Hello Everyone! So sorry that it’s been so long since I posted. We have been 100% consumed in the house and getting our family moved in. So much time consuming, exhausting work, but we are moved in. No, we weren’t able to get everything done that we wanted to do, we just simply ran out of time with lots of unexpected smaller problems cropping up that took so much more time then we anticipated. One of which is the internet/phone service. We need to rewire the house to update the phone service to actually be able to use internet here. Since we got rid of regular tv a couple of years ago, we stream everything now, so the tv viewing (when we have time for it!) has been sketchy, and right now, we have no phone as the splitter needed to supply both to the house grinds all service to a halt. UGH. My husband has spent to much time and energy trying to get that to work, and now that Radio Shack is long gone, he’s finding it tough to find the parts he needs to complete the job. First world problems, I know.
Okay, we are in the new homestead for a bit over 2 weeks now. We are still surrounded by a sea of boxes because a lot of the places where we are planning on putting that stuff haven’t been completed yet. Need to make the large bookcase in the living room so that we can unpack about 12 boxes of books. Need to add shelves in the kitchen to store the home canned food as we have no pantry space at all. This was a problem for us in the design, there is no clear place for a pantry, so we just decided to add some shelves as we need them. There is no linen closet in the bathroom as we haven’t yet completed the shower stall wall where the closet will go, so boxes of stuff are piled in the bathroom, and the room that is the boy’s den is a sea of boxes because the master bedroom is not completed. We decided to drop the ceiling in the bedroom, thereby adding a lot of work to complete it. The air quality will be better (important always, but more so as I have asthma and the space was a veritable critter crap and old junk repository), and we now will have cathedral ceiling in the bedroom, which is going to look wonderful once it’s done. I will be adding some more photos to all this once I can find the cable for the camera to download them!
So far, we’re loving it here. I have slept better here then I have in years at night, even though we are sleeping in the living room right now until the bedroom is done. I’m not sure if it’s because this is a place we can handle best financially and so my mind is a bit at ease or because it feels like home to us, but either way, we’re relieved that this is home for a while now. We got a good one!
The chicken coops were two of the hardest things to get here. The larger coop was built by a friend of ours, and it is made like Fort Knox and weighs a ton. We decided to leave the girls in there while we moved it since it was just a matter of sliding it on and off the trailer. This sounds so much easier then it actually was and in the end, we made it happen, but it was not without some tribulations. The coop sits on cinder blocks, one on each corner. Well, the ground it was going onto was not very level, and in the sliding/moving, one corner collapsed…then the others of course went with it! The girls got a bumpy landing and the coop is now sitting on short cinder blocks making it tough to clean. But they didn’t miss a beat in the egg laying and we’re still getting plenty of eggs each day. I have one hen that has gone totally broody and is sitting on the other girls eggs every day. This causes us to get pecked pretty good getting the eggs out from under her and her puffed up and angry with us. I’m probably going to have to separate her for a few days and try to get her off that behavior. We have no rooster, and so her sitting on eggs does us no good and she won’t lay while this is going on, so we are feeding her for nothing, which never flies around here for very long.
So, back to the house. I have enjoyed using my new gas stove. So thankful to have my propane back, but I have been cooking on electric for so long now that it is taking me time to get used to it again. The fact that it heats up so much quicker is interesting…I may or may not have burned a couple of egg breakfasts because of it. We got a convection oven this time around and it cooks so evenly and I can use both trays in the oven to bake. Good for those cookie monsters that live in my house!
So, here’s a little old house trivia for you…see if you can figure out what this post was originally designed for. This was found in the front wall after we pulled the lathe off so we could insulate and eventually get the shiplap on that wall. Any ideas what this was originally used for? Our friend Gary was the one who told us what it was, guru of old house information that he is. I never would have guessed it, but thought it was SO cool once I found out. It was recycled, which I love. That old Yankee ingenuity and thrift at work! Leave in the comments if you know what it was (Gary, you’re excluded!) and perhaps there will be a little homemade homestead gift coming your way!
I am going to try to be better now with the blog that things aren’t so immediate and hectic in pace for us. I will get lