Bluebirds

Busy today and not a lot of time to get online.  We're getting new carpeting through a lot of the house, so I've been working on getting stuff ready to move out of rooms, and getting ready to pull up old carpet (which we are doing ourselves.)

I was sitting outside on a "break" today and saw something similar to this:

This is a birdhouse dh built me for mother's day several years ago.  It sits in the back of my garden right off our pergola.  This summer, this lovely pair of bluebirds nested here, right in front of our eyes - it was so exciting!!!  (We are obviously easily amused...)  DH cleaned this house out this weekend (bluebirds only nest in a clean house) and the birds were back checking it out today!!  I hope they come back here to nest next summer.  Wonder if they're on their way south???

A couple of shots from my seat on the pergola.  You can see how close the birdhouse is to us.  These pics were taken in June...the garden looks a lot different now in October!

Painting plastic

Here I am, 2 days in a row!  I know I can make myself do this.  Since I've retired, I seem to be on "whatever..." time -- Not that I'm complaining.

My parents just left, they came up to celebrate my mom's 81st birthday.  She has not been very well this summer.  I hope she comes out of it and that this is not the beginning of the end :(

Enough!  I'm going to do a short post today to show you how I painted plastic.  The guy who owns the local pool/hot-tub place GAVE us some great plastic containers with screw-on lids.  We use the large one to put chicken food in, and had 2 left for the dog and cat food:

I taped off the top part and used the "Rustoleum plastic" paint you see in the picture.  I had to wipe them down with alcohol, but that was it.  I sprayed one coat, waited a couple hours, then sprayed another coat.  THAT'S IT!

 Do you feel like you have a crick in your neck?  I don't know why this picture won't rotate.  Ah, well, you get the idea :)

This is where these buckets "live."  In the laundry room, where the animals eat.  They are great containers for pet food, and I think they look SOOO much better painted than they looked before.

So that's my quick project and quick post for today.  I still have some of this paint left and I'm sure I'll find something else to use it on ;).  Hope you've had a great weekend!

I'm baaaaack!

Yes, I realize it's been almost a year since I posted.  I don't have any excuses.  Got busy, did a lot of subbing, and spent waaaay to much time looking at other people's blogs and on Pinterest.  I have done lots to post about and got most of it on film camera.  I'm going to do my best to post 2 or 3 times a week, maybe more, maybe less, but I AM going to work on being more productive.

Do you find that this is a time of year when you become more productive inside the home?  I love the "nesting" feeling, as well as not feeling guilty if I'm not outside working in the garden (pics of those later...)

Speaking of nesting.... I figured my first post back from the grave should be about something big in our lives!  Since we're at that 'kids have moved out but not married or grandkids yet' stage, it doesn't take much to amuse us.  Here's what we started on last May:

That's right ----- We.Got.Chickens!!!!  DH has been wanting to do this for awhile, and I finally got on board.  I've been wanting a garden shed, so he built a garden shed/chicken coop combo.  What a guy ♥.  I have lots of pictures, but I'll try not to bore you too much.  We're just the proud parents, dontcha know :)

This is the front of the coop/shed.  The shed is 10 ft X 10 ft, and the coop is 10X6.  He salvaged the front door from his dad's shed (where everything from their 56 year marriage has gone to die...) and I LOVE it!

Here's the back part (chicken coop part.)  I have gotten the extra paint off those windows since the picture has been taken.  I did all the first coats of paint, then it got to "hotter than hell" status this summer, so it didn't get its next coats until September.

The bottom picture shows the coop before we ever let the chickens in; it will never, ever be this clean again...  Yes, the whole thing was painted, thankyouverymuch!  On the left are the nesting boxes.  Many of the roosters you see in the top picture are now in our freezer.  We have 8 hens and 1 rooster now.  We had 12 hens at one time, but they flew the fence and became a small morsel for the dogs before I got them away (fortunately for you, that was not documented on YouTube!)

We don't plan on making money off these girls.  We are doing it for fun, fresh eggs (and chicken) for us, our kids and our friends.  We'll hopefully be able to sell a few eggs, but that's not our main goal.

Anyhoo, we got the babies in the mail on May 7th(ish):

And, as of the end of September, they have rewarded us with:

EGGS, BABY!!!  We're averaging about 5 a day, and they are to.die.for.  If you've never had fresh eggs, well, you haven't had eggs!

A couple more pics of the inside of the garden shed:

looking from the door - those are the other side of the nesting boxes, so I can collect eggs from the shed side and not have to go into the coop.  Brilliant!

closer up of the nesting boxes.  The un-painted part of the wall is supposed to be a greenhouse window in the future.  Frugal = paint was left-over from another project, and that stool cost me $2.00 at a garage sale :)

This is the old box on the shelf that has my egg cartons in it.  Awesome!  Another treasure from the in-law's shed :)

The potting bench dh made me several years ago that was in the garage. The nesting boxes are to my right; also, in the top left corner you can see the corner of a counter...

This is on the opposite side, and shows the matching countertop.  These two used to be put together and served as the counter in our laundry room for several years until we got built-in counters and cabinets.  Since then it has been in the garage.  Now they are split up and will hold my outdoor junk!

Well, that was an awfully long post for just coming back from the grave.  I'm going to link in with the other great bloggers who are doing 31 days of.....  and I'm going to do 31 days of getting back into blogging - I have about that many thrilling posts of things I've accomplished in the last year.  See you tomorrow (I hope!) OH!  Just one more picture:

This is our other baby, Daisy.  My dd gave her to me last Christmas.  She's all mutt (part terrier...) and makes us laugh all the time.

