Now the Kitchen

The main problem with remodeling in the winter is -where to put all the de-construction junk!

All the ripped off paneling can't just be thrown out on the deck.

Plus, we tore down a large (ugly) pantry that was FULL so where do we put all of the food too.

I fit most of the food in the other cupboards, after getting rid of all the stuff we don't ever use. As far as the piles of wood, most of it went out to the trash last week so it is much better now.


Here is the back of the large ugly pantry.




Now the paneling is removed and Kevin is unhooking the electric boxes and switches. Most of it gone.






Going.....


Going.....


Going....

Almost gone.

Now for a break in the remodel to check out my basket of eggs. They aren't laying too much now so each egg is like gold to me.

Check out this awesome rooster that my mom got for me for Christmas. His tail has measuring spoons in it. They slide right in the center of the tail.


See, how cool! I love him.

This turkey decided to hang out on the frame to our shade tent.

We had a foot of snow and -11 degree temperatures but nothing fazes our big hairy monster of a dog. She laid there for a while (quite a while) and the snow doesn't even melt.

She brings it right in and shakes it off in the house, nice!


(Back to the kitchen.) Now the pantry is all gone and here is the beam in place.

Now we have all this room to move around, heaven!


The island will go where the old ugly tile is. I guess we are going to build one. I found a really cool one on Craig's List but it was a little too pricey so we will go with the homemade one.

Kinda something like this.

This is my inspiration for the kitchen. Kevin is going to make new cupboards for the upper shelves and we are going to reface the lowers. I want some open ones like in the picture for dishes and he's going to make some with solid doors and maybe some glass doors too.

It's kind of funny cause the handles on these cupboards are exactly the same as what's on mine and I hate them.

They look so nice on the cupboards in the other picture.

Actually, it doesn't really matter how nice they look in the inspiration kitchen because there is no way I could use them after hating them all this time. How dumb is the placement of the handles anyway, right in the middle of the door, what were they thinking.

More to come,

Beth

Time For Some Change!

You all may not think that we need to update and if that is true then you all are stuck in the bad paneling days of the 70's and 80's like my house.This was what my looked like bedroom, thankfully I can say WAS!

We had way too much heavy furniture-entertainment center, computer desk and too much stuff on the walls-pictures, cork boards crossbows (Yes, we had not one but two crossbows on our wall over the bed.)... time for a change!

This is where our bed was and you can still see the hooks for the crossbows and there is a crossbow accessory still hanging on it. (I think it is a rope to assist with cocking it.)

I took the day off for my birthday and called my sister, Amy over to help and we got busy. The night before Kevin and I emptied most of the junk and Amy helped with the rest in the morning. Then I sanded it all with my cool little mouse sander and then we started to prime.

Kevin is not into painting but he comes in at the end when we don't care anymore and touched up all the spots that we missed. Which were quite a few!

Not sure what Amy was doing here, something with the roller.



Then we started to paint. The color looks a little strange but it is really good in real life.

I painted the ceiling the same color as the walls, it may not suit everyone but I love it. I did the same thing in both bathrooms and it's great. My mom would never go for it though, ceilings are white in her world. In my world, especially with me not having the patience to draw a straight line to trim, ceilings are the same color as the walls!


Cleo helped with the paint by brushing by it and getting it all over her. It will be on there til spring when she gets a haircut. (OK, not sure what is going on with the date on the picture, must have jumped way into the future. I don't like having the date on the pictures but with this new camera I have not taken the time to figure out how to take it off.)

My new computer desk. There's not much room to store anything, bad for me good for "no clutter". Although if you saw it now it had stuff all over it that I have no where to put it. We will be getting a black filing cabinet, all paperwork will go into it so that will help.

I'm also looking for a really cool shelf for over the desk.... I just went on a 20 min. search for a shelf picture online but there is nothing like what I want. I'm probably going to have to make it.

Nice, huh? No crossbows over the bed. Now we don't want to hang up anything. Amy has the perfect, coolest picture thing but she isn't giving it up.

Next we start on the kitchen.

Til next time,
Beth

A Walk Through the Last Couple Weeks

Our pullets are really starting to lay, which makes me happy beyond belief, and so here are the eggs from this week. You will notice one unusually large egg from one of older hens. It is huge, bigger than the turkey eggs and almost as big as the goose eggs we had.

