Before & After: Nursery Construction

This is how the previous owners had the living room set up:

With all of their stuff gone this is what it looked like the day we moved in:

 

And then we added baseboards, took down shelving and put a new coat of paint on the walls and it looked like this:

Now, it looks like this:

Lewie built a small 6'x7' room off the kitchen that will someday be our walk in pantry but for the next few years will act as our daughters nursery.  You can see some of the construction progress here.  We moved our living room to a different area and although it was different at first, I love how it turned out.  The stairwell is more defined now and we took down the track lighting that we couldn't stand - the look, not to mention the waste of energy - and replaced it with a small light at the bottom of the stairs.  We continued the baseboards around the pantry to match with the rest of the house and painted it the same color as the kitchen walls.  On the inside I choose the color Pooh Corner which is a light green and because I cried in Home Depot when I saw it, we added the cutest, smallest fan in the whole world (it measures only 20" across!).

Back wall taken from front wall

Front wall with door taken from back wall

Cute fan!

We were lucky to have a vent in the area of the floor and an outlet so all Lewie had to add was a light switch for the fan.  Now the fun part begins, decorating and nesting!

Before & After: Bathroom

One of the many things we've updated since living in our new house is the bathroom. The bathroom seemed somewhat unfinished when we moved in. The whole room had no baseboards, it had patched holes in the walls and the door was painted in a patriotic red, white and blue complete with stars. I don't mind that, I just didn't want it on our bathroom door. So, we did a little sanding, painting and rearranging and ended up with a nice space that I now love.  Here are the before pictures:

Before:  bathroom door with wild colors and no baseboards

Before: Sink with no baseboards and wall that needed painted to right

Before: commode area, no baseboards

And here are the after pictures:

After:  Added shelf with towel rack and newly painted door

After:  Sink with added towel rack and baseboards

After:  commode area with baseboards

After:  wall art, South Carolina basket weavers

After:  South Carolina basket being used as a wash cloth holder

I love our bathroom sink which was an antique dresser that the previous owner turned into a sink and I think it really stands out now that it's not competing with the red, white and blue door.  The door was painted the same color as the baseboards and having those up along with a fresh coat of paint on the door and walls really makes a difference.  We bought a small 'floating' shelf that we got for under $15 at a home improvement store that we put on the wall opposite of the commode.  It's a nice area to put our wedding pictures and a few neat stones we've collected.  Under it we added a towel bar.  We didn't do much to the commode area besides a sand job to the walls and fresh paint.  I added two pictures above it that were a gift from my Mother-in-law of South Carolina basket weavers, along with a South Carolina basket below that I keep clean wash cloths in.  All in all the bathroom redo was a success and I'm enjoying the new space. 

Nursery Construction

As you may already know we are expecting a little surprise this summer and Lewie has been hard at work building a nursery.  When we moved into this house it only had one bedroom:  ours.  Our house is actually two stories.  The first is at ground level and we call it the basement, which is where my crafting room is, the laundry room and then a huge room that is unfinished.  The second floor is the living floor which consists of a very large room that is an open kitchen, fireplace nook, dinning room and living room.  This big room opens out onto a small deck in the back.  The other room on the second floor is our bedroom/bathroom/closet.  Eventually, the plan is to redo the basement into the bedrooms and make our current bedroom upstairs the living room.  So, in our rush to make a room ready for the baby Lewie built a pantry off the kitchen that is about 6.5x7.5.  So someday when we have the living room, dinning room, and kitchen upstairs we'll have a nice walk-in pantry which will be great for all of our canning supplies which right now are stored in several different places.  In the meantime though it will be the nursery right by our bedroom.  I know that when she's older she'll be like, "You made me sleep in the pantry?!" but it will make for a good story.  I'm so lucky that I married a genuine handyman who can just throw up a room like a professional.  Although I wish I did, I don't know the first thing about construction but for him it's like it comes naturally.  Every weekend the room gets more complete and I get more excited about meeting our daughter.  Here are some photos so far:

