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Saturday, July 31, 2010

Validation....in my own neighborhood...

I have many visitors every day...well today was my lucky day! A school teacher in the neighborhood came by...she brought her daughter to visit my chickens...she brought me chicken soup! with dumplings!  She is the one that gave me my kitchen cupboards...had to show them to her! They don't look anything like the ones she gave me!  I also showed her what I did with the other ones...her exact words were "You guys reuse EVERYTHING!"
HEE HEE, that made me so happy! I cannot wait to show you the update of my kitchen, it has taken me longer than I thought it would but I will get it done! Til then...I am off on a treasure hunt today! Hopefully, I will net some goodies! WISH ME LUCK!

The treasure...the trash...and the city officials....

Good Morning All!

I think that I have referenced a couple times that I am from Montana?  Well, I am! I grew up in a small town, have mostly lived in a small town all my life and I will pass on in a small town...I have traveled extensively, been to every state in the U.S and overseas  Australia, Indonesia, Tasmania and New Zealand as well as Canada and Mexico...Though it was exciting traveling to foreign countries, I could never wait to land my feet back on my native soil...America is the one for me...we never know how " free" we truly are until we take a sabbatical to a foreign country...

Being from Montana, I have always enjoyed the sight of farms, lived on a farm or had family on one...Montana is immense and it is mostly an  agricultural state...I took that for granted...it is the fourth largest state in the U.S with less than a million in population...I always felt truly free there...It is a harsh land with amazing cold and unpredictable weather...I hardly remember a year that it did not snow in summer...
Looking out my front door...at "home"...
I miss it...as anyone from Montana will tell you...it is a whisper...a calling...a part of you...you could never extricate it from your soul...Once a Montanan...always a Montanan...
Life has made choices for me...and I chose to leave my state and adopt Michigan as my new home...I love it here...it has enabled me to have what I do now....The American Dream...When I first got here I could not resist the opportunity to get chickens, ducks...and in the future...goats and a couple pigs to grow out...Michigan is, also, a mostly agricultural state...and here is the point of my post today:

I had a visitor yesterday...a man who is 20...he brings his wife and daughter to visit my chickens...never been around them, never held one...never been close...he is a "city" guy...he sits and watches them scurry around..it is, for him, "chicken therapy". They amaze him...he wants his own...
you have to bleach the tub after...hee hee!

To me, that is the easy part! I have hens, a rooster...in the spring, I will give you chicks to raise! They are like garden seeds...you give them to friends and neighbors to proliferate...and I am an avid educator and fan of grow your own food!  Someday, the way this country is going...we may not have any in the grocery store... "oh, I can't, I live in town!" was his response..."hello! you live a block from me...so do I" was my response...



"Well, my step dad is the Mayor...and there has been talk at the council meetings of people having chickens and such in town...and they are all in violation of the by-laws."

Hmmmm...WELL! here is a piece of information for you...and the MAYOR! Michigan has a Right to Farm Act...as do a lot of states and Ontario Canada...it was enacted in 1981 to protect Michigan's small and large farmers alike...as long as you grow something for the good of human use, you are considered a "farm"...one sign...even if it 3 inches long...with 4sale...eggs(etc.) even if it for $20 a dozen...even if it is one dozen a year or one chicken a year or you make pallets....you are a farm...and this law overrides and makes null and void any city, county, village...ANY local law...they cannot preempt State law...they can complain about you to the Department of Agriculture and they will come and check you out...but as long as you are conforming to" acceptable practices" ie; composting straw and manure...not dumping it on the road side...you are conforming..


.http://www.chickencrossing.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=6864
http://www.farmfoundation.org/news/articlefiles/129-hipp.pdf



If there are more than 3 complaints? the fourth one, the complaining party has to pay out of their own pocket for the investigation....and anything to do with government employees?  is EXPENSIVE...


I am considered unique by my neighbors...they mostly think meat and eggs come from the grocery store...they are out of touch as to where their food comes from...I tell them that not long ago, American's grew everything they used...


