I have learned, over the past 79 days or so, that the apartment I moved into in January is not a good summer apartment. The result is nothing fancy, but it’s lightweight and does a good job of keeping the ugly bulk of the AC unit hidden away.
Behold: the easiest, cheapest DIY AC cover you can make at home (with materials, I might add, from the art supply store).
• Four strips of lightweight wood, cut to your window/AC dimensions. This project would be <a href="https://www.remodelista.com/posts/7-easy-summer-diy-projects-with-painters-drop-cloths/">yet another nice use for a canvas drop cloth</a>, but I used the cheapest painter’s canvas I could find at Blick: I paid $5.17 for a yard.
Materials
Measure the interior of your window where you’d like the cover to sit. An important note: We have deep windowsills, so I opted for narrow strips of wood that would stand up on their own, like a frame, in front of the AC unit, and still leave quite a bit of bare windowsill.
1. Measure.
2. Make a frame.
Cut your four pieces of wood to size: two strips for the length you measured, two strips for the height.
The wood that I got from the art supply store was thin enough that I cut it with an X-Acto knife (I wanted my frame to be extra lightweight), but you could also use hardier wood and have it cut to your measurements.
Holding the frame in place while it dries. Then, if the wood is thick enough, you can add some hardware to secure it if need be.
Lay out your cloth and measure the length and width of your frame, with three extra inches added to each measurement. It’ll be harder to get out wrinkles once it’s on the frame.
3. Cut and position the cloth.
Lay your cloth over your frame and tuck it down inside. It should lay flat and tight along the bottom (this will be the front of the cover).
Another note: You could also stretch the cloth over the front and sides of the frame if you don’t want to see the wood.
Use clips or clothespins (these are bulldog clips I picked up at Blick; 59 cents each) to hold the canvas in place.
4. Staple it in place.
Stapling the canvas in place. Using a staple gun, staple the canvas to one side of the frame as close to the bottom of the wood as you can.
Here’s what to do in the corners: pucker the canvas into a triangle, then tuck to one side and staple.
The finished product (at least, until I buy a staple gun and stretch the canvas tighter).
5. Set into the window and admire.
Above L: Our bedroom window, before.
The End Result
The cover is big enough to cover the whole AC unit.
There’s still enough room on the sill for a spray of flowers and two round stones collected on a recent trip to Block Island.
The new window in evening, with light coming from the kitchen. It’s a simple solution but already it’s an improvement on the unsightly realities of summer in the city.