| We have had dozens of fun home improvement / DIY projects going on in the last couple days, which partly explains our absence from posting. We’ve been so busy making our house incredible that it’s become too much of a task to put all of the transformation into one post – there’s literally too much to say. So we’ll spread it out a little bit project by project and then show the before and after…it’s worth the wait! We had a three day weekend (well, Javi had a three day weekend, holidays don’t count in PhD world but it was nice to have him home on Monday) so Javi decided it was now or never time to turn the guest room into an office. I’m still not used to Javi coming up with an idea and then executing it in a matter of a few hours or days…in my brain these kinds of transformations happen over weeks or months (like the screened in porch, or the dog houses…I thought we’d still be working on those now). Sure enough, I’m currently writing from a 2×8 desk that Javi built for both of us in our new, blue and beautiful office.I’ve had dreams about themes for this office for awhile (well…the theme being the oh-so-creative office theme, if you can imagine) and when we went to Lowes to find white chalkboard paint (turns out my friend who tipped me off on the white chalkboard paint really meant whiteboard paint, which is pretty cool but not what I wanted) I instead found magnetic paint. Yes, magnetic paint. It was the heaviest little can of paint ever, but we brought it home and spread it over two of the four walls. As it turns out, this stuff is incredibly smelly and hard to paint smooth but it’s pretty fun once it dries. We covered half of one wall and then painted a strip along the wall above the desk, and I have to say it’s absolutely necessary to paint three coats. I had enough for three coats on one wall but only two for the strip above the desk and the strip above the desk has a much, much weaker magnetic pull. That being said, the strength of the magnetic paint isn’t astronomical…the can said it was “3x stronger than ever before” so I’m glad I didn’t get the “before” version. It doesn’t go on smooth because there are little metal particles in the paint that clump and streak..luckily for us we painted over it with a dark blue so it’s not all that noticeable. Wear a mask when you’re painting this stuff! |
Tenemos docenas de entretenidos projectos de decoracion que hemos hecho durante los ultimos dias, lo que explica en parte porque no hemos posteado mucho. Hemos estado tan ocupados mejorando nuestra casa que se ha vuelto mucho material como para poner en un solo post toda la transformacion – en verdad hay muchas cosas. Asi que lo separaremos en varios projectos pequenos y despues mostraremos el antes y despues….vale la pena esperar!
Tuvimos un fin de semana largo (bueno, Javi tuvo un fin de semana largo, los feriados no cuentan en el mundo del doctorado pero fue rico tenerlo en casa el lunes) asi que Javi decidio que era ahora o nunca el momento de convertir nuestra pieza de alojados en una oficina. Todavia no me acostumbro a que Javi tenga un idea y la ejecute en un cosa de horas o dias…en mi cerebro este tipo de cosas pasan en semanas o meses (como el porch, las casas de perros….pense que todavia estariamos trabajando en eso). Pero claro, estoy ahroa escribiendo en el escritorio que Javi construyo para nosotros en nuestra nueva oficina.He tenido suenos sobre que tema decorative usar para la oficina por algun tiempo (bueno…el tema siendo la tan creativa oficina si se pueden imaginar) y cuando fuimos a Lowes a buscar pintura de pizarron de tiza blanca (paso que la amiga que me dio la idea del pizarron de tiza blanco se referia a pizarra blanca para plumones, lo que existe y es genial pero no lo que yo queria) en vez de eso encontre pintura magnetic. Si, magnetica!. Era el tarrito de pintura mas pesado que existe, pero lo trajimos a casa y pusimos en 2 de las 4 murallas. Y paso que esta pintura huele muy mal y es dificil de pintar con una terminacion suave, pero es muy entretenida cuando se seca.Cubrimos la mitad de una muralla y pintamos una franja justo al frente del escritorio, y tengo que decir que es absolutamente necesario pintar 3 manos. Tenia suficiente para las 3 manos de la media muralla pero solo 2 manos para la franja de los escritorios, y eso significa que la franja tiene mucho menos poder magnetic. Dicho eso, la fuerza magnetic de la pintura no es astronomica…el tarro dice “3 veces mas fuerte que antes” asi que estoy contenta de que no compre la version anterior. No queda con textura muy suave porque la pintura tiene pequnas particulas metalicas que se aglomeran y forman grumos….por suerte pinte sobre la pintura magnetica con el color de la oficina (azul oscuro) asi que no se nota tanto. Usen mascara si pintan con este producto! |
| So once the magnetic paint was dry I wanted to use the wall for things like posting reminders, bills, forms to fill out, etc. etc. but I didn’t have any magnets that went with the office theme. I’m one of those tourists who buys a magnet (or tries to remember to buy a magnet) everywhere I go, so I do have plenty of magnets. While travel magnets are excellent for making my fridge look tacky, I didn’t want them in the office. I set out to find “office magnets” on pinterest (I’ll say, sometimes I forget about pinterest but when it comes to getting fun decorating ideas it always comes through) and found this page that had a great idea for turning a computer keyboard into magnets. I didn’t actually read the instructions because it seemed (and was) pretty easy to do. Javi and I went to goodwill and bought a cheap keyboard for $4 and 48 disc magnets from Office Max. We washed the keyboard and took out 48 of our favorite keys (all the letters and numbers plus a few commands like “power,” “enter,” “esc,” – the fun ones) and Javi took them down to the workshop to cut off and sand down the little tubes on the backside of the keys. Once he had them all ready I put superglue on the edges of the little circle under the keys and glued the magnetic discs on the back and voila! Keyboard magnets. Minus the trip to Goodwill, it took about 45 minutes to make these. They look awesome in the office, I must say, and work pretty well! |
Asi que una vez que la pintura se seco, queria usar la muralla para poner cosas como recordarios, cuentas, documentos, etc…pero no tenia ningun iman que iba bien con el tema oficina. Yo soy uno de esos turistas que compra imanes (o trata de acordarse de comprar imanes) en cada lugar que visito. Mientras estos imanes son excelentes para hacer ver mi refrigerador ridiculo, no los queria en mi oficina. Asi que me puse a buscar imanes de oficina en pinterest (a veces me ovido de pinterest pero cuando estoy buscando cosas para decorar siempre me salva con muy buenas ideas) y encontre esta pagina que tenia una gran idea de como hacer las teclas del computador imanes.
No lei las instruciones porque parecia (y fue) bien facil de hacer. Javi y yo fuimos a la tienda de articulos usados y compramos un teclado barato for $4 y 48 imanes pequenos en disco en Office Max. Limpiamos el teclado sacamos mis 48 teclas favoritas (todas las letras mas unos numeros y otros comandos como “power”, “enter”, “esc” – los esntretenidos) y Javi los corto y lijo para que quedaran planos en la parte de atras. Luego use superpegamento para pegar las teclas a los imanes y listo! Teclas magneticas. Sin el viaje a la tienda, me demore como 45 minutos en hacerlas. Se ven genial en la oficina, tengo que decir, y funcionan muy bien! |
Los Rodriguez Life 
4 responses to “DIY Magnetic Keyboard”
Nice! Love the idea, and Lord know I have a bunch of dead keyboards around the house. Interesting read as always!
Thanks Nathan! I know I actually threw away a keyboard a few months ago and when I decided to do this project I hoped I could find a cheap one…turns out Goodwill has a ton of dead keyboards haha. Hope all is well!
Great idea! Totally cool.
[…] it is…our beautiful new office! We’ve already told you about the bookshelves, desks and magnetic paint. Here are a few more details about the work we put into this little cozy corner of the house.My […]