Chickens and ducks are, by far, the easiest animals to keep...they require very little and they give so much!  Each bird requires only two square feet of space...their housing can be as simple as a truck topper on the ground, as long as it is draft free and dry...their feed is inexpensive......but they give fresh eggs and meat...and "chicken therapy"....and education...3 chickens will give up to a dozen eggs a week...that would keep a family of four...the ducks are messier...they love to dig in the mud but I have not had one slug eat my beans since I got them! my breed lays 265 eggs a year...that is one duck egg = 2 chicken eggs... they are delicious!
My ducks range all over the yard...but they do have a small pen for nighttime...


I encourage everyone to get back in touch with their American side...this country was founded on freedom...the freedom to live as we choose, pursue happiness! and every time I go feed my chickens and ducks? I am happy!

It is the right of every American to choose how they want to live... Everywhere you live nowadays...there is a commercial, a sign, a billboard...a message...GO GREEN! Save the planet...sustainable future...eat local...but the city officials say you cannot? Pretty confusing...it is up to us to change our country back to the way it was...prosperous...sustainable...and AMERICAN!



Friday, July 30, 2010

I am in so much HOT WATER...

This post is dedicated to Sandi....





This...VS....










THIS!









I could not wait to move into this house....we were living with my Honey's parents...which, even though, at forty something, living with your parents is not something you wish for...living with them was easy...they are fun, sweet, easy going...and they feed you...really good food! You cannot imagine how nice it is have someone look out for you everyday, it has been a long time for me! lol They have a really nice place and they made us completely welcome...and they had everything I did not...a bathroom!  Complete with HOT WATER!  (Well...and a coffee pot...)


I got up everyday at 6a.m...traveled to my little hut...and at first I brought water with me in a 5 gallon container...lit my stove...and poured the water in a large pan to heat up and clean with...about 3 weeks after I got the house, we had the water turned on...and then turned right back off...everything was leaking...it took another week for the water company to put a new meter on the house and for us to take the pipes down (only in certain places) tighten them up and re-tape them so I could have a faucet...they were all galvanized and rusted through in some spots...the only faucet was in the basement....but I had water! and I had a source to heat it with!

Two weeks before Christmas, 2009, our house was actually clean enough...and we had the toilet plumbed in, so that we could venture into spending the night...we packed up some camping gear, my Honey had been collecting firewood, and we went and bought bacon and eggs for breakfast...I was so flippin' excited to play house in that lil hut!  MY HUT! Hee Hee

Friday night was awesome in our new house...Saturday was even better...Sunday rolled around and it was time to go home...but I felt at home in my house....I planted my feet...crossed my arms....and said...."I am not leaving"....again...my poor Honey looked at me like I had two heads...he knows my look...and he knows it is gonna be Clash of the Titans time...."But Lisa....Baby Doll...HONAAAAY..."

If we can live an entire weekend in this house and have that much fun...why couldn't we just move in and I could get twice as much done? (Well, and so could he...) I made lot's of really fast promises...and we moved in...We had a turkey fryer with an enormous kettle on it...that became a permanent fixture on the stove...I filled it every morning when I lit the stove to heat the house and cook breakfast...it was warm in an hour...enough to wash your face before work..It was boiling hot by 5 o'clock...dinner was ready and then after the days conversation...it was bath time...now the bath tub was in the bathroom but it had no faucet...it was only plumbed into the drain..I would pour that turkey kettle in there and have to add another of cold or you would be adding carrots and potatoes to make stew...we got in there together...it became a time where we actually had complete alone time and it was wonderful...lugging that turkey fryer was not! I really don't know how they did it constantly for an entire lifetime back in the "good ole days".


In June of 2010, I got to turn "29" again...Happy Birthday to me...whatcha wanna do for your birthday? I wanna research hot water heaters...so that is what we did...I finally had had enough of the turkey fryer...and it was so warm out that running that stove all day, I was dying!

Where I live, you have to drive 86 miles to the nearest Home Depot and Menards...so it was an all day trip...We first went to Home Depot...they had several hot water heaters....we were in the market for something electric because the gas was out...we had ripped it outta the house ( I will tell you my experience with that in another post) The heaters were any where from $350 to $600. Hmmm...off to Menard's...Menard's had better prices and a better selection...and they also had these little itty bitty boxes called "hot water on demand" or "tankless hot water"...It was very confusing...the information they had on them was pretty chintzy and the employees knew absolutely nothing...I opened the box and got the directions...I know that is Taboo but if someone cannot explain, where else do you get the info? Here is what I gathered from the package info:

One of the smaller units:  If your ground water is 45 degrees (which it is in the North because ground water remains (mostly) a constant temperature throughout the year as it is insulated by the ground) this small unit will heat your water at 1gpm(gallon per minute) 72 degrees... that means the water coming out of my faucet at 1gpm will be 117 degrees....HOT! basic bath water is somewhere around 99-102 degrees...

