Circular Driveways Make Delivery People Happy...

It was time!  We needed a circular drive (or U shaped), you get the idea.  It felt like such a bottle neck once you drove into the driveway, then you'd have to back all the way out.  With so many kids and animals around we were getting nervous that at some point something somewhere was going to get run over.  Here are the before shots or our yard and driveway area.

Here is a direct shot of the driveway going in.  This is how we'd have to back out of our driveway.  It wasn't too bad but we looked forward to more options.

Another shot.... do you like that stormy sky!?

By that small apple tree by the power pole is where the new driveway will come back to the main road.

See this ugly low shed looking structure?  Ya it had to go!  This area is where we will plant the raspberries.

Another before shot.  See our suburban parked on the grass? For weeks we drove through the grass to get a feel for where we wanted the driveway to go and how tight to make the turn.  This was actually a pretty useful way to get the driveway just where we wanted it.  Very scientific and mathematical I know.

You can almost see where we've been driving in the grass in this picture. 

Ok time for AFTER pictures isn't it?  No, sorry, time for some in process pictures first!

It was c-c-cold that morning!  Mr. Wonderful started by scraping the sod off.  Then he piled extra top soil in mounds for our future landscaping plan.

Another view of him removing material off the yard.

Sometimes it gets worse before it gets better!

Here he is adding soil to the landscaping mounds.

Mr. Wonderful's perspective.

Ready for the gravel now.

It is coming together, the gravel is being spread.  One truck-load at a time.  First we did course gravel, then the finer top layer.  This should create a more stable driveway in the long run.

 Sunshine and Whippersnapper on the roller.

Tobers waits in the truck to make another trip for gravel.

Ok Ok, you are really ready for some AFTER pictures now right?  Well here you go.

Here is the view from the parking area in front of the pole building along the front of the house.

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The view from the front steps.  So nice and smooth!

From the main road, mainly all you can see is where the old driveway was it is just wider now.   We will have to reseed grass in a few areas but it is so worth it!

From main road where you can see the new driveway connecting into the main road (by the power pole).  Ignore the landscaping mounds we have yet to get landscaped.  That will come later this spring hopefully.

Here is a shot of the new entrance driveway that connects into the old driveway in front of the pole building.

Expertly compacted by Sunshine and Whippersnapper, they operated the vibratory roller.

Another view from the corner of the house looking toward the main road.

Isn't it nice?

Oh and look, we tore down the low shelter building!  Now this area is all ready for our raspberry patch!  That bale of straw will be used for mulch for the berries.  I am anxiously waiting for the berries to come in the mail. so I can get them planted.;)  First, I have some weeds to wage war on.

You know how I said we were so worried that something or someone would get run over before the circular driveway went in?  Well once we had completed the work for the day, and the finishing touches to the new driveway had been made;  It was time to park the vehicles in their rightful spots.  Mr Wonderful was jockeying rigs around and getting them all back where they belong.  We had to play musical rigs all day so they wouldn't be in our way when we did certain sections of the driveway.  The whole day, the kids were testing out the driveway with various things of their own, bikes, wagons etc.  Well Spud Man left his bike leaned up against the front suburban bumper.  When Mr Wonderful hopped in to park it he ran the bike over.  The wheels are now off-set by about 8" lol.  While we are sad for Spud Man we also are really thankful that it was just a bike and not a child or a pet.  A tough lesson was learned by many with that ordeal.  It was a little ironic that all day this place was a buzz with activity and equipment running and people all over and it wasn't until the very last moment something got ran over!

A sad day for the bike.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of our progress.  We are sure enjoying our new driveway.  The best part is the delivery drivers are so appreciative.  They can drive right up to the door step now and don't have to back in or out of our driveway.   I love how easy it makes it to unload groceries now.....not that it stopped us from driving on the grass before, but now we won't look like such rednecks when we do it.  Every time we get to tackle a fun project like this I feel so incredibly blessed to have a husband who works in the construction field and who has access to the equipment we need to get the job done, as well as a generous boss to lend it to us.  This driveway project cost us very little compared to what it would have cost someone without the connections we have.  The main cost for us was the gravel, which was at a discounted rate thanks to a friend from church.  The discount helped us to get the project done now rather than needing to wait until fall and save up more money.  We are blessed indeed!

