Housewarming party!

Our housewarming party was Saturday evening. It rained during the day, so everyone was in the house...

And by everyone, I mean LOTS of everyones. It was a great party... so great that I didn't take photos! ACK! But there were lots of wonderful friends.

We made North Carolina pulled pork, my veggie dip "cowboy caviar" recipe, watermelon, raspberries stuffed with chocolate and vanilla chips, and strawberries with piped cheesecake amaretto. Bob made a crazy strong batch of mojitos, we opened a few white wines, and I made a fruit punch of blackberry lemonade with chopped basil (which went quickly). Friends brought more food, more wine, flowers, and other things. Fabulous!

I even threw together a new wreath for our front door (which encircles our new bird door knocker!). Yes, we put a bird on it.


Bob was a bit cynical when he saw it, but I went around the house before the party and put up little explanations of our current, past, and future projects. Our friends loved the notes, since they could read about our plans without us having to always be at their sides (there were a lot of visitors!). Plus, it was a housewarming and encouraged folks to walk around the house.

Such as....

The woodstove:


Painting the house next summer:


Replacing the front door and garage door, eventually....


Redo the wine rack in a few years:



Redo the storage areas, like the one under the stairs:


Putting up a wall of photos:


My (likely never to occur) dream of putting french doors to a deck off of the kitchen:


The "may occur when we decide to someday also replace the tile and linoleum and backsplash and hardware" kitchen sink:


The plans for the lower tier next summer:


The china cabinet replacement project:


We locked two cats upstairs, and with the narrow, railingless staircase and other construction things, we decided not to have people go upstairs. So, we plastered the door with photos of the upstairs.






The other closet also got a note discussing our plans to reorganize it:


And we talked about painting the bedroom gray:


And our plans to soon paint the bathroom (seriously. Matte paint?):


And another closet organization system:


And the purple desk description:


It was such a fun party, and we have so many lovely friends. We ended Saturday feeling very happy, lucky, and wonderful.

New chicken digs

Our hens right now have a 6'x6' box that has a lot of straw in it. We keep it open for them right now and they poke around the yard. We built the "coop" for free, and it's certainly worked well.

But...

It's not a good wintertime home. It needs to be more waterproof (we put tarps over it in the spring), and we'd prefer to have it closer to the house in the winter (so we can more easily check on them).

So, on the books is to build a new coop. Since they are free-range on non-rainy days, we have decided to make the coop a bit smaller. We'll have a roost area and a nesting box area, but we'll also have an open area inside for poking around.

This is all brought on by this weekend's weather. Horrible! Rainy, mucky, gross. The hens don't get it, and instead of staying under covers, they've gallivanted out in the rain.... and become soggy, cold things.

Since the girls clearly don't know better to stay inside on a bad day, we've decided to have an indoor only area for them in the wintertime. Big enough to stretch their legs and play about, but not so big as they'll lose body heat and get cold. By having it off the ground, they'll not get mucky.

Here's the concept plan:

We'll probably have ours a bit taller and a bit longer, but you get the idea. I'd like to be able to use the underneath as storage for food and straw.

We're also building it for four hens, since I would greatly love to get a Jersey Giant next spring.

It's a bit smaller than I would normally approve of, but since they're out and about in good weather, I don't feel so bad.

Thoughts?

Upstairs Remodel!!

We love our upstairs room. It's pretty funky, with slanted ceilings and dormer windows. But, the paneling and industrial carpet? HAD TO GO.


We knew from poking around that there were original plank subfloors UNDER the carpet, UNDER the padding, and UNDER the particle board subfloor. Yes: Two subfloors. And, the particle board on top of the plank subfloor (with no padding in between) made a LOT of noise. We knew that if we were going to redo the upstairs, we'd need to remove the particle board subfloor.


So, one weekend while Bob was at a conference, I went to work. Crowbar and hammer and chisel. Piece by piece (and by piece I mean small pieces), the particle board came off. Bob came home to original plank subfloor and the old floor (and carpeting) being hauled away.


We decided not to replace the paneling right now. Someday, if we use it as an actual bedroom everyday, we'll put drywall in. We just didn't want the extra expense right now. So, we had to make that paneling work.

