination of old-meets-new. The old, reliable, Popular Mechanics, has gone digital and we found this project on their website, the aptly named popularmechanics.com. The instructions for the project are very detailed and even include information about how to build the accompanying benches out of logs. The project will require a lot of work and you will likely need an assistant, but if it doesn’t release your primal man nothing will. What is more primitive than using your own hands to build a stone structure that will contain fire?
7. Your Own Air Conditioning Unit for Under $30
You’ve undoubtedly worked up quite a sweat if you’ve been working on all these projects. It’s time to cool off but don’t rely on the good old-fashioned AC in your home or apartment. Unleash your inner MacGyver and build your own AC unit out of a Styrofoam cooler, some plastic tubing, an aquarium pump, and a small electric fan. We found this project on lifehacker.com. The instructions on this particular project left much to be desired, but the site is full of manly DIY ideas and the comments sections are often as informative as the articles themselves. So get to it. No more sitting around while the ladies create all the cool stuff, guys. It’s time to take control of your projects. Use these resources to make your house and home the way you want them to be.
