The Great American Advertising Machine has our brains well-trained. Every night we sit there on the sofa after a long day of toil (earning money to buy stuff) and stare at the box: what blogger Everett Bogue has referred to as “the infernal ad-spewing machine“. Even TV-addicted toddlers soon learn to “need” everything they see advertised on their favorite shows and thus begins our lifelong pursuit of the stuff that’s supposed to – among other things – boost our status, give us sex-appeal, make us deliriously happy and solve all our problems.
Of course, problems come in all shapes and sizes but many of them are relatively minor and relate more to comfort and convenience than anything else. Might there be another way to solve many of these problems besides throwing a big pile of hard-earned money at them? Is it possible that a bit of do-it-yourself creativity and resourcefulness could get the job done just as well or even better? You bet.
A couple days ago, I did just that – and it only cost me pennies plus about 45 minutes of creativity. You see, like so many of you I have a laptop and I like to actually use it on my lap, especially while seated on my nice comfy couch in the living room. Problem is I hate the little built-in touchpad thingy that’s on it, so I use a standard USB mouse. But given the direction and angle that’s most convenient for me to sit on the couch (with my feet up, mind you), it’s hard to use. I tried stuffing a small pillow down beside me to put my mouse pad on, but the mouse would slide off and screw up my display, or not track well on the curved surface created by the pillow. I also had to kinda scrunch up my shoulder to use it and that would get uncomfortable after awhile. So it was clear I needed to buy a lapdesk.
Wait. What?
I needed to buy a lapdesk?
Really?
Whenever we’re confronted with a problem like this, we have to learn to ask the right questions. Do I really need to buy a lapdesk, or do I need a way to use my laptop comfortably while sitting on the couch? What is the real problem here? (Answer: no place to use the mouse.) What is needed? (Answer: a flat place to use the mouse that’s comfortably beside the laptop, just as when I use it at a standard desk.)
So what we really have is this:
Q: How can I create a way to comfortably use my USB mouse with my laptop while sitting on the sofa?
A: I can make a “flat place”.
(Let the brainstorming begin!)
Before I show you how I solved my “flat place problem”, let’s go over some of the reasons why you should start to retrain yourself to think DIY:
1. You will save money. Buying a few inexpensive materials and substituting your own time and labor for all the middlemen and markups that come with a purchased solution is almost always cheaper. Case in point: last summer, one of the bolts on my toilet tank started leaking. I spent about 3 hours checking through a home repair book, did some Googling, went to the hardware store for advice and a $3.00 toilet bolt kit and fixed it myself. I saved at least $80 in plumber’s fees and plus I now understand how the innards of a toilet tank work. I didn’t waste time tracking down a plumber and waiting (hoping) he’d show up. And hey, I own this knowledge now! (By the way, by spending three hours plus $3.00 to save $80 I “earned” about $26 an hour. Not bad!)
2. If you carry debt, you are less likely to dig the hole deeper. Too often these days, when people suddenly decide they have a “need” like a lapdesk, they go out and buy it whether they can afford it or not. Out comes the plastic (and studies have shown that you’re very likely to spend more than when paying cash), on piles the interest. And the beat goes on.
3. Chances are very good that you will actually save time. Shopping is a major time-suck. I mean major. How many stores will you have to go to until you find what you “need” in the color, size, or configuration that will work – at a price you can live with? How long to find a place to park, then hike through the mall to the stores you think might have it, only to be told, “We’re all out ma’am. But we can order it for you.”
4. You can customize your project to perfectly suit your needs. You can test your “prototype” under your unique real-world conditions and come up with a solution that money can’t buy because massed produced items tend to solve problems generically and to the lowest common denominator.
5. It’s better for the environment. Anyone who’s been paying attention knows we’re on the brink of any number of resource shortages (including oil) and our current buy-it-from-the-other-side-of-the-planet mindset is just not sustainable. Every time you can solve a problem close to home with minimal “outside inputs” you are impacting the planet less.
6. The more DIY you do, the less time you have to spend earning money at a job that you may not love all that much. Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin made this point very clearly in Your Money or Your Life. Think about it: what if your actual hourly wage is $20 per hour (after you subtract your job costs from your gross hourly wage) and you spend $2 to make a “flat place” instead of $20 for a made-in-China lapdesk with a huge carbon footprint? That means your DIY solution cost you only six minutes on the job instead of one hour. If you still think it’s cheaper to buy your way to every solution, don’t forget to add in the time it takes for you to earn the money to make that purchase.
7. Dang, it’s satisfying. We humans are inherently creative but we don’t get to exercise that muscle much any more. That’s because we’ve been trained to buy our lives instead of creating them. After you’ve completed a couple of these simple DIY solutions, you may find the satisfaction addictive!
Okay, ready to see how I solved my little problem?
First step is to decide on the size. I had been using a piece of cardboard from a 14" x 17" pad of paper and that fit the laptop well. But how much more room did I need for the mousepad? The green cutting mat is 24" wide and that seemed about right. So the final measurements needed to be 14" deep x 24" wide.
Materials scrounged from around the house: two pieces of 20" x 30" Fomecor (3/16" thick), paper backed adhesive tape, utility knife and a ruler. You could just as easily use white glue, rubber cement or a fresh glue stick in place of the tape, but I didn't have any.
One piece of Fome Cor has been cut to size and I'm testing it while sitting on the couch. I decide that corner will have to be trimmed as I usually sit at an angle and it will jam into the cushion. The second piece of board will be cut to the same dimensions.
Positioning the mousepad, I decide how much of the corner will be trimmed off. I decide to do it at an angle rather than a 90 degree notch to maintain the structural integrity of the board.
Sticky tape positioned on the back of one of the boards. The brown tape will be peeled off leaving just a thin strip of adhesive.
The two identically trimmed boards now stuck together to form the lapdesk. You can see the pile of adhesive paper strips in the background.
Testing again. So far, so good!
I don't want the USB mouse cord or the power cord (not shown) to get in the way of using the mouse pad. I need to cut a slot in the board so both cords can come up from underneath, and stay out of my way. With the computer and mousepad in position, I've sketched the dimensions of the slot.
The slot has been cut. The focus is fuzzy, but here you can see both cords coming up from below the board.
The finished "flat place" or lapdesk. After using it for about an hour, I decided one final modification was needed.
That pesky corner needed to be rounded off, so I traced an outline with a bowl, trimmed it with an X-acto knife and my project was done!
I can’t say for certain how much this cost, since all the materials were left over from other projects. I do know the Fome Cor was purchased at a really good sale price so I can say with confidence the total for the project was under $2.00. By the way, if you don’t have FomeCor, you could just as easily use 3 or 4 layers of corrugated cardboard arranged with the ribs alternating 90 degrees for strength. Thin plywood or Masonite would also work – with a saw – but would weigh more.
I’ve been using my lapdesk for two days now and it works perfectly. It’s very rigid, only weighs a few ounces, is 3/8ths of an inch thick and will slip easily out of sight behind the couch when it’s not needed.
Simple. Easy. Cheap. Green. You can’t get much better than that!
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