Gee this might be my longest post ever....if you made it here without falling asleep you deserve an award of some kind!

From a 12 Year Old's Perspective...

The other day I was looking on my hard drive for some pictures, I came across a file folder that I had labeled for Spud Man's photos.  I decided to see if he had some good pictures in his file.  I found it interesting to see things from his perspective.  It was actually a little insight into boy-ness that I don't always get to see.  

Sometimes the pictures seemed random...like this.  

As a girl, I'd have taken a picture of the horse not so much the saddle.  To tell you the truth this picture reminded me how much this is my favorite saddle!  It is so comfortable, it also happens to be my mom's saddle which I know I spent many an hour riding both in front of her when really small, and behind her when I got big enough to hold on to those saddle strings well.  As I got older, it was the saddle I chose to ride for training, even though I had a beautiful silver show saddle to ride if I wanted to.  This picture captured memories that evoke emotion for me.  I'd have never thought to take this picture but I am glad he did.

A boy and his hats, what can I say.  He really isn't picky too much about his hats, he seems honored to wear anyone's hat that gives him one.  Of course if it is associated with equipment or a construction company he is golden.

I thought this was interesting, I forget how much of a boys life is tied up into work.  How work makes a man feel important, needed, and useful.  The fact that he took pictures of his Dad's work truck door is funny to me but to a boy this is something he wanted to capture.

He also took a picture of his Grandpa's company logo.  His dad may no longer work for his grandpa but that doesn't change that he is proud to have a grandpa who owns a construction company.;)

This cracks me up, he took a picture of our friends brush guard/bumper (although around here we call them deer guards).  Anyway it IS a nice looking bumper.  These sort of things are important to a boy!

He took a picture of one of his Great Uncle Terry's bulls.  Boys are impressed by this stuff you know.;)

Then there is the goofy stuff, the talks his brothers into doing (ok maybe it wasn't his idea).

He enjoys the hunter gatherer aspects of his life too!  Morel mushrooms yum!

What folder of pictures would not be complete without a picture of a scab!?  

Can you see the grouse nest with eggs in it?  He captures such unique things.

Then there are the really "unique" things like this bear scat.  Again, important to a boy to capture this in full detail.  Thankfully he didn't have the macro function figured out at this point in time huh?

I have to admit this next picture melted my heart just a little!  This it the quilt he and I worked on for a long time.  It got packed up a few times when we got busy but we kept plodding away at it when we could.  It is made of recycled denim from jeans and various outdoorsy cotton fabrics.  That he took the time to take a picture of it warms my heart.

A boy must have food and lots of it!  He takes pictures as he BBQes.  It does look good doesn't it.  Don't ask what kind or meat that is, you probably don't want to know.

This is what Whippersnapper looks like when he finishes eating above meal.

Again family legacy seems to be showing up.  This is the sign that used to be on the barn after my Grandpa Red built it.  The ranch was established I believe in 1943.  Whippersnapper makes for a willing photo subject.

I hope you enjoyed the sneak peak into a 12 year old boys world as much as I did!

Chicken Tractor for the Laying Hens...

We've been busy building things this spring.  The latest is a chicken tractor for the laying hens.  In case you don't know what a chicken tractor is, it is a movable chicken coop or pen.  This allows the hens to have more room to forage for bugs, grass, and weeds without turning them completely free-range where they might eat up all the garden plants.  They also tend to roost and poo on everything we don't want them to around here when we let them free range.  Oh and they think 5 acres isn't enough and they take off for the neighbor's property who also have chickens.  We can't have them fraternizing with the neighbor chickens so contained they must stay!

This chicken tractor cost us $10 or less to build.  We used all recycled, upcycled, salvaged materials  (whatever you want to call it)!  The only thing we bought for this project were 4 hasp closures to secure the doors from predators and high wind issues.  As soon as the weather warms up and dries out some we'd like to paint it a classic red with white trim.  

  

We've decided to add another set of wheels on the other end as well to make it easier to move....because well I am still learning to build things light and movable.  This thing is HEAVY and it takes at least 2 people to get it moved to a new section of grass each day.