If your ground water is still 45 and you have 3gpm...which is the bottom of the standard for most houses nowadays...the unit will heat up to 45 degrees...90..which is really not all that hot...hmmmm....my water pressure runs around 5gpm...with everything going at once...washer, sinks, tub...this unit will only run one sink at a time...and it will take the tub between 14-17 minutes to fill at maximum heat...If you live in a warmer area, such as Florida or California...you will have no trouble at 3gpm getting scorching hot water from one of these babies!

Here is what I did...40 gallon electric hot water tanks are, for the bottom of the line one, $350.00...so I purchased one tankless hot water on demand unit for the bathroom and one for the kitchen....at a cost of $169.00 per unit...$338.00...

I decided to sacrifice fast tub fill for the convenience of this little tiny box and run my tub at 2gpm (you can tell where you are running by the temperature of the water) and at $169.00 I felt that my energy savings of not reheating water in a tank all day and all night if I did not use it, was worth the slow fill in my tub...the sink comes out boiling hot at maximum flow...


Here is one of the kinks...I bought my heater in the summer...when it is warm out and the ground water is at least 45 degrees...that is the average in my area even in the winter...but it is way warmer now because I can pretty much run my tub at max flow right now and get super hot water...BUT who knows what the temp of the ground water will go down to if I have a really cold winter...

Another kink:  Each unit has to have it's very own circuit breaker and it's very own large gage wire...my house is small so I only had to buy 25 feet of this wire.  The breakers are 14 bucks a piece and the wire is any where from $2.75 to $5.50 a foot!  I paid $3.00 a foot..so that was $75.00. AND my Honey wired it in...who knows what an electrician would charge...it only takes basic electrical skills to do it tho...

You can plumb these units in series and have two for the tub...or buy a larger unit...they have them at Menards but they cost anywhere from $600-$11000 dollars... they also have a twenty year warranty...

In time I will buy another small unit for the washing machine as I cannot run any other water in the house if I am doing laundry...since my house is small and I am here by myself in the daytime, I can get away with that...

In a larger home, I would go with a larger unit...I guess I would figure out what my electric bill was every month, the cost of the unit, what it would take to install it and map out how long it would take to recoup my money...for me? it was awesome...my electric bill showed an increase of 18cents!  it works very well..I only have the one bath and the one sink in the kitchen...and the laundry will have to wait, I am content with my set up...you can also phase out your big tank slowly...by one for the kitchen...and then one for the bath...and so on...

I spent a total of $441.00 which is the price of a median hot water heater in the electric model...and I feel that I am doing the planet a favor in my greed for a hot bath! Well, and my back has thanked me numerous time for not heaving that turkey fryer into the bathroom!

This is where I hid the little box...under the sink skirt.
Another plus? you don't have to have room for a large tank...they are so small! I hide mine under the sinks... and you mount them on the wall...you could run two showers, the laundry, the kitchen and whatever and  never, NEVER run out of hot water...


















Thursday, July 29, 2010

The Repurposed, Recycled Broom Closet






In my miniscule kitchen, there was a little door...The door itself was cuter than a bugs ear with all the original hardware...inside,under the stairs, was this dirty, dark, smelly broom closet filled with buckets, brooms, cleaning supplies and it seemed, whatever else you felt like chucking in there on your way to somewhere else. It had the original wood ironing board attached to the wall, I believe they just built them into the house in that era!








 Can you believe it? A vacuum...I wonder why one would own a vacuum...and never use it!  Now my kitchen had no cupboards or a place to store anything.  Wouldn't this make an excellent pantry?









Here is my Broom closet, New pantry, all cleaned out.  Nice wall color...don't you think? (that is my attempt at humor...YUCK!) I believe it is milk paint and I don't think it has ever been painted since the house was new...
At first, there were no shelves except the ironing board...it took about 3 months to figure out how we were going to make corbels to hang shelves...I did find beautiful wood ones...nine bucks a piece...wasn't happening...I also found my dream corbels...black wrought iron with the lil curli cues...not happening either...at first I just had a metal garage shelf in there...just to store dishes and groceries...it was very depressing...you don't know how bad I wanted to throw that shelf outside and into that trailer...