Making the paneling work involved joint compound, sanding joint compound, putting on textured paint, and then painting the textured paint. We also took off all the trim on the paneling, so that meant using some extra caulking an compound to make the joint cracks disappear.

Let's just say that sanding joint compound? Overrated.


But, check out those textured walls! Yes, that's really the old paneling. While we love color, we decided to paint most the room in a light cream. The room's ceiling height and lack of huge windows prohibited a bolder color (but we might choose to do something different in the laundry room area).


We also took off the carpeting on the stairs. And, scarily enough, when we took off the carpet, we found a split stair!! I am so glad that we took off the carpeting and found this. If we had left it on, it could have easily broken, and that would have been a bad slip and fall. I popped out the old stair and put in a temporary one for right now.


But, while the old stair was off, I couldn't resist a photo of Bob's hands popping out through the bottom of the stairway. How often will we be able to get such a photo?!


Right now, the project is stalled until this weekend, when our housewarming party is over. But, we're in the middle of putting in the new flooring. We also have a rubber, super noise-insulating, barrier between the subfloor and new flooring. It's amazing how much quieter the room is. And those walls? Yes, that's the old paneling! We love the color and the fact that they don't look like panels anymore.

We'll update soon with more photos, but I thought I'd post photos of the massive project upstairs!

The night of wanna-be upchuck and loud squawking

Last night was clearly not meant to be.

1) The golden has taken to sleeping on the floor next to my side of the bed. This is great and very loving, but whenever I want to get up to take care of anything (see 1) and 2), below), it means committing great feats of gymnastic proportions to hurdle myself over his gigantic body. And yes, he squeaks if you step on him... and possibly scurries out of your way, but that also means he'll get himself stuck under the bed.

2) 1am and I hear the corgi cough and barf. GREAT. Animal puke. Just what I want to deal with at 1am. Yes yes, you can tell me how someday, I'll have kids and want to deal with animal puke. But, I don't have kids yet for a reason- I like being asleep at 1am. Someday, yes. I'll get up at 1am to deal with God-knows-what the kidlet tyke folk want to throw at me.

Knowing that animal barf is much easier dealt with asap (no potential for tracking it around the room, stepping in it, it soaking into wood floors, etc), I get up.

I see a dark spot on the floor. A dark puddle. I hurdle over the golden (see 1), above) and avoid the puddle. I tell Bob (in case he's wondering why his wife is performing gymnastics at 1am) to close his eyes and I turn on the light. The corgi is laying against the wall, doing her "I'm holding perfectly still so you won't get mad at me" thing, which means she looks REALLY guilty because her eyes are huge and following my every movement like some creepy animatronic person from the Haunted House at Disneyland.

Now, it's 1am. I have night and day contacts, so I wear them to bed, which means my eyes are typically pretty bleary when I wake up.

Bleary-eyed, I stare at the puddle.

It's black.

"SHIT!" I think. "The dog's sick and clearly puking up partially-digested blood. We need to both get up and analyze the situation and possibly take her into the 24-hour emergency vet."

(Keep in mind the corgi's eyes are still following me around, though she has not moved ANY other part of her body.)

I wake up Bob, urgently mentioning that he needs to get up because clearly the dog has some sort of problem.

Bob sits up. Puts on his glasses. Looks at the puddle. Looks at me.

"Dear, those are your dark underwear that the dog dragged out of the laundry."


3) 4:30am. Awake to the sound of LOUD squawking and cackling. Now, we're allowed chickens in our yard, but clearly, chickens have to go if they make too much noise (we greatly treasure our neighbors' liking of us). The hens have NEVER made this much noise before. They could give roosters a run for their money.

Again, bleary eyed, I hurdle out of bed over the pile of the golden dog and go to the window (which was closed... that is how loud they were). There are two hens down on the bottom tier, yodeling their little heads off. Not seeing the third (and my favorite) hen and thinking the worst, I throw a robe of the PJs, grab my slippers (which golden dog was covering, of course), and head outside.

In the barely-lit light of morning, there are the two hens by the back door. Suddenly, a third figure appears on top the coop, at the TOP tier of our yard. It's my favorite hen.... who sees me and promptly begins singing a LOUD, hen opera of sorts to exclaim how excited she is about, I don't know... the day? Me? Life?

