Hands-On Home Showroom

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Hand-On Home Showroom is a website concept where furniture and home accessories are listed (similar to an online store,) but instead of the option to "buy it now," visitors are offered plans, tutorials and supply resources to make it themselves - whether identical to what is shown or customized to their own personal needs.

The reasons we're passionate about this project and think it could benefit a lot of others include:

- New technology makes it possible to build better things with fewer tools and less experience. This is great for people who lack experience, people with physical limitations, and people with limited work space (like apartment dwellers).
- Open source and free design software allows unprecedented accessibility to powerful design tools (Inkscape, 123D Catch, Blender, GIMP, SketchUp, etc.) - which we will demonstrate how to use for those who might feel intimidated.
- Making something yourself means it is likely you can fix it if it breaks - decreasing how frequently you throw things away.
- By cutting out some manufacturers and retailers you can reduce your cost and make something with the exact colors, prints, and materials you want to live with.
- Making your own furniture allows you total design control as well as the option to add another matched piece to your living room if your family expands or your living space changes, for example.
- Designing your dishes in Blender and having them 3D printed in ceramic allows you to replace/reprint dishes if one breaks or your needs change.  No need to live with mismatches or buying full replacement sets.
- Having large or small wooden components cut with a laser or CNC router means that you can often assemble them with a simple set of basic hand tools - reducing your cost and barrier to entry but allowing complete personal design control.
-The site we have planned allows for the addition of more designers over time.  Using new technology in this way opens up design possibilities that were not practical for mass manufacturing.  Designers with limited visibility/experience or a specific market have the opportunity to show their work and reach a new market.
- The prize being offered by Jack Daniels would be enough to make a very comprehensive collection of furnishings and promote the related website. We have proven skills and experience to build the website as well as do all of the photo/video work ourselves.
- Revenue would be generated primarily through offering advertising space on the web site.  This means we do not need to sell products directly to our readers to continue making new products for the showroom.  Our readers never need to purchase anything to learn how things are made but have the option to buy pieces (from sites like Ponoko, Shapeways, Spoonflower, etc) to duplicate the projects shown if they choose to do so.


This project is a collaboration between:

Technoplastique // Kris DeGraeve //
Instructables Profile
Personal Blog
Bachelor's Degree in Visual Art/Design

Antibromide // Carly DeGraeve // 
Instructables Profile
Personal Blog
Bachelor's Degree in Textiles

We also co-write How Did You Make This?

The sample project shown is an older project by Technoplastique: Retro Style Wood Veneered Table Clock