Well...the ingenuity and wonder that my Honey can come up with...He came up with these...

They are 2x4 pieces screwed to the wall..from the pallets I was telling you about...I wasn't thrilled at first because..well...they weren't wrought iron...they weren't carved...and we have all seen pictures of the pantries in Country Living...
My Honey said..."just wait and see when they are done...and then tell me what you think"...so I did...now, I was just excited not to have to get my spices out of a bucket....and my canned goods out of a tub...I was thinking mostly that I was relieved just to have shelves...

This is what it looked like when he was done...not pretty, totally utilitarian...but I didn't have to dig  my chow out of a bucket! I loved it...and I could totally see what he had been saying...
He even wired a light in there! Not only did I have shelves to put things on...I could open the door without a flashlight and get what I wanted! The only screws are the ones screwing the "corbels" to the walls...the rest fits so tight you need a hammer to get the shelves out...




The floor before...


One day, I was sitting in my sunny kitchen...surfing the net...and of course, went directly to HGTV...it is my inspiration...Rate My Space...what normal, everyday people do to decorate their homes...not millionaires or television designers do...but people like me...and I thought...I am gonna put my lil house on there and ask people what they think....maybe they could give me some inspiring clue as to how I was going to give my utilitarian, unfinished house some sparkle...We all know what happened...out of nowhere came this amazing response...encouragement...a true gift...America telling me that I was on the right track on my own and that maybe my ideals were a good thing...Now I sat stumped for awhile...tired and worn out...I only wanted to work outside and wait to finish more of the inside in the winter when I was kept indoors...but these people gave me more energy and a want to finish my kitchen...so I started back on the pantry...no more dark and dreary...






the floor after...one coat of mineral oil and two coats of paste wax







For the last three days, I have been taking everything apart...priming. painting...and I went to get shelf liner..(among the gardening and animals, fencing and taking the siding off my house).this shelf liner is black...and as I was cutting it to fit the shelves...it reminded me of the lingerie you look at in the Victoria's Secret catalogue...hmmmm...isn't that funny...CUPBOARD UNDIES!  So now, it affectionately known at my house as Cupboard...undies...they didn't have red or I would have chosen it...maybe someday when I go on a  repurpose, recycle, reuse hunt...I will find some red accents to decorate my clean, shiny pantry! and maybe a rug for the floor?

Usually grocery shopping is an anathema to me...I hate it, when I get home, I don't have anywhere to put anything or it goes in the dreary closet...NOT ANYMORE! Thanks to you! I can't wait to fill up this pantry!



Tuesday, July 27, 2010

My free, repurposed, reused kitchen!



It seems that the heart of any home is the kitchen...It is the place where we not only prepare food for ourselves and our families but where most of us pay bills, play games with our children, have family discussions and hang out..put our telephone....it is truly, to me, the one room in the house where everyone is welcome and should feel at "home". It is generally the central hub of where everyone congregates.

My kitchen is in the exact center of my house and my guests walk thru my living room or back porch to get there...although there is seating and comfort in both places, they never linger but head straight to the kitchen.

looking into the kitchen from the living room
This table is solid oak with 4 bent wood chairs to match!
When I first looked at my "kitchen", I went straight to the window and pulled the curtains down.  It was so dark. The kitchen window faces North so natural light from the South was blocked off by walls on both sides and the stairs.  I remember what went thru my mind....it wasn't the dirt or the garbage that bothered me, it was the lack of natural light.

The wall leading into the pantry/now bathroom...and hoosier!
There was a small cupboard (which now graces my bathroom) over the sink and a bottom to what most would call a hoosier....the cabinet has the tags on the back of it still with a black and white enamel top...the sink itself was incredible. It is a late 1930's porcelain over cast iron mold with a drainboard on one side...it has the date (5-04/1937) and where it came from engraved on the bottom.  It has the original faucet with soap dish and everything was in operational order...it was sitting on a 1930's metal cabinet.  I happen to know that this house  was built in 1919...but that is another post, and an interesting one! as to how I found that out.

With such a beautiful window, I cannot imagine why someone would put this sink in the corner?

