Make-It Monday: DIY phone speakers

Several weeks ago, I wandered down the book aisle at Lowe’s. The book aisle is the main reason I can’t be trusted at a hardware store without adult supervision. I start thumbing through some home-improvement book, thinking about all the stuff I’d like to learn to do, and the next thing you know, Ron is coming home from work to find the bathroom sink on the curb and me sitting on the bathroom floor with a wrench in my hand, tightening the supply-line valves on our brand-new faucets. (This has happened twice, and given the condition of our current vanity, I think the odds are fairly high it’s going to happen again as soon as I find a sink I like.)

Ron was with me this time, so I just came home with a copy of 5-Gallon Bucket Book by Chris Peterson.

Anybody who’s ever walked through a feed store with me already knows I can’t resist a 5-gallon bucket. They’re just so bloody practical. I’ve got one I use for cleaning the pond, one for cleaning the quail pen, one in the backyard that Ron uses as a dog-poop receptacle, one for mixing laundry detergent, one with a spigot attached for filtering honey, one in the basement for mixing cold-process soap, two on the porch for growing plants, and one tucked in a cabinet for use as a trash can.

Some of the projects in 5-Gallon Bucket Book are kind of goofy, but some seemed practical (swamp cooler, pond filter, worm bin), and a handful were intriguing enough, I thought they might be worth trying later.

One of the intriguing projects was an acoustic speaker dock, which I built last week from a pair of buckets, a 10-inch length of 2-inch PVC pipe, and a couple of PVC slip couplings.

The instructions called for sealing the whole thing with PVC cement and silicone caulk, but I skipped that step so I can disassemble the system and store it easily when I’m not using it.

I think the finished product — pictured above (minus the iPhone itself, which I used to take the photo) — works pretty well for listening to Joni Mitchell while I’m cleaning the house on a lazy Saturday afternoon, and it would make a killer science-fair project for one of my nieces or nephews in a few years.

Emily