The frame work for the nursery

Drywall and installation going up

Mudding the drywall

As an added bonus we decided to take out the faux fireplace that had a propane heater in it and discovered about 8 more feet of usable space behind it - it even has hardwood floor!  We bought a great little wood burner off Craigslist and have decided to build a small corner wood burner area with tiles in the same spot.  So, while we are taking away from the room with the nursery, we gained space on the other side of the room with the fireplace being torn down.  It's important to us to be as off the grid as possible so a wood burner was the way to go - plus we are surround by free fuel, our woods!  Hopefully this will help with the bills this next winter and if the electricity ever goes out as least we can still cook and be warm.  Here is a look at the hidden room behind the fireplace:

Hidden room behind fireplace

Where the painted drywall begins is where there was a wall with a fireplace that closed off that extra 8 feet behind it.  As progress continues on both projects I will post more pictures.

Make It Yourself: Sandwich Bag Dryer

Regardless of what I do we always seem to have plastic sandwich bags.  I'd really like to break our habit of using them and although we have cut back we still end up needing one every now and then.  One thing that helps is washing the ones we do use for dry goods or non-meat products and reusing them.  This way they are at least getting more than one use before being thrown away and we buy them less often.  I didn't have a way to dry them so the dirty ones were stacking up in the sink.  I looked into purchasing a dryer like this one but most of the reviews I read said that eventually the wood will mold or rot because of the water, most are made in China and they can be pricey - some over $20.00 with shipping.  Then I came across this video by Michelle Kaufman - eco home designer.  I had to try it for myself.  I'm happy to say that it works!  I haven't been throwing bags away and have been cleaning and reusing the ones I have.

Supplies:

Wire - I used 16 Gauge Steel Galvanized Wire but Michelles Kaufman used wire coat hangers
Pliers
A few small flower pots
Seeds or plants to go in your pots

Directions:

Start by taking about 1 foot of your wire.  You can either just fold over one end to make a small circle, being sure to tuck in your cut end, or you can get crafty and make a design on the end - I made little flowers.

Next, stick these in your flower pots.

That's it!  After washing a bag, just place it upside down over your metal wire.  The water will drip down into the flower pot and eventually dry.

The cost breakdown:

So, is it worth it to make your own sandwich bag dryer or buy one at the store?

Pliers - free (almost all households have these - if not, just use your hands)
Flower pots / flowers - If you don't have any small pots you can usually buy these at any garden or superstore for less then 2 dollars.  I was able to get individual plants at Ace Hardware for $1.00 a piece which included enough dirt so I didn't have to buy that.  So I estimate that if you got 4 pots at $1.50 each and 4 flowers at $1.00 total this would cost about $10.00
Wire - You can use wire coat hangers if you have them - that's free.  If not, buy a galvanized wire (so it won't rust).  I was able to find this online for $5.49 but you can also buy this at many home improvement stores.

Total the most you would spend on this is $15.49 and depending on how big your flower pots are you should be able to fit about 2-3 wires in each pot leaving you with about 8-12 arms for drying bags.  I used flower pots and flowers I already had so really I only had to buy the wire, but like I mentioned you could just use an old coat hanger and then you wouldn't have to purchase anything.

VS.

Gaiam Countertop Plastic Bag Dryer which is $17.71 on Amazon.


The bottom line: if you bought everything from scratch you may only save a few dollars, however I think that the flower pot idea is more appealing - I have four pots with bag dryer wire in them sitting in my kitchen window and I just love how it looks.  You could even make them more useful by growing herbs to cook with in them.  Also, we have been trying to purchase things made in the USA or avoid buying something made in another country together so being able to make it is really nice.  Again, if you have a few flower pots and a coat hanger you get away with not purchasing anything and then you'd save almost $20.00.  Just another thing you can make yourself!

