Progress on the Shed

Hubby, Vet2Be, Our Good Friend, and his son were working hard all day Saturday to get the shed up. Monday, Our Good Friend was here putting the walls and roof on.

Here are the progress photos!

Ready, Set, GO!

I was busy in the house so I didn't start the photos until the floor was done.

These cement blocks are what make the shed 'not permanent', so it's legal to build. Permanent foundation means we would need a building permit.

Hubby is on the right. Usually he's the boss man, but today he's taking direction from Our Good Friend who has lots more building experience. (Our Good Friend is also Hubby's employee in 'regular life')

Our Good Friend's son on the left and Vet2Be on the right getting the 2x4s ready to start the wall.

Our Good Friend on the left, Hubby on the right. They work together sooooo well!

See this! This is a GREAT Dad! He's teaching his son how to measure and mark the 2x4s so they know where to nail the studs for the wall. Dads like this are priceless! Their kids probably won't appreciate them until they are much older!

First wall up! Yay!

Vet2Be hasn't ever done any building before today. He gets to be the 'gopher' and 'go fer' wood, nails, or whatever else they need. He's a good sport and felt like he didn't do much, but Hubby said they were really glad to have the extra set of hands out there.

All the walls up and Our Good Friend starting on the roof.

Roof trusses up, and you can see the opening for the door.

That was it for Saturday. A great day's work!

Monday Our Good Friend brought someone in to help him get the walls and the roof sheathing on.

Inside view from the door. I think this shed is bigger than our first apartment was. At any rate, it's alot nicer than our first apartment.

This is the south end. Eventually we'll put a little overhang here and pallets on the ground so we can store the firewood. Right now the firewood is under the playset. While we would love to keep the wood inside the backyard fence, that isn't possible. We have a dog that LOVES to play in the wood pile and tear it apart :)

So far, sooooooo good!

It should be finished today, except for the painting which will have to wait until it gets warmer. It will probably be a boring tan color with green trim, just like the barn. People in our area like things to be 'matchy matchy' so we'll keep them happy.

If it was me choosing the color, I would pick a nice red with white trim!

Grocery List

This is the grocery list I'm using on my fridge right now. Nothing fancy about it at all, but it jogs my memory for needed items as well as gives me a place to jot down things we run out of.

Starting the Shed

Another project we are working on is getting a new shed built for the lawn mower, tiller, and all the other yard equipment. Hubby's got a great employee (and friend) who is helping us with both the kitchen and the shed.

Hubby's business is always slow in January and February which means this great friend's budget is a bit tight to take care of his amazing wife and six kids. That means that we have the chance to have some work done around here by someone who is really trustworthy and does a FANTASTIC job! He is also someone who doesn't mind having his kids (or mine) help them. He's a wonderful teacher, too.

This is where the shed will be built. The three fruit trees haven't done well here (we think it's the soil) so they will come out.

Another photo of the same spot.... makes me realize we need to do something about the gazebo, too. But that is not as high on the priority list.

As long as our friend is bringing in road base to put under the new shed, he's going to fix this hole at the end of the Barn Road. It used to have a HUGE cement water conduit that would direct the water either onto our property or across the street.

Another view of the 'Big Hole' and wasted corner.

Starting to clear the area where the shed will be. It's about 8 inches lower than the Barn Road.

With all the snow gone, it looks like a big mess.

Starting to move the gravel around.

This is the Barn Road, the access road that goes from our street to the barn, which you can see on the right of the photo.

Done for the day! The camper is moved into the back corner, the street end of the Barn Road is graded with the extra road base....

And the pad is ready for the new shed!

I can't tell you how lovely it looks compared to what it used to look like! I'm just all smiles! If it stayed like this without a new shed, I'd be happy, too!

The camper is parked in the old water conduit spot. It's not quite as level because he used some of the fill dirt from the garden area before he put the gravel on top. No worries, we can take care of that with rocks and dirt this spring.

All ready to start building on Saturday!

Remodeling Soon!

I'm really excited... ecstatic actually! We are getting a new kitchen soon! Yay!

Here's what it looks like now.

Unstaged, un-retouched photo of the kitchen today.

The new cabinets will take up the same footprint as the old ones so we don't have to replace the tile. There's alot of tile in this room!

What we're planning on this side of the room:

The dropped ceiling comes OUT! Yay!

New upper and lower cabinets, the upper cabinets will be tall ones so they reach the ceiling.

The upper cabinets will include a corner cabinet on both ends of the wall, which should give me more room to store the appliances that are now on the counter top.

The dishwasher will be moved to the left so that the sink can be moved over. The sink cabinet is one of the reasons we are getting new cabinets. We've had so many plumbing troubles that the bottom is... well.... it's still there. But it's particle board, and after this much flooding it's soft.

The sink will be moved to the left by so that we can install a corner cupboard with a lazy Susan here.

This is where the refrigerator used to be. I lost count of how many times ketchup and milk went down the stairs. Who does that? Puts a refrigerator at the top of the stairs? In a family home? 

 

 

 This will all be changed to real cabinets and real counter tops instead of just fitting a rolling cart into the corner. I'm sure it will feel as if I have alot more counter space when it's done!