Painting wood

We have a wood stove in the basement which we have used the last couple of years to help heat the basement and first floor.  We also have a stove in the living room that we haven't used much...Duh...  We have decided to use both of them this year and see if we can get our heating bill down ~~ The 2nd story is basically closed off, since that's where the kids's rooms are.

ANYHOO...Hubby built a box for me to store wood in upstairs.  He had to buy some of the 1 x 4s and 1 x 2s, but the main large pieces of wood are just cheap, thin plywood.  He actually told me I could PAINT IT!!!  This from a man who cringes over painted wood. I was so excited I almost peed myself.  Ahem...  Now, 3 walls of the living room are a light brown, and the 4th is a darker brown.  I first painted it the light brown.  Hmmm...

This is the back side.  After some thought, I decided it looked too "hi, I'm a painted cheap box!"  I wondered what would happen if I decided to paint over part of it with a dry brush the darker brown.  So this was step 2:

The last one is just so you can see the inside.  After looking at it for awhile, I decided I really looked the "painted over" look.  My next decision was whether or not to paint the whole thing with that look, or keep it as is, to make the lighter brown areas pop.  I spent quite a bit of time pondering, wondering, debating, questioning...  Finally I decided I liked the painted over look, as my living room is somewhat rustic, and I thought that look was softer and not so much "look at me!!"  So, I went ahead and did it all:

What do you think?  I like it much better this way.  Even hubs likes it, and he usually rolls his eyes at these types of things.  It's drying right now, and I can't wait to bring it in.  Below is a pic of the living room.  This will sit to the left of my throne chair, to the right of the fireplace (in front of the window.)  The box that is sitting there will be moved:

What do you think?  How would you have painted it??

Fall

I love fall.  I love fall this year more than ever before.  I'm not sure why that is.  When I was teaching and the kids were younger, I was so busy with starting school and all their activities, I never paid much attention to the season.  The last couple of years, I've worked and been so busy helping with the HS football team (feeding them, that is,) that I still didn't realize how beautiful the season was.




This is the first year I've been able to step back and really breathe in the season.  I've done all this decorating, and I can't seem to stop!  I've been out walking in our woods and found things growing I never knew were there. 




I've been savoring the apple cider, and I can't wait to bake some pumpkin muffins this weekend.  I love opening the windows at night and burrowing down into the blankets. 

Here's the bottom line.  I never thought of fall as a great season.  Now I think it's my favorite.  How about you?  I'm off to get some more apple cider :)

Why we clean

I have been gone/subbing/busy for the last week.  Thursday was my only day off.  I made a list, turned on my timer, and got it all done!  I was so pleased when it was all done, and felt like we all feel when we've done a good job.  Why is this important?  I always think "...it will be clean if someone just stops by."  How often does that really happen? And, I don't know about you, but people only "just stop by" when my house is a mess, anyway!  What's up with that??  Anyway, I am working on not worrying about that.  I'm worrying about how I feel.  After all, isn't it all about me?????  Being in my home makes me endlessly happy.  Being in my home when it's nice and clean, well, that makes me feel just short of heaven.  Where did I ever get the idea that I was working for people who stop by?  The only people who 'just stop by' are my friends, and their houses are semi-messy, too.  So, I need to learn to relax about my house-cleaning.  It's done for me, and if it's not done perfectly or always, that's ok.  It's still home.

Crafty Fall

Reading my blog, one may have noticed I just might be a bit ADD...Oh look, a butterfly! I have finally brought everything together and am going to show you what I've been working on to do some cheap fall decorating.  I'm really proud of myself, and find that I'm starting to get back into crafting...Danger...All it took was 20 years and the kids out of the house!

First of all, I found this great idea over at Sassy Style.  Lo and behold, I had a small vintage red wagon that was sitting on my hearth.  I had planned on doing something cool with it, but it just sat there.  Also, my ds tried to ride it like a scooter and broke one of the wheels (really?  a 260 pound lineman could do that??)  Since my living room has red in it, I thought this idea would work great.



The top picture shows the little wagon in it's original state (cobwebs??   must be just a fuzzy picture...)  I started by removing the wheels and such.  The front nut and bolt were so rusted together, dear hubs ground that part off (can you see the sparks?)  He just rolls his eyes when I start these things, but fortunately he goes with the flow!  The last picture shows what it looked like after everything was taken off.  I decided not to paint or anything, just scrubbed it really well.



Here it is, the new tray on my coffee table.  I didn't add the handles.  The pumpkin is a Dollar General find, and I just love it!

I went to a thrift store and a fabric store with a friend yesterday, so here is the next project.  Pumpkins made from toilet paper rolls covered in fabric.  So easy, even I can do it (directions - google "toilet paper pumpkins").  These took about 2 minutes each, and I think they are so cute!

How cute are these?  I made a couple for friends as well.  I also found some dead branches in my wooded yard, and used those as the pumpkin 'stem.'

I finished up what I wanted to do with my little table in my dining area:

The little runner was some fabric I found that I really liked.  I bought 1 1/2 yards, ripped cut it in half lengthwise, folded it, then tied it with some cute ribbon on both sides.  Voila!  The candle was 25 cents at the thrift store, and there is one of my new little pumpkins!  I am so excited (easily amused...obviously :))

So, that kind of wraps up the current house reformation and crafting.  Stay tuned for more!