Color for mailbox?

Speaking of bulbs by the mailbox, every day I go up there to check on how they are doing and get the mail and I am reminded that our mailbox needs a face lift.  Our mailbox has seen better days.  I doesn't need replacing, it just needs a paint job.  Anyone have suggestions for color?  Most of the mailboxes on our street are barn red, dark brown or black.  It has to be a color that is darker because I'll also be using it to paint our house number on a large rock that's below the mailbox.  I hate to go buy a can but since we don't have anything lying around, I'm guessing I'll be using spray paint for this project.  RustOleum has a neat website where you can click on the type of object your covering and it gives you a list of sprays that will work on it.  I like this American Accent paint.  I like the Claret Wine and Lagoon.  What colors do you like or think I should paint the mailbox?

Before & After: Gutters/Soffit/Fascia

Before & After front

One of our goals this year was fix our roof.  When we moved in our house didn't have gutters or fascia and the soffit was falling apart.  With spring around the corner we knew it was something we had to take care of soon so that bees, wasps, birds, bats etc. didn't find a new home in our attic.  I know that it's not exciting for most people, but for us, with it being our first big home improvement project we tackled, it was so nice to see our house transform from looking like a barn to starting to look like a real house.  They finished up the work last week and we couldn't be happier.  We allowed for the gutters to come down on one side of the house near our garden so my next big project will be building a rain barrel.  It will be so nice to use water we collect from our roof to water our plants and use for the chickens.

Before & After gutter

Before & After side

Before & After back

With moving into a new house there are so many projects to work on; things to change and things to fix.  It's so satisfying to have something completed!

Twenty-eleven

Last year a lot happened in our lives.  We moved across country from New Mexico to Tennessee, we bought our first house and we started our little farm.  We still feel really lucky for everything that happened and fell into place for us.  And while 2010 was a good year I'm looking forward to 2011.  This year I have a few resolutions or goals to work on.  

1. Have a garden.  We've already made some preparations to have a garden.  We dug up a large space in our front yard tilled the dirt and added mushroom compost this past fall.  We'd love to add raised beds there with a small fence surrounding them but at the very least we'll be able to throw some seeds down this spring and hopefully have a few vegetable plants.  I'd love to have at least tomatoes, beans, lettuce, and peppers.  I can't wait for seed catalogs to start arriving - I love to look through them and plan.

2. Raise a pig.  We have enough acreage to have a few more animals and we've recently been talking about getting a pig to raise for meat.  While the thought of raising a cute little piglet just to later eat him/her breaks my heart, I don't generally think twice about it when I buy pork at the store and I have no idea where it came from, if it was treated humanely or what it ate.  I think that if you are going to eat meat, it's best to raise it yourself, treat it well and feed it right and then it will feed you well.  So, come this summer we may find ourselves looking for a pig to raise.

3. Remodel the loft.  We have a nice little loft over our garage and recently we've been talking about remodeling it.  Perhaps this is a good year to get the ball rolling.

4. Add gutters.  Believe it or not our house didn't have any gutters when we moved in.  It hasn't really been an issue but we know it's something we need to fix.  It will make our house look nicer, protect the siding of the house more and once up I can then start working on a rain barrel system for our garden.  I've also seen a gutter system hooked up to a chicken waterier and I'd like to look into to something like that for the coop. 

5. Landscape.  We have several seeds in the freezer right now that will be ready to plant this spring including persimmons and witch hazel.  I'd like to get these planted in pots and hopefully when they are big enough plant them around our property.  I'd also like to start working on a pollination garden by the barn.  We currently have a bat box over there and this summer I'll add my hummingbird feeders.  I'd love to plant some native honeysuckle and other butterfly and hummingbird friendly plants.  Also, this past fall I planted almost 100 bulbs up by our mailbox and I am so excited to see what it all looks like this spring. 