This room has always had a wood stove...

 I did some research on early 1900's kitchens, there is not much out there but what they had usually showed very sparse kitchen decor! Sink, MAYBE a cabinet for dishes and some form of bread making or preparation table. And of course a cooking implement...such as a wood cookstove or kerosene/oil stove, if you were well off...

My days of wishing for a cabin while I was driving truck led me to start looking for things that I would need...who knew that some day, I would end up in a house that no one has ever remodeled since 1919? They added things to the house in the 40's and 50's such as running water and gas service along with post and tube wiring...but noone had touched this house except for those things. All the doors are still here along with the skeleton key locks (and keys!) no walls have been removed or moved around...nothing...I do have to say, someone got happy with the wall paper! but only in the living room and upstairs.
1930's Copper Clad Wood Cook Stove
MMMMMMM! I love my wood cook stove
Anyways!  I happen to have a wood cookstove  when I moved in...acquired in my travels and when I thought I would be living out in the woods! It had been owned by a woman in Minnesota who cooked on it until the day she died...in 2008! It came with a complete set of cast iron cookware... It is in amazing condition with white enamel and cast iron cook top. It fit in this kitchen like a glove...and I will be cooking on it until the day I die...I bought it for 200 bucks and it weighs 800 pounds.  The biscuits and bread that she delivers are mouth watering! not to mention the smell of homemade soup and stew that are simmering on her all winter!

The Hoosier and the stove directed the kitchen decor...black and white vintage, it seems, makes one heck of a combination!  Our first snow up here directed me into the house and to finish up cleaning the outside.  It was time to rip, root and tear into the house!

We backed up to the door with the trailer and started throwing!  I cleaned out the pantry first...between my Honey gagging and retching, we finally got all the meat off the floor and the two freezers out the door...the "Mister" who had lived here before, had left two freezers filled with meat, cheese and other perishables to thaw and refreeze for two years. It was disgusting...the pantry was filled with commodities from top to bottom. Juice cans that had froze and burst, cereals that had been ripped open by varmints and canned goods that had froze and cracked the jars. It had leaked into the wood floor....and mildewed...and the maggots...well you can imagine...when it was emptied, I went to the store, bought two bottles of  Scrub Free Mildew Remover and scrubbed the muck down with a broom, rinsed with boiling water and squeegeed up the excess. Then, on hands and knees, three more times with boiling bleach water... and I had a floor you could walk on with no odor!  I have read several articles on the care of wood floors...they all say that the worse thing you can do to a wood floor is put water on it...hmmmm....maybe the engineered wood floors, but mine are three inch thick, hard red oak...and they have stood the test of time for almost a hundred years...I put water on em...the grape juice and blood stains, however, did not come out...but that is the bathroom post! lol!
In addition to the freezers, there were two metal cupboards in that room...I netted an entire set of 1970's Tupperware, the good kind, with all the lids, 3 antique platters, 2 porcelain vegetable bowls, an aqua blue beater with all attachments, an Osterizer blender, a set of jadite mixing bowls, a complete set of red and white enamel cookware, several antique salt and pepper shakers, cookie cutters, a complete set of knives...well, enough to outfit a kitchen to rival a Chef! The stuff was old but of top quality, whoever bought these things knew what the good stuff was! And I think the "Mister" who lived here before inherited all this equipment when he got the house.
The next step was to remove everything from the kitchen...The sink was taken down, and it seems that this is it's original placement in the house...not one spec of paint!  but the floor underneath was completely rotted out from water damage... the cupboard was moved into the living room and the gas stove, well, that went out with the gagging and retching accompaniment...

The "Mister" let the sink drain directly onto the floor, to seep into the basement, instead of fixing the plumbing...


The process with the floors started all over again, there were rugs in the kitchen, taped down with duct tape and of course, all the garbage had to be thrown in the trailer...AND all of the treasures sorted and piled and then removed to another room for safekeeping. The wood floor was replaced with...wood flooring that the "Mister" had been throwing in his wood stove! It was an exact match and instead of fixing the floor, he was using it for heat...