I would like to add a window to let natural light in, so far I haven't found any plexi-glass or small windows but I will keep an eye out and when I find something suitable I will be cutting a hole for some light in no time!

In this next picture, you can see the custom creep feeder that Tobers and I built together.  We needed a creep feeder to discourage the hens from wasting feed by scraping it out onto the ground.  We drilled large feeder holes for them to peck into, but not large enough to let the hens waste the feed out on the ground.  It works great, and it holds a lot of feed too which is nice.

I like that the feeder is mounted on the door for easy feed refills.  We used heavy duty door hinges and they seem to handle the weight fine.  We also hung the waterer from the underside of the coop floor so that when the coop moved we don't have to worry about the waterer being tipped over.  Also by hanging it, the waterer always stays level even when it is on sloped ground.

The hens seem to like it in the coop, but they have not been using the roost.  The only thing I can figure is they don't have enough head room on the roost.  So I am going to change the roost height to just about 6" above the floor and that should make it easier to get onto the roost as well as give them more head room once on the roost.  Sometimes there are a lot of tweaks and changes even after you think you are done with a project.

In the next picture you can see the recycled plywood for the lower door has some graffiti on it.  The house that we salvaged this from was supposedly a druggy hangout.  Mr Wonderful snagged all these cool building materials for me when he did a house demolition.  I am always thankful for free building materials because the supplies sure add up when building with new materials.  The downside to using salvaged materials is you have to work around the unique aspects of your supplies.  Damage or holes, warped boards, and other things can make it a challenge to have a nice looking finished product.  

The narrow upper door is the access to the nest box and above the nest box is a shelf inside to store empty egg cartons, plug ins, and a light fixture for winter supplemental light.

A hen looking up from the ground level into the coop.  We need to install a ladder here for them to walk in instead of hopping and fluttering in.

Eggs in the nest box.

More happy hens.

That is the tour of the chicken tractor project.  I can't wait to see it all painted up pretty in red and white, surrounded by lush green grass.   I will enjoy seeing that out the kitchen window while I do dishes I think.

We've also been working on a larger design for the meat birds we plan to raise this year.  Hoping to share that project with you soon!

Kitchen...A Frugal Overhaul

When we looked at this home we knew the cabinets needed some freshening up.  We planned to paint and possibly change up the hardware and add some smoother drawer slides.  I was excited about a quickie makeover for once, after such an extensive kitchen remodel at our last house.  We finally got the keys to the house and we did the first walk through after the previous owners things were out.  I remember being discouraged because everyone that saw the cabinets were pretty much grossed out, myself included.  

There were spills inside and of all kinda of mystery stains, the cabinets were in much worse condition than I remembered, I realized they were hollow core cheap press board doors instead of more solid ones that could be painted.  It became apparent we needed new cabinets.  Not to mention we had to do something about the really scary range hood and the dingy wall paper.  Yikes!  

It was all a little much at first.  Also there was a peninsula cabinet up high that I really didn't care for, it blocked the view into the open living area and I have always disliked those type of cabinets.  The first thing we did was tear out that cabinet, mostly so we'd never have a chance to miss the storage it would have provided!   We didn't even wait long enough to take a before picture of that thing.

We priced new stock cabinets and counter tops at Home Depot and figured it was going to cost approximately $2,800 if we did everything ourselves (installation and demo of old kitchen)   We had just moved in, we couldn't really afford that much so soon after scraping up the largest down payment we possibly could.  Since it wasn't an emergency we couldn't justify taking it out of the emergency fund.  Although it did feel a little like an emergency to be honest.

Why I originally thought a simple coat or three of paint would fix it I am not sure.  I actually think it was God that softened all the "eye sores" for us so we'd go ahead and purchase it and not get bogged down with the little stuff.  He knew we needed this place, he also knew we'd get bogged down with worry and get stuck in it if he didn't soften some of those things until after we'd moved in.  Once we moved in and had fallen in love with the place and saw all the potential right in front of us it was easier to jump in and fix what needed done.  That is our theory.  Looking at this picture I am thinking God must have blindfolded me completely to have walked willingly into that mess.   It is a really good thing I have the ability to imagine how it could look with some TLC.