6. Read more.  I know this may seem silly to most readers who can and will read a book in a day, but I have a goal of reading one book a month this year.  I really need to get into the habit of reading more.  It's good for your brain and good for your soul.  We don't have TV (although we do have instant Netflix) so I should have plenty of time to accomplish this goal.  I have several books in mind to start with including a few we got for Christmas.

7. Eat local - more.  For some reason we are always pleasantly shocked when we go to a locally owned restaurant.  "Wow, this is really good... Wow, this is made with local ingredients.... Wow, I've never had anything like this" But yet, we haven't made it a habit to go to local restaurants and more often we end up at a chain and we leave disappointed with our choice.  So this year I want to make it more of a habit to support local restaurants that are good to their employees and use local ingredients.  For New Years we were in Asheville, NC seeing the Avett Brothers and we ate at the Early Girl Eatery.  It was awesome.  It's a local restaurant that uses local ingredients and supports local farming.  They serve what's in season and we left really loving Asheville's slogan, "Buy Local.  Put your money where your heart is."  So with this in mind this year when we order pizza it won't be from a chain and when we go out we'll try and find a cute little place that is locally owned and operated.

8. Make more, buy less. Going along with number one on my list, I'd like to make it a goal to make more of what we need and buy less.  I've been pretty good about this with food.  I make all of our yogurt, chicken stock, some potato chips, some of our bread (I'm hoping to make all of it this year, although I've run into a few problems), granola, and thanks to Santa we'll be making most of our pasta this year.  We also have eggs from our chickens.  I also make our laundry detergent.  I've made some of our socks, hats and scarves.  And of course I make 99% of the cards we send out for holidays, birthday's and special occasions.  This is usually the economical way to go: make what you need and not buy it.  It's also usually healthier and better for the environment.  So, along with what we already do this year I'd like to add a few things to the list.  A few to tackle:  make butter, make some of our cheese, make suet for my birds, get better at making bread, of course grow more of our food and can it this summer, and try again (maybe) to make our ice cream (we tried to make ice cream last year and it was expensive and didn't work).  Also, Lewie would like to go trout fishing and hopefully we'll get a freezer full of local fish to eat this year instead of buying it and we plan on getting some mushroom logs going so we don't have to buy as many of those and can harvest our own.

9. Paint our ceiling.  When we moved into our house I spent two weeks painting the entire inside.  The only thing I didn't get to was the ceiling.  It is in desperate need of a good paint job.  There are several different kinds of paint on it and it bothers me.  Hopefully this year I can finish the job.

10. Take a bee class. The University of Tennessee offers a bee course every spring to become a Beemaster.  I would LOVE to take this.  We would really like to have bees someday.  Probably not this year, but hopefully sometime in the future.  Honey bees have been dying in alarming rates and more bee keepers are needed to help farmers pollinate their crops - 1/3 of all food gets pollinated by a bee.  We'd love to have bees to help pollinate our garden and we'd love to have their honey.  Local honey and bee pollen is good for allergies so we use honey in our coffee and tea and I try to cook with it too.  We support honey bees and I hope to take the Beemasters course to learn more about bees, how to raise them and how to help with the bees that are disappearing.

So, that's a small (although large) list of things I'd like to pay attention too, think about, and do this year.  I'm looking forward to 2011 and all the new things we'll experience and all the new adventures we'll have.

How to: Build a three bin compost system

I was pretty determined to build a composting system before the new year.  We need it because we're working on our first garden right now and compost will help the soil in the years to come.  Also we have chickens now and composting their manure is a really good way to clean our their pen.  I saw a three bin composting system in a magazine with directions on how to build one.  This required a trip to the hardware store in which I learned it would cost nearly $250.00 to build it.  I decided it wasn't worth it and took Lewie's advice on how to build it out of recycled materials and this past weekend we built one that was almost FREE.  We like free and we like recycling. 

