Sud Shack the before

So, this is a combination laundry and bathroom. it was, in the beginning, our only bathroom. yes, it is outdoors and disconnected from our home. there were the occasional nights when it was cold and people probably thought we were crazy but we loved...well, we made it work haha. 

now, it mainly serves as our laundry only since we built our larger home...larger in comparison, but still small. anyway, it was ugly and i hate laundry anyway so i was unmotivated. these pictures are semi-before

i say semi before because i had already put up a chandelier and a support frame for the shower curtain.

obviously, we don't normally have the tools laying on the floor but otherwise everything is as it normally was, a complete mess.

junk everywhere, no organization

the black in that photo is part of the after.

ok, now it is that pipe and all the others that really motivated me to finally tackle the laundry room a.k.a. our Sud Shack.

after pics and story coming soon, as in i just finished it and need to load photos....so, we will just see how quickly i get to that

DIY deck storage benches

we built our deck awhile back and we are finally getting the benches built.well, thats the plan anyway.
we will be starting them, of that i am certain.
so here is the half of the deck we are working on today.

so, there is the before. im just gonna go ahead and post this now so it doesnt stay a draft for the next month. 

hope to bring the results in the next few days

we got a mini

I cant recall if i mentioned that our goats had to be re homed.  it was a sad day when our female, Bella, went to live on a farm with a cousin of mine. We decided that it was best for her to be with "family" so we could still visit. i put family in parenthesis because while we are distantly related we are not close. turns out we haven't been allowed to visit her and it still breaks our hearts. short story with our male. once he didn't have a female he tried to mate with everything. i mean everything and if you know goats then you know the spraying and the smell was just too much.

 let me introduce y'all to Marron.

i will be posting more about Marron soon. plus, the pallet paddock and how we built it. 

till next time, keep it Green, clean, and classy. 

concrete LadyBug part 2

there it is!!! its finally finished...well the statue is and now i need to landscrape around it, haha.

so, y'all know that this project started with dirt, lots of dirt. 

my brother came by on day two and helped me shape the mold. i had done some shaping on it day one but then the chickens came by and investigated my work and ended up chicken scratching it to a shapeless blob.....thanks chicas

 finally it was shaped and right away we started adding concrete to it. i first put a crocheted shawl on it so the concrete would have something to grip to. ..... I'm giving instructions of what i did, not what you should do. i have zero sculptor/concrete/statue making skills but what i did, did work.

oh yeah, to apply this concrete my brother and i just used our hands which i highly suggest you NOT TO DO. The concrete will chemically burn your hands. 

after, we had it covered half way...we ran out of concrete, my brother stood guard because the chickens kept coming over and trying to get on it and leaving chicken foot prints all over. ugh, sometimes farm life is a pain.

day 3 my brother and i got up early and headed to lowes for even more concrete, this time i got even more than we thought we would need. we got the ladybug covered!!!!! 

day 4 i covered the ladybug with the second coating of concrete and for this i wanted a smooth finish so it wouldn't be all bumpy and scratchy on my baby Z.

now, for this one i didnt use my hands...ok, well i did but that was not making it smooth enough and i had a brilliant idea to use a stick on tile because they are flexible and very smooth

the white heart is where Z put her hand prints in the wet concert. i knew i couldn't make it look realistic so i went with cartoon and added the black border at the bottom to blend it in. i will be putting a circular border around it and filling with mulch

a GREAT visit

so, over the last weekend my mom and me took off on a roadtrip to take baby Z to meet her great grandma. the visit went smooth and we took Z to a park that i had found on line. it was so beautiful and they had so many statues that kids could play on even a ladybug which is Zs favorite. she fell in love with this ladybug and an ant (i love it mommy its nice and wont bite me) haha.
the love was so profound that everyday she reminds me of the ladybug and says "bring ladybug here so daddy can visit and i wont miss it" too cute
so, as a conclusion to this story...im now experimenting with statue making. it needs to be big enough and strong enough for her to sit on plus smooth for her perfect skin.
brainstorming with my family and we all came up with this....

a pile of dirt....

haha, part two coming soon

dinner in 15

Hey everyone, so normally if I'm posting a recipe its healthy but this isn't, haha. I'm posting it because its quick and it has been dubbed "delicious" by my husband. my toddler tolerated and that was my main motivator in posting because she is picky picky. 

while the water comes to boil for the pasta i cooked the sausage. my lazy pant method of sausage meatballs is to pinch off meatballish sized pieces and drop them in the pan. i let them brown up, flip'em and cover them with a lid. 

once the pasta is done, drain liquid, then add the tomatoes, and cheese sauce, plus seasoning, top with meatballs..boom, dinner, 15 minutes. 

the seasoning i used is what i always use...goya, fajita, and black pepper. 

serve with a salad (that my husband cut so I'm not adding that in the time)

chicken coop on WHEELS

i have been meaning to post this one for a long time, over a year. we were tired of the chicken coop clean up and wanted a new design that would mean less cleaning time. around the same time my brother, works in construction and remodel, had a job with a tongue and grove demo. he asked if i wanted the wood...free lumber that's a big YES PLEASE!!!!

my brother is the greatest y'all. he delivered the lumber and stayed to help me build it.  we live in Texas where it is 100 degrees 90% of the time...i may be slightly exaggerating  but keeping the chickens cool and not warm was the main objective. so, that is why the walls are mostly just chicken wire and not solid. i wanted whatever breeze we had to be able to blow in. we do add a heat lamp for the few cold nights that we get. 

we ended up using sheet metal, for a roof, as the walls on the upper part to keep chickens safe from predators. even in a coop a  raccoon can reach in and hurt or kill one or several chickens. chickens like to perch up high so they are never on the lower beams. we put them in just as a step to the higher beams. 

the inside view. we only put in perching beams and no boxes. we have their boxes built somewhere else and its so great! if the boxes are part of the coop the eggs get so much poop on them, its way better this way

so the above picture is what the bottom looks like from the inside....dirty. this is real life, chickens poop like 24/7 haha. the coop is on wheels and every few days we roll it around and usually i spray the inside down before movoing it but i havent kept up with it due to a crzy cold front in texas. we got snow!!!! that never happens and it was before freezing for days. my husband even had to take a snow day at work haha. 

i do have pictures illustrating the build step by step so comment if yall want more pics or instructions. till next time.