Tobers grins for the camera with a cordless drill in hand just waiting on the next demolition order of business.

Told you is was gross!  Spud Man is in charge of demo...just happens to be right up his alley of expertise.

Sunshine helps remove staples from the wall where the trim boards were attached.  Demo is such a messy job but we knew it would be worth it in the end.  The counter section she is kneeling on we left as long as we could to maintain water in the kitchen as long as possible.  Don't you just love the wallpaper?  Pft, yuck huh?

We decided to not put any of our kitchen things in the old cabinets and set up a temporary kitchen area in the small dining area next to the kitchen.  We left only the sink base cabinet so we could still do dishes and get water.  Everything else we gutted.

We slowly worked on what we could afford to.  We took off the wallpaper seam trim and primed the wallpaper (the wallpaper was factory applied over 3/" sheetrock so we opted to leave it and prime it well then we added tape and texture along the seams.  We textured with an orange peel finish, did another primer coat, then we painted a nice neutral light beige color.

My Dad had some basic birch cabinets that he had salvaged from an old school demolition that he offered us.  We went and measured them and determined we would be able to make them fit.  Granted it would take a lot of work, creativity, and tedious retrofitting to get a workable kitchen.  We are so grateful for this resource as it did save us about $2,000!  The trade-off was, we'd spend the next 4+ months working on getting them retrofitted, refinished, and installed.  The progress has been slow but satisfying.

Here are the cabinets before we started retrofitting them.  In an off-topic note, you can see in the foreground of the picture we are drying some morel mushrooms from a recent camping trip in the mountains.  Yum!

I really like that these cabinets had another life before arriving here in my kitchen.  The likely history is that these cabinets were built by prisoners for the schools.  They are made of high quality thick veneer over pieced solid wood, what little plywood there is, is high quality.  These are solid and well built.  They stripped down easily mostly because of the smooth profile.  They sanded nice and smooth and they took stain beautifully.

We are also very grateful that my parents helped pay a portion of the cost of the new countertops.  We only had to come up with an additional $100.  So overall we have only put about $500 into this kitchen remodel.  We used our sweat equity of time, skill, and patience.

There are things we still need to do, we need to enclose the new standard range hood to look more custom (this is not shown in the photos, we've made some progress since these pics were taken), we need new flooring, and to finish it all off we need some trims and finishing touches to make it look more custom and less utilitarian.  Trim does a lot to add character for not much money.

Ways we kept costs way down:

#1 Not letting emotion get us in a hurry.

#2 Being patient with the process of doing it the harder, but cheaper way.

#3 Being content with the idea that it doesn't and won't ever look like a showroom.

#4 Embracing the idea of re-purposed items and being creative with your materials to make things functional.

#5 Losing the sense of entitlement, thinking "I deserve this because I've worked hard."  You only get it if you have the cash to pay for it.

#6 If at all possible, don't move certain fixtures that would be expensive to move....sinks because of plumbing, and stoves because of electrical and gas plumbing issues as well.  Moving these items a few inches or even 1 ft either way might not cause any issues but major rearranging of the kitchen layout adds up fast.

This isn't really a before and after post.  It is more of a before and in progress post.  We think this improved kitchen will serve our family well for years to come until we can one day build our own custom home.  We figure all of these projects serve as a very good practice for our future dream home.

We have a few drawer fronts to install under the sink area as well as to the left of the stove.

The new flexible track lighting.  Oh and see that nice looong section of countertop?  We love that area, it is where some serious sandwiches can be built, or dozens of cookies made, or pie crusts rolled out.   Then with the raised bar right there the kids can sit and visit with me or help me while I prepare something.  Or when company comes over it is fun to prepare dinner while chatting.  It is the best part about the whole kitchen!

I hope you enjoyed the tour of our so far progress in our kitchen.  I look forward to many projects around this place. Thankfully, we enjoy a good before and after enough to keep plodding away at projects as we can afford to dive into more.

Keep watching for another update, with some more trim work and finishing touches, we have a ways to go but we are optimistic that maybe this summer we can get a few steps farther.