I started removing the molding at this point so I could get the ceiling tiles down...they were covered in dirt, smoke and mildew...it had been raining in the kitchen for who knew how long?  Underneath those tiles was the original bead board ceiling...I was so excited! Who would ever cover it up? After the removal of the tiles, it took me 3 days to remove the 3000 or so staples from the bead board. A set of pliers just didn't cut it, but if you hooked the nose of a set of channel locks onto the staple, it pulled them right out! I know it sounds ridiculous to be ecstatic about a pair of channel lock pliers but when you are on a chair, vertically challenged, with your arms above your head for hours? ANYTHING that makes life easier is exciting!
Bead BOARD!




 Then the process with the walls...I scrubbed for days with ammonia but nothing would get the grease and dirt off...My experience with grease? hmmmm....Couldn't hurt...so to Walmart I went...into the automotive section...and bought a gallon jug of Super Clean...engine degreaser!  The walls were painted with oil base lead paint...it was winter...I didn't have a sander...and I really didn't want lead poisoning...It worked, too well!  I had rivers of grease, smoke and dirt running down the wall...it was great! The walls were the most beautiful shade of Robins Egg Blue...it made me cry...
Super Clean is amazing stuff, it is basically lye...the good old fashioned, what Granny used to use...lye...I used it on the walls, on the molding, on the doors...and then on the floors...the trouble with Super Clean is...IT WILL take the paint off the wall and molding too! You really have to make sure you do NOT mix it too strong or it will burn you...and as I said...take the paint right off! You should also wear a mask...and gloves...but it does DEGLOSS shiny paint! YAAAAAY! and take wall paper off and clean tools and...the list is long..and it is cheap, cheap, cheap! 5 dollars for an entire gallon. That gallon cleaned every wall, floor, ceiling and fixture in this house...and did a couple loads of laundry too!

I was really confused about decor...what did I want my kitchen to look like? I decided that I wanted it to look like it was fresh out of 1919...when the house was built...but on a scale that I could have all the modern conveniences too...and light!  Warmth, comfort, nostalgia...it was time to paint...pick something that would offer me all of these things...I decided on a creamy white...I am sure you have all read that post by now...hee hee...my experience in picking out white paint..
I picked it, painted and was instantly happy...don't know if it was just all the clean goodness or if it really was a good paint color choice!  It seems to work though....I read on HGTV that the designers said you should pick three colors...One main, one trim and one accent...I broke the rules, somehow I ended up with 4...or 5....Cream, White, Black, Yellow and Red...


   
I think the most exciting part was going up to the "treasure room" digging out the "hardscape" for the kitchen and bringing it down to refurbish, paint or set it in place.  The Hoosier had to be cut down 4 inches...it was too big for the room. My Honey cut four inches off the back, cut the top and made a backsplash out  of the excess..the island was the prep table original to the house but had been sitting in a damp basement for years so the legs were rotten...My Honey, again, worked his magic and mounted it on a shelf complete with castors...I washed it but was thinking it was such a shame to cover up the shabbiness of it...so I whitewashed it with paint instead of sanding and painting again...You can still see where the paint has chipped off and worn down with use, but it is clean. The top had to be sanded and re-glued but is solid oak...just finished with a stain, two coats of tongue oil and 2 coats of paste wax...I have not had one problem with it and it gets a scrubbing everyday!



















The Hoosier top...it was a fluke that we got it...a family member came by and told my Honey he had driven by a house downtown and saw a "cupboard looking thing" that maybe we could use since we didn't have any...he, of course, went to look and see if it was something we could use...he told me he had a surpise for me when he got home...HOLY MOLY! is what went thru my head, because the top to our hoosier cabinet was sitting in the back of our truck! Same hardware, same doors...and it had the original flour sifter in it!  HULA HULA Dance all the way into the house and up to the treasure room...when it came down, it got super cleaned, sanded and painted and we cut windows in the upper doors with a jig saw so you could see the antique mason jars, baking goods and flour sifter.  I went to the dollar store, bought two frames, with the glass, spray painted them black and screwed them onto the openings, then colored the screws with a black sharpie pen.

The sink skirt...what a way to dress up a sink! I saw some on HGTV...had to have one! Ours is just a 1x8 board with two old, found table legs screwed to the wall...but it looks, to me, like it has always accompanied this sink! I love it! 



 It is hard to imagine going from this:















 To this:
 The same room, the same angle...a different time...

Tomorrow, I will show you all what I have been working on...