DIY Sring art

So, my brothers girlfriend asked if i could make some string art (specifically this one  and i knew i could but i hadn't in forever so here is a little refresher course for everyone.

  i started with drawing out an outline of the shape i wanted, or shapes....print them to save yourself more time. for this my shapes were the outlines of the good ole USA and Brazil. my brother is currently in a super long distance relationship, she lives in Brazil. which is why she asked me to make this for him instead of making it herself. its their love from one country to another, how cute right?

 back to the instructions.... get ready for some time to pass as you slowly nail in the nails along the outline. when you are done just rip the paper out

then, weave your string between the nails. i chose to go vertically but it doesn't mater

its a neat project with a cool finished look. 

Paint: before and after

Just a quick post with some of the paint transformations that have kept me busy. 

This gold needed a primer to get it covered and as it turns out I just loved the gray.

This is pricy primer but what I had on hand.

This was an old school TV console, back when tvs were built in a box. I picked it up for free! Actually it was five bucks but I was out thifting  with my parents and they always say "your money's no good here:)" so they bought it for me.

Not quite done with it but when I am it will be a lovely changing station for baby Z. 

I'll keep y'all posted with all my crazy ideas and projects but until then y'all keep it green, clean, and classy.

Shalimar 

Project Cottage

So, this is the even more supported cottage floor. I mentioned before it will be two stories so this floor needs to be really strong. When dealing with a foundation we believe more is better.

These are the brackets that we used and the cost really adds up, just the brackets alone was one hundred dollars. So far we have spent roughly one thousand but that doesn't include the screws pictured below or the windows (that we have already purchased).

We're doing such a large project that we are buying screws 25 pounds at a time! Trust me if you are doing even a medium sized project this is the way to go. This was a 50-60 dollar savings.

Just a few (several) extra supports strategically placed and we will be moving on to the plumbing under the house so we have all the pipes placed before the insulation and wrap. Then, finally we get to lay the sub floor and dance all over it in joy and maybe a picnic too:)

Hope this has been helpful. Please leave questions as a comment instead of email. Thanks. Till next time, y'all keep it green clean and classy.

Shalimar 

Baby Z

We're having an Aggie! So, our baby is a girl:) The smile on my Mr.'s face is the excitement that I feel but since I'm a walking watermelon I simply couldn't manage that same smile, haha.

DIY Thinnest hardwood Florrs

My new and improved floor. I am calling this the world's thinnest hard wood floor because it's made of paper which, of course, is made of wood:) 

You can see that before the polyurethane the planks had a few lift spots. Most of these went away with drying time.

This was my lunch break. Ravioli from the can! I was so busy plus I had painted myself right out of the kitchen so I didn't have a bowl or microwave. Plus, my lunch read was a good one. I'm now on to book two and another project.

This was the floor before the polyurethane. In some spots the glue "that dries clear" was showing but the polyurethane completely covers all that; leaving your floors shiny, sealed, and so easy to sweep or mop. The glue I used was Titebond wood glue and it's $4 for 16oz. I cut the glue down with water at a 2.5 to 1 ratio. I ended up having exactly the right amount...for about a 100sq ft.

To lay the planks I filled a mini paint tray with the glue mixture and used the mini roller. I rolled the glue onto the back of the plank and also the floor. Put the plank down and then run a squeegee over the plank to get excess glue off and smooth the plank over. Then repeat repeat repeat until you question why you even started this project. Quick tip - use a knee pad and don't do this when you are five months pregnant. Haha

This is a before shot. The floors were originally just the plywood subfloor and we had painted them. Remember way back when I said that this was built as a studio so there wasn't a need for anything fancy. When I decided to do the paper floor I knew I would have to level the floor out and that would be the whitish stuff you see. I used wood filler or water putty. They were two bucks a can and I used one and a half.

To make the planks. I first started with a roll of paper drop cloth. It's $11 for a roll of 3ft by 140ft and I had a lot left over for other projects. I cut the paper into manageable sheets, say 4x4. First paint the entire sheet with your desired brown, then using a graining tool I applied the faux finish. For this I used a mixture of deck seal and stain that I had on hand, but paint would work too. 

Once the sheets had dried I cut my planks into varying lengths, depending on the sheet size, and 5 inches wide. To get a straight edge I used a glass crafting table, a square, and a box cutter. 

I lined the square up with the straight edge of the table. I kept the square from moving with a small weight, aka a little can of stain. Then, I pull the sheet down under the length of the square and lined it up with the straight  edge of the table. Cut with the razor knife and pull down for the next plank.

This is what the sheet looked like before cutting into planks and you can better see the grain pattern.

This is the sealer, stain, and graining tool that I used.

For a run down of everything I used 

Varathane Floor Finish Semi-Gloss Water-Based 128-fl oz Polyurethane ...  $40

Paper drop cloth, glue, water putty

$19

Graininess tool

$7

This was all done well under $100 and I have so many supplies leftover for other projects. 

Hope y'all enjoyed the tutorial as much as I enjoy seeing my floor. It's so easy to clean, I just love it. Till next time y'all keep it green, clean, and classy.

Shalimar