Mortified, I march up the hill, grab Layla the hen, and march down the hill to the patio. The point of this? I don't know. WHAT was I goign to do with a loud hen once I reached the patio? What was I thinking? I'm chalking this up to it being 4am. Remember, I thought dark underwear was dog vomit.

The chicken yodeling continues down below. SO what do I decide to do?

Release the hounds.

It works.

The dogs show interest in the hens whenever they're loud, but when the dogs show interest, the hens shut up. This situation works, and I go back to sleep, this time NOT having to catapult myself over the lug of a golden.

New bed artwork

I decided it was LONG overdue for us to add SOMETHING to at least one of our bedroom walls. But, having found nothing at a recent art fair, I decided to just go homemade.

Perhaps a little simplistic, homemade, and trendy, but voila:

The ampersand is painted on the wall by yours truly, and the "MR" and "MRS" are cheap block letters I bought and spray painted. To be honest, I'm not SUPER happy with the block letters. Perhaps, someday, if we like this get up, I'll letter the MR and MRS onto the wall like the ampersand. But for now, I like it, and so does B. Super simple, but yet loving.

You may also notice that I took off the slate on the side tables. I decided they weren't working. And, honestly, neither is the gray color of the side tables. So, those will, at some point soon, also be changed.

More Bed Frame

Yes, another bed frame post. But, this one highlights the entire frame a bit more. You can see more of the vertical slats. LOVE THEM.
That is all. Oh, besides the fact that the golden got stuck under the bed, AGAIN, last night.

Upgraded Bed Frame!

In April 2010, when we were in the old, cramped, bad apartment, we found a $25 bedframe on Craigslist and amped it up to a nice piece. It worked in our small loft, which was really fortunate. We wanted a better piece, but it's difficult to find pieces that work in small lofts.


When we bought our house this year, the old bed frame came along. While it worked with the current room, the piece wasn't exactly overwhelmingly fabulous.
BUT! Enter our find of last week: A BEAUTIFUL mission-style meets shaker-style bedframe. AND, we get to upgrade from a full bed to a queen. The piece is beautiful, and the ad included a new mattress set and new 2" memory foam topper.


It's a blissful sleep and such a beautiful piece. I was a bit worried that it would not go well with the gray walls (I was willing to deal with that since it is a beautiful piece), but it does go well in the room! Success.

The piece is very tall. The headboard is 4' tall, the footboard a little shorter. Tall enough for the box springs, mattress and topper without the frame getting covered. Love!

However, the golden retriever did wake me up the other night because he had managed to get his hind end stuck under the bed. With no rug under the bed, he wasn't able to wriggle himself out--- no traction under those paws. :)

Inspiration.

This is part of the bottom tier of our backyard. It has the small patio paved area too, but you get the idea. LONG rectangular area.

I HAVE FOUND OUR INSPIRATION.

Darn skippity.

Dried Strawberries

Yesterday, B and I picked four boxes of strawberries. Here are two boxes...

So, you can imagine that FOUR boxes was a LOT of strawberries.

After processing one box and putting the cute freezer baggies in the freezer, I realized that if each box made as many quart bags as the first one, I'd end up with a lot of bags in the freezer (over 20 total). That's a lot of freezer space, even with our large chest freezer.

So, I decided to try my hand at drying them. I've never dried strawberries, though I know they're good since they're frequently in cereals and trail mixes. What the heck, right? Might as well tried.

I loaded up my dehydrator. Turns out it took most of one box to fill the entire thing. I coated the berries with a little bit of sugar to help the preservation once they were dried.
And, voila! The berries as of this morning (they started drying around 8pm last night, so this is at about the 12-hour mark). Result: They taste delicious.


They will rehydrate easily, AND: they taste SO much like strawberries. The freezer strawberries are good, but they get a bit mushy and lose a bit of their taste. These suckers are packed with flavor.

I'm waiting another few hours for the rest to dry, and then I'll start picking them off. I'd like to do another round or two!

Depending upon how much dried strawberries this ends up being (one quart? Two?), I may go back and get more strawberries. Do I have a problem? Maybe.