Friday, June 3, 2011

DIY Draft Stopper

Because I don't have much else to show you right now (I will take pictures of my failed/semi-failed clothes attempts and show you, hopefully soon-ish), I thought I'd show you my draft stopper. David's been asking me to make one of these for some time. It was so quick, I'm not sure why it took me so long to get to it, but it's finally done. Now, we need to have something at the door crack all the time. If it's not to keep out the bad burnt food smells or cigarette smoke from other people's apartments, then it's to keep our "bought" air (air conditioned air) inside our apartment and not cooling the entire hallway outside our door. We were using our kitchen mat, bunched up at the door crack, but this was a pain for a few reasons.

  1. I have a kitchen mat to be used in the kitchen not jammed under my door.
  2. When we left our apartment, we had no way of jamming it back under the door and so our "bought" air would escape.
  3. Every time we needed to open the door (think: check the mail, do laundry, take out the garbage etc), we'd have to move the silly mat. This was especially a pain if you had your hands full. The matt stuck to the carpet just enough to make it too difficult to just kick out of the way.
All of this was in consideration when "designing" a draft stopper. I use 'design' lightly, as I'm fully aware that there's not much design to it. In any case. This is what I came up with.



I surged a tube of semi-slippery fabric. The idea being that it could glide along the top of the carpet without too much trouble.

(you can see how much of a crack there is between the floor and the door)

I sewed three ribbon tabs spread across the length of the tube then pulled them under the door and stapled them in place.

(my, what an ugly door!)


This keeps the draft stopper attached to the door. It just hangs around and does it's job whenever the door is closed.

So far, so good. I never have to touch it, it functions well and hey, it's one more project out of my brain and off my sewing desk. Onward!

4 comments:

Hubbiest!! said...

Works like a charm, except for those gross burned meals we smell coming from somewhere down the hall. I love it!!

Jenni said...

What a fantastic idea to staple it to the door! Love it! :)

Jen said...

You rock!

Foam-By-Mail said...

These are a life saver when you live in a shared hallway and have drafts and other peoples' dinners wafting into your place. I have to say, I've seen the shredded foam pellet DIY stoppers before, but never one stapled to the outer door - such a great idea! You'll never forget to put it back in place!