House warming

With everything being so hectic and very "construction like" aka a big mess. I just wanted to take a moment to share my house warming dream gift... 

If you are a Nightmare Before Christmas fan/fanatic like me then you are currently drooling...grab a reusable cloth napkin :) ... I couldn't believe when I saw it. My heart probably skipped a beat I got so excited. Y'all don't understand my love of Mr. Skeleton, the pumpkin king, and cuckoo clocks. Yes, we have down sized but I can and will make room for this.....but that price tag, dang. It might have to be a birthday Christmas combo present. 

For those of you out there with a big heart and wallet to match this is available at 

Bradfordexchange.com ....so yeah, basically my love is for sale and they accept payments haha. 

Keep it green, clean, and classy.

Shalimar 

Calling the Homestead Home

Things have been going well enough that ... Drum roll.... We moved out there! That's right folks we have moved into the studio. The most difficult part was the animals. We had to wait till night to load our chickens. Even though our chickens are really tame and don't mind being held they don't like being messed with during the day. Especially our roosters (did you notice that rooster is plural? We have two, but they don't fight one another so it's all good).

Sorry my post have been a bit sporadic lately, just stick with me y'all and I will eventually get the homestead in its home state posted. Till next time y'all keep it green, clean, and classy. 

Shalimar

More pallet photos of the Sud Shack

Happy Friday! So, for whatever reason ( probably lack of coffee) I neglected some photos from the pallet wall process of the Sud Shack so here they are.

If you look at the top you can see the studs that haven't been covered have been at least painted. I just quickly ran around the exterior and painted the outer portion only. I did this so I could move on to screening. Once the screen goes up you can't back track to paint it. The pallets do cover a pretty good portion but if I hadn't painted the studs that hot pink would have been showing. 

This is what it looks like from the inside, looking out. The slots allow a pretty decent view out but keep the privacy that a restroom needs. 

Hope y'all have a safe and fun weekend. Remember to adjust your thermostat when you leave. You're furniture doesn't need to be cooled:) 

Till next time keep it green, clean, and classy. 

Shalimar

Project Suds and the magic of pallets

Continuing work on the sud shack. We had the bottom half of the walls covered but the top half still needed to be dressed. 

We did this with reclaimed wood in the free form of pallets:) We studded the Suds out with 2' instead of the recommended 16" because we wanted the studs to line up every four feet. We had plenty of pallets in that length. My Mr also framed out the triangular spaces at the top with custom pallet trim.... After I screened that section, of course... We are shooting for pest proof. 

Since, wood needs something to seal and protect it from rain and what not I got started chalking up all the connecting joints and going round one with the paint.

Yes, the wood still shows in some areas. This is just round one. Paint is always a two coat (minimum) process but when working with a super absorbent surface like this three coats is key.

Painters tip.... When taking a break you need to keep your roller safe from drying out. Put it in a plastic bag and roll the bag over it, this will hold for up to 24 hours! But I recommend only a few hours.

The left side wall we left an opening as a window. This is above where the washer will be located so it's a nice open feel while I wash, dry, repeat, repeat, repeat...never ending story of laundry.

Notice how the paint is starting to cover it, finally.

For the back wall we needed to pallet a six foot section. Mr came up with this. He cut the pallets down to two feet then put a frame pallet piece over the joints. We left the very top section of this wall open so it would mirror the open squares from the front wall...I love it. 

Those open squares needed screen too. It's the worst of the creepy crawlies that can climb (spiders, I think scorpions too, plus fire ants!) 

I had to stop screening so Mr could work on the doors so I moved into the Suds to start painting the ceiling.

First coats are just to give the second coat a nonabsorbent surface so it doesn't have to be pretty, just on there. 

Here's the beginning of the doors. These are fence boards we reclaimed from our old garden. 

My never ending story of paint continues in the interior. 

Well, that's all I got for you today, but we really have the ball rolling so I have a ton more to share. Adventures in plumbing and electrical, oh my:) 

Till next time, y'all keep it green, clean, and classy.

Shalimar

Diy Resize skirt fit & length

Every few months, but more lately, I organize my closet into clothes that I actually wear and clothes I don't. I had this skirt, a gift from my dear old Dad, but never wore it because the length was a little awkward and it was slightly too big. 

Here's how I fixed it to better match me. 

Iron out the skirt.

Put it on and mark the waist hem where it should be on the side.

Turn inside out sew a straight stitch along the marked side, if it's not much leave this fabric so later you can take the skirt back out. 

Too shorten the hem...

Pretty much the same

I ironed out the skirt

Trimmed the excess

Flipped a 1/8", iron that, straight stitch that up. 

And here I am "posing" in the hardware store again.... Speaking of hardware, the Sud Shack is 95% done. I will have so many more post about it later but it still needs fixtures, paint, and some more paint:) the. Finally the fun part of decorating it! I'm so excited. And broke so I will be wearing my crafty hat for final touches. 

With all the "back to school" stuff out there I wanted to share some green tips for school. Use a lunch pail instead of throwaway brown paper bags. Also, use durable (meant to be reused) plastic containers instead of one use zip locks for sandwiches, chips, snacks, etc. This adds up so quickly. 

Till next time, y'all keep it green, clean, and classy.

Shalimar

Sud Shack Screening Tutorial

Today's post will be about our lovely Sud Shack. It's coming along nicely. We were able to put up the "walls" pretty quickly. For this, we used some more particle plywood and screen. This is Texas and out here we have mosquitoes the size of birds! Actually, the homestead is relatively mosquito free but we have found scorpions and spiders. I'm sure once our chicas are out roaming about the problem will be controlled but just to be safe, we screen it anyway. 

The long distance shot here makes the shack seem so small compared to the studio. If y'all keep up with the Project Homestead post then you already know the sud shack is 6' x 8'3" and those additional three inches make all the difference. ... My sick humor has me making jokes about extra inches ... I will keep it classy and move on to what we used to make this happen.

Garden shears can be so useful. 

The screen. Now, when it comes to screen there are actually more options than you would think. We went with el cheap aka fiberglass screening. They have available screens made of metal and others that provide solar and UV protection, but we didn't need the up grade so we saved that money for the next project. 

Putting the screen up is really easy, use a staple gun and call that done:) we only screened the upper four feet so we used 48" screen in a roll with 25ft, we needed 24ft so this couldn't have worked out better. I stapled along the vertical line to start it and wrapped it around stapling along the top as I went. Really easy and pretty quick too. 

We also added two 45*s in the back corners because without solid walls the shack had some sway to it. 

Now for the bottom half of the wall. 

Once we had the board up everything felt nice and tight. Now I'm off to the never ending story of painting everything.

Till next time y'all keep it green, clean, and classy.

Shalimar