Unremarkable things we made in 2026

Aluminum extrusion and neon acrylic were the defining materials of 2026’s most notable DIY builds, according to a year-end roundup of personal fabrication projects. A custom standing desk frame, assembled from several hundred linear inches of aluminum extrusion and mounted on electric standing-desk legs, supports a reclaimed Ikea tabletop and has been used for bike maintenance and arm-wrestling training. A separate project recreated a roughly 25-by-19-inch neon acrylic picture frame for a print sold by Work in Progress cafe in Costa Mesa, California, using quarter-inch neon green acrylic, birch plywood backing and mat, and neodymium magnets. The frame’s dimensions exceeded the roughly 24-by-12-inch workspace of an Epilog laser cutter, forcing the builder to design dovetail joinery so the backing and mat could be cut in pieces and assembled. The projects illustrate how hobbyist fabricators are working around fixed equipment limits with modular joinery rather than buying larger machines. What to watch next is whether these one-off workarounds—reclaimed tabletops, outsourced prints, undersized laser beds—remain a niche practice or push makers toward larger-format tools and standardized kit designs.