I hope the size shows in these pictures.

The green egg in front is one of the new pullet eggs.

The big one!

The pullet egg.

My new egg collecting basket. I love it, I got two, one to have in the barn and one to replace it with when I take them in. I just wish it was a different color.

All the smaller green eggs are pullet eggs from the eggs we hatched last spring.

Here is my little Maran hen. She is one of the new pullets we got last spring. I can't wait for them to lay. We have four of them and their eggs should be darker brown. The really good ones are chocolate brown. A month ago she was attacked by a hawk. She had two huge patches of skin missing, one on her head and another on her shoulder. She is healing up quite nicely. At first her eyelid was pulled so tight that she couldn't see out of her eye but now it is getting better. You can see the big scar on her head.

See how she is not quite right, her eyes look different, the left one is stretched flat.

It is impossible to get a good picture of a chicken. I tried though.

Here she is running away, afraid I will try to pick her up again to fuss over her.

The flock is really enjoying the pumpkins and squash that we throw in for them.

This is one of the new pullets that is laying the green eggs.

I wanted to take a picture of the pumpkins in case I decided to make calendars again this year for Christmas. I thought this would be a perfect October picture but the stupid flys would not cooperate.

I tried and...

I tried....

and I tried.....

Eureka!

I want to crop it and center it a little better but my computer is still acting funny, still that Buffer Overload problem. I have to do more research but it is so boring that I'm having trouble gettin' to it.

Kevin transplanted the blackberries, can't wait til the spring to see how they will do.

We are going to get more varieties, hopefully some red raspberries too, my personal favorite.

Kevin cleaned the gutters, painted the downspouts and put them back up. A week ago it was in the 60's so we took a day off work and got some things down. I touched up all the spots where we filled the holes from taking down the shutters. We're not replacing them, I'm sick of shutters, they're not real anyway. I am going to, instead, put up a wider white trim around the windows. We are replacing the windows next spring, when our ship comes in (tax return).

We chose these mission style lights for the front. No big statement just a reasonable price.


Kevin has been slowly clearing the back 40 (3 acres). He has to wait until he heals from all the Multifloral Rose scratches before he can do more.

This was all 5 to 10 foot high weeds and brush. Great for the deer population but not so good for the steer and pigs we want to pasture there next spring.

He left a few trees so there would be some shade.

Buddy and Flipper are doing a great job of clearing all the cat tails out of the pond. They love to chew them down.

I'm not sure if they are eating them but I'm sure if you can see very well but there is a bunch chewed off along the far shore and they have completely chewed all of them along the front shore.

Sorry buddy, it's Thanksgiving time!

I wrapped the side of the lean-to with a couple tarps because I wanted it to be less drafty there.

The girls love to hang out there during the day and the younger birds and some of the turkeys have been roosting there at night.

Chicken Hangout

I set up a couple 2 x 4 for them to roost on because the older birds won't let them in the chicken house at night yet. It will be better when we thin down the flock soon.

I have been finding eggs on top of the hay bales here again. They were all laying in the new nesting boxes that I built in September but then I found a few on the ground and a bunch on the bale that is in front of the blue tarp. They have been setting way up under the roofing, next to the straw.

Well, I started thinking that maybe the new hens needed more nesting boxes so I thought I'd add a second story to the new ones that I built in September.

Original

High Rise!

This pullet stayed on the nest through my sawing, pounding, adding and screwing with the screw gun. She started complaining only once so I quieted down for a minute or two and so did she.

I knew they would need a way to get up to the second story so I built them a gang plank and a walkway.

They like it just fine. The first time I found a egg in the second story I was thrilled beyond belief. I ran and told Kevin, THEY LIKE IT! THEY LIKE IT! I think he kinda thinks I'm a dork. But you should have seen how dorky excited he was when he had nine deer surrounding him when he was hunting the night before in his deer blind. When he came in to tell me he was talking a mile a minute.

See all the eggs, they really do like it!

Just for comparison, here is a picture of the four month old meat bird that we still have. He is next to a regular hen. He's a giant and must weigh all of 12 pounds.

Til next time,

(hope it's sooner)

Beth