Kitchen now has Pictures on the Wall

For most of my life I have waited until I have painted the perfect picture to go on the wall. Which means I never have art on my wall because I am never happy with the stuff I paint. Kind of like the plumber and his bathroom sink leaks, I am the artist with no art to provide my wife.
So yesterday we got the idea to go to The Goodwill and shop for frames. You can pick up $6.00 frames with art in them. We tore out the art that was in them and printed a few of our favorite photographs from the garden last summer. We then used some mats I had laying under the frame table and framed these three pictures up. So for about $20 we made a nice little grouping.

As you can see above the wall was in need of something. We have been waiting to really decorate the place until the construction was finished. It is nice to finally start the next stage of the project. We were on Room & Board.com the other night. We played a game where we add to the shopping cart all the furnishings we need. We came to a grand total of $11,282.00. We hope to do the same buying second hand and building things, but yet not spending anywhere near $11,282.00. If you want to see what we would pick out if money was no object, please send your check to us for $11,282.00 and we will show you. ;)

Our Christmas Story

Christmas Eve my wife pulled out her sewing machine to make Boo Boo a present. Using left over red fleece from a jacket she made she created a "Mo Mo."
At least that is what we are calling him.
Boo Boo did leaps for Mo Mo. (Say that five times fast.) I think I even heard him say, "all I want for Christmas is a Mo Mo. If I could have a Mo Mo I would never want for anything ever again. I won't chew his eye out, I promise."
So we gave him Mo Mo and if I were you I wouldn't stick my hand under that desk and try to take it away.
Growing up in California I never saw a real white Christmas. (Living up North snow was on the ground already when Christmas arrived.) On Christmas Eve we dropped from 50 to 27 degrees and this white stuff fell from the sky. Christmas morning our garden was covered. I have storm windows over the spinach however so it is still providing food for us under that snow. One of the nice things about Missouri is, all that snow will be gone in a few days.

Merry Christmas

How to Make a Coat Rack in 30 minutes or less

When we come into the house we throw our coats on the couch. When we want to sit on the couch we throw our coats somewhere else. So we thought, "hey lets buy a coat rack." Everything was made in another country. We use to make stuff in our country but now we just buy stuff and other countries make stuff. In fact I hear they even borrow us the money to buy stuff from them. So anyways, before I go off track, here is a simple guide on building a coat rack yourself.

First thing is to go into your basement and find a scrap of wood.
Set up your saw horses made in China. Cut the wood to size on your Chinese made saw that you bought for under a $100 at the Home Depot.
Notice the sticker on the back of the wood that you bought at the Home Depot. This is going to be a multi-national project.
Cut the ends at 30 degrees with your saw made in China.
Mark a hole with a pencil, made in Indonesia and tape measure made in the USA of all places, every 4".
Drill 1/2" dia holes, 1/2" deep into the wood, using your drill made in China, that you bought for under $100 at the Home Depot. Sand with your $50 Black & Decker Belt Sander made in the Philippines.

Glue 3 pegs from Indonesia into the coat rack and insert two pegs into a scrap board from Sweden, but do not glue these two pegs. You will need them later.

Using a can of primer spray paint made in Korea, apply two coats.

Ten minutes after the primer is dry, spray two coats of finish color on.

Finally using a level, mark the two outside holes, pre drill and attach to wall. Glue in the last two pegs and hang your hat, made in China and your jacket made in Bangladesh.

In the end this guy would never buy an $8.00 coat rack made in China. I would make it myself because I am part Irish!

This posting and coat rack was proudly made in Missouri.

Transformation "Then & Now"

The Final Push

With 2009 coming to a close we are hoping to finish the house completely with the last week of the year. We went and purchased all the remaining supplies and over the next week I am going to finish it all. Every room has small details that are not done. Probably nothing most people would notice and most likely things that people live with all the time. Missing trim, little nicks in the wall, scratched paint and such will all be completed, Lord willing! So in the end it took exactly 1 year and 6 months to remodel this house. I have been working on this place for so long I am not sure what I will do when all the tools are downstairs in the basement and the corners are free of tool belts, dry wall mudd and cans of paint. Maybe we can come to your house if we go through construction withdrawls....I am sure there is a pill for that however.