I am still working on the kitchen, it is almost done and after 7 very long months, I will have one complete room in my house!

Monday, July 26, 2010

The shed that was here...is now a repurposed, reused fantastic garden outbuilding!






Last fall, we tore down the lil garage but kept the other buildings. After we tore down the garage, where in the world are we going to put all the things we are going to keep? The cabin was stuffed full, the garden shed was stuffed full and there was no way JACK! that I was putting anything else in that house if I had to spend 5 snowy cold months in it and try to get something done! Well, on the back of the house, like a caboose, was a tin shack, again, filled with garbage and wood....imagine that! The roof was caving in, it looked like someone took the top off a trailer and nailed it on there...I am not even commenting on THIS guy's imagination... We decided to keep it so we sturdied (is that a word?) it up, put a new roof on it and...again...stuffed it full of "stuff". Why can't I ever do anything at the beginning of summer?



The shed was tin...hmmm...where in the world does one get metal roofing that does not cost an arm and a leg? Well...you go tin shack hunting!...of course! Up behind the bar in town was a pile. In that pile were 14ft long metal panels that actual metal roofing had come in so the paint doesn't get scratched...and they had just put a brand new metal roof on that bar! PERFECT! Free, reusable, repurposed! That shed, for the first part of the winter was also our freezer. We didn't have one and we didn't have the funds to purchase one...actually, that is the only good reason I have ever had for a Walmart bag...they make great hanging freezer baskets...well, that is if you use Mother Nature to refrigerate your meat!

Nailed to the back door was another door. It was an old door and it was solid plank wood. Perfect shed door. And we were in business, we had storage...

That shed was the anti-christ! It blocked all the light to the back porch, it was ugly and a catch all....

Well...it did finally get nice out...and the 7 feet of snow melted and I had a full summer planned of cleaning out that cabin, repurposing the garden shed into a chicken coop and a myriad of other things...until one day, I was cleaning the back porch...I couldn't see anything and it was broad daylight! IT HAD TO GO!


I got the sledge hammer, screw driver and gloves and dismantled the shed....I saved the panels and some of the lumber that was reusable (got a lil impatient and the sledge hammer got a lil outta hand)and stacked it in a pile.

When the Honey got home, he looked at me like I had two heads..."whatcha doin?"





Uh...you have to build me a new shed, I can't see! and I have no light...and everything just gets piled in here! and....and....well, he finally saw it my way...we had a discussion and the following day, he came home with 6 landscape timbers...they are treated and they are as thick as a 4x4 but the cost difference is about 5 bucks...the timbers were 4 bucks a piece. This is where the saved garage wood came in handy. We also used a few 2x4's from wood pallets. We decided where it would do the most good and look the best, what we were going to use it for and measured out a string line...I dug the post holes and he framed it in...It took one afternoon to build this life saving device! and it fits all of our gear in it...we hung all the old tools we found on it...

Not bad for 25 bucks! Home Depot, eat your heart out!
The best part of it is all the light that shines thru the back of the house and lights up my kitchen! Well...and the caboose is off the toaster...I am making it my life goal....to make sure noone refers to my house as looking like a toaster again...

Metal roofing is quite popular now a days...if you can find a house that is putting on a new roof, or better yet, a commercial building, ask them for the tin shells their roofing came in, they are just as good as the roofing itself but they are not painted. They have to pay to have them dumped and what a shame! The panels can be primed and painted any color.  The pallet's we use are from an auto body shop. Fenders, hoods and such come on 2x4 pallets. They are not like the one's you see bulk goods delivered on, they are beautiful, straight, 2x4's in 6, 8 and 10ft long lengths! 2x4's cost up to 8 dollars at the lumber store. If you have an autobody shop near you, ask them for them. They have to pay to have them taken to the dump, they will gladly give them up! Totally simple to take apart and the building materials you get are terrific!  and they make great kindling for the wood stove!

Helping, Learning, Recycling....




Hi All! I just read some new comments on my page at HGTV. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! If you need something or want to know how I did something immediately, or where I got information, I will most definitely post it on here quickly! The only reason this blog is here is for you and because of you! Is anyone having problems with the comment section? If you are, please email me at thedilletanteproprietor@yahoo.com and I will get it fixed! I remember how hard it was for me to do things, and how long it took to find the information. Thank you all so much!