Supplies:

7 wood pallets

Heavy gage wire

Wire cuters

Hardware clothe

Staples / staple gun

Directions:

First, you have to get seven wood pallets.  We got them for free and all we had to do was ask.  Almost every store has skids lying around somewhere.  We got ours from home improvement stores.  Just ask the manager, they are usually willing to give you a few.  If they are beat up or missing planks, that's fine because the second you start using it it will start rotting.  It doesn't have to be perfect.

Stand your pallets up so that you have two that meet and form a corner.  Using your wire, wire these together.  We did one wire at the top and one wire at the bottom.  It may seem unsteady at first but pallets are heavy and when the whole thing it put together it's not going anywhere.

Next, you'll use two pieces: one pallet to continue down the row and another in the middle of those two to form the next wall on your first compartment.  Again, put them together with wire.  It should look like this:

Continue to build it in this way completing two more sections using a total of seven pallets.  Then start stapling your hardware clothe.  I used 1/4" hardware clothe and was able to buy it in a big roll at a home improvement store.  This will be the most expensive thing you buy for the compost bin but it's worth it to keep all your precious compost from spilling out everywhere.  Starting on the inside of one bin wrap your hardware clothe all the way around the bin on the inside only.  Staple it in place.  Continue to do this in every section.

Your three bin compost system should look like this when it's done:

This video is great if you want more information on how to use the three bin system.  We may end up adding doors in the future on the front so we got a few more pallets then needed just in case.  It's so nice to have a place to put our kitchen scraps now and it was fun to make.  It also turned out to be a family event because we had no less then two cats climbing trees around us for a better vantage point to our construction:

Before & After: Living room

Before: The living room when we moved in

After: Living room

It took a lot of work but in the living room it paid off.  We took down the bookshelves that the previous owner put up because although we liked them, we wanted a more open feeling and I was worried they would create clutter.  Then we painted the walls Gliddens Smooth Stone, added baseboards, hung artwork and then moved our stuff.  My favorite part are our national park posters that my mom has been getting us for our anniversary's and our coffee table that we made from wood that was on the bench Lewie proposed to me at.

Before & After: Walkway and outdoor stairs

The house had really nice stone stairs that went up to the old dog house when we moved in but they were in bad shape.  They needed weeding really bad and at the top of the stone steps it turned into a walkway that was made from 1' x 1' red brick.  The problem was most of the red bricks were crushed and the yard was growing over them.  So, one of my big projects that I've been working on since we moved in was collecting all the stones from around our property, digging up the red brick and continuing the stone up to the now chicken coop.  The stone stairs were all found on the land so were the ones I used to continue it.  Because of this we didn't have enough stone, so I ended up stopping the stone at the coop and continuing to the coop door with red brick.  We cleaned up some solar lights that were also on the property and gave them a new home along the stone walkway.  It is really nice to do improvements like this and use what you have.  The whole project didn't cost a dime.  I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out.  Now, I can walk up to the coop at night and I have some direction with the paths and lights.  I still have a few red bricks left over which I plan to add next to the coop around our future compost bins.  

Before: Walkway when we moved in

 

 After: New stone walkway

Before: Red brick's leading to chicken coop

After: New red brick path leading to chicken coop door

Before & After: Chicken coop

Before: as it was when we moved in

I think it's finally done!  We successfully transformed an old potting bench and dog shelter into a chicken coop.  I finished up painting it last week and Lewie finished the nesting boxes which still needed a little work.  Here is a picture during construction:

Before: during construction

And here is the after:

After: Chicken coop

And here are the doors during construction:

And the doors after:

After: Door on chicken coop

And lastly, here is a picture of the side before:

Before:  Chicken coop side as it was when we moved in

After: Chicken coop side

The chickens really seem to enjoy their new home.  They are pretty funny animals.  They each have their own personalty and although we haven't gotten any eggs yet, I'm really glad we decided to get chickens.

I have a few more Before & After's I'd like to post this week if I can get my act together.  Keep your eye out for them!