New Floor & Curtains

Today we went to get a couple of curtain rods for the back bedroom, which we did find at Lowes. We also found our floor for .30 cents a square foot, which we promptly grabbed up and installed today. Normally this floor was 1.98 a sf so we wound up paying more for the curtain rods than we did the floor.
The washer & dryer are now hidden from view.
My lovely bride decorated the Christmas Tree while I did the floor.

She also made cookies, a cake and a few cup cakes which I am about to go devour.

Laundry

The big news is.......after 1 year and exactly 6 months from moving down here for our Summer Vacation, we have a washer & dryer right in our very own house. We have said good bye to the laundry mat and hello to our own back room. For those of you with laundry right in your own home, you may be thinking what is the big deal, but those of you who know the adventures of a laundry mat know what we are so excited about. The best part is we do not have to spend Saturdays enjoying second hand smoke, screaming children, Jerry Springer on the television and other peoples left overs in the machines. We will miss the yoga man. He would do yoga right there in the laundry mat while his clothes were washed.

New Door

Over Thanksgiving and up to today, we have put a new door in the room, finished off the trim around the patio door and today I laid down the underlayment on the floor. Boo Boo thinks he is getting a pretty good bedroom. Tonight we hope to have a really big event which we will blog about in the morning. Now you won't sleep all night as I know you will wonder what it is.

(it is only big to us.)

Pumpkin Pie

For Halloween we purchased this pumpkin for the table.
My beautiful wife cut it up today and made a few cups of
this orange stuff.
Then she poured it into this homemade crust and stuck it in the oven.

Out came the best pumpkin pie I have ever had. I didn't know pie could taste so good!

Being the seed saver my wife is she set aside all these for the garden next year.

Wow! I am so lucky.

It was a great Thanksgiving!

Paint & Treasures from the Dumpster

This past weekend we painted the back room, installed the light and the face plate covers on the outlets.
Yesterday I drove by a dumpster and spotted two picture frames next to it. One of which we took the cardboard painting out of and replaced it with foamcore, covered by fabric. We cut a hole out for the thermostat and now my wife has a place to stick ideas right above her desk. It is nice to have a frame shop in the studio because of the tools that makes quick work of a project like this. We thought about showing a "how to" demonstration on the blog, but you know how you feel when you watch New Yankee Workshop and Norm has all those cool tools that you don't have. (yeah me too)

Planted

After a few long days all the plants are in and alot of the beds have been filtered. We doubled the size of the garden for next year. I used up all the compost so a new batch is starting for the Spring. We have 4 apple trees now. I was reading the garden should always have apple trees. The second coat of mudd has been put on the walls in the back bedroom. I hope to have the room painted by the end of next week. Still along way to go but I think our house can now safely say it is no longer an eyesore in the neighborhood.

Still digging

I woke up this morning and said the garden looks small. I think I will rent a machine and make some new beds. I found this one below at a contractors rental store. Oh how sweet it is to cut through the rocks, coat hangers, glass and trash in the yard. So now we will get out our screen device I made and filter the new beds. The other cool thing we found today is plants at 75% off. So I bought about 40 potted plants to sink into the ground over the next 4 days. All that good compost is about to come in handy.

Plant some bulbs, get a free pocket knife

The other day I found a store closing out Spring bulbs for 50 cents a pack. I bought $6.50 worth and now we have 250 bulbs. Today I planted 48 Hyacinth's and 60 Crocus here in this space for next years show.
Of course digging in the dirt requires one to first filter the garbage, broken glass, rotted garden gloves and this Old Henry Pocket Knife. I must say it is the first time I have found anything I could use.

Garden Progression November 10th

Another garden progession shot. From then until today.

In the back corner of the yard I have been gathering leaves for the garden. People bag these things up and just throw them away. I steal them from the curb late at night. I hope to get another 50 or so bags. For the garden composting of course if you are wondering why.

Re Motar

Re-motared the foundation today and installed the forms for the steps. Now I just need to cover them with the bricks.

Big Screen

Boo Boo is a big screen nut now. Of course this being Sunday I am sure there are more than a few guys out there who have the same problem.

She cleaned the garden today

While I did the house my wife made the garden nice. Just look at all the food still growing.