This corner is another reason to get new cabinets. Actually, it's the drawers. Hubby's fixed the drawers and the rollers so often that he's kinda tired of it. They are 35 year old cabinets that weren't well built in the first place. 

The other side of the bar. This is where the fridge is now. A kinda weird spot, but much better than the top of the stairs. Instead of the cupboard to the left of the fridge, there will be a built in pantry. And a cabinet over the fridge.

If we had more time (and fewer jobs) then we would probably tackle the job ourselves. As it is, we thought this project would be too much for us, especially with Hubby out of town so often.

So, we have a contractor coming in to take out the dropped ceiling and and upper cabinets, and refinish the ceiling. Hopefully the dropped ceiling won't be too bad. It was installed when one of the previous owners added the addition to the house. So much of the ceiling is still textured (I peeked behind the lights!)

Then the cabinet guys can come in and measure for the cabinets.

Hopefully I'll take a day to paint the walls with the upper cabinets gone and the ceiling finished.

It will take a few weeks for the cabinets to be constructed after they are ordered. While we are waiting we'll have the contractor come back and finish tearing out the bottom cabinets.

When he's done the plumber can come in and move the sink and dishwasher (that's the part I'm dreading right now. No sink and no dishwasher!) Thankfully (sort of) the rooms below the kitchen aren't really finished and so the ceiling and the plumbing are exposed. That might make the job a bit easier. I hope.

After that I'll be completely crazed. I'll probably be wondering what I was thinking in the first place!

Then the cabinets can be installed.

Next the counter top guys can come and do a final measurement for the counter tops.

And THEN the counter tops will come.

Hopefully I'll have a new kitchen in about 3 months.

At least that's the plan.

We'll see how many 'incidents' there are along the way :)

And that's not the only project that we're tackling around here.

A bedroom is finally getting re-done.

And a new mower/tiller garage is being built.

Soooo nice to be able to get a few major things done this year! We've been making do for so long that everything will be very appreciated!

Sharpening Scissors with Aluminum Foil

I've wanted to try this for a few weeks. Fortunately I have a pair of scissors that are so bad that if it didn't work, the scissors were ready to throw away anyway.

I sharpened my quilting rotary cutter with aluminum foil and it worked surprisingly well! My friend told me that she had heard you could sharpen paper punches with aluminum foil as well.

That's a pretty small cut for those scissors!

A sheet of aluminum foil folded to 6 layers.

Cut aluminum foil before second try at cutting the bag.

Surprise! The scissors work again!

I was surprised! I wasn't sure aluminum foil would sharpen my scissors enough that they would cut much better.

I know, it's probably less expensive to go buy a sharpener.

Sometimes it's nice to be able to use what I have sitting around. Next time I have aluminum foil that is ready for the garbage, I'll use that instead of brand new aluminum foil.

In fact, I'll probably grab a pair of scissors and cut the old stuff up as I throw it into the garbage just to keep my scissors sharp.

Mac Computer Design Flaw

I love my Mac, I do, really!

We have more Mac computers in our family than we have children!

The design flaw:

The CD slot is right above the SD card slot.

 No biggie, right?!

Until you put the SD card into the CD slot.

Thank goodness for a wonderful son-in-law who spent 10 minutes using a toothpick and a business card to get the SD card out.

He's good at stuff like that.... he's done it before, too.

Sheesh!

My low-tech fix~ a piece of Scotch tape over the CD slot.
I can barely see it! I folded the end over so that it would be easy to remove.

I'm pretty sure we're not the only two people who own Mac computers who have done this. If Mac made some sort of cover for the CD hole (especially for people who use SD cards all the time!) it would look like they designed it that way.

Instead of me putting tape over the hole, which kinda makes it look like their designers don't use CD drives or SD cards.

Christmas Lights and Zip Ties

I had what I thought was a great idea!

It turns out it is a great idea.... surprise!

We love Christmas lights. We drive around to see Christmas lights. But we really stink at decorating our own house with Christmas lights.

Hubby leaves lights on one of the trees and around the front windows all year because he hates taking them down.

I decided I wanted some lights in another tree this winter and I don't have the time or patience to carefully wrap strings of lights around the branches anymore than he does. And the string of lights I found on sale were snowflake lights, not exactly the kind of wire you can wind around branches anyway.

That's where the zip ties come in! I haven't seen or read anywhere else about stringing Christmas lights using zip ties, but it worked, it worked well, and it was fast!

I used the white zip ties I found in the garage. I had to chain a few together for the larger branches, but it was so easy and fast that I could it with gloves on!

I even used zip ties to hold the extension cord to the tree so it wouldn't dangle down at weird angles across the front of the house. I ran out of white zip ties and used the black ones from the barn, but both colors blend in with the bark on the tree, so the color didn't make a difference.

I'm pretty excited that I can go out today and snip the zip ties with scissors and take the lights down quickly. Yay! Fast and easy!

We bought a bag of 100 zip ties this spring.

One of the best 'equipment investments' we've made in a while!

Vet2Be is positive I'm zip-tie crazed because of all the things I've used them for, inside the house, in the barn yard, and now for Christmas lights! There is a small stash of them in the camper and in the two old cars, too.

Right next to the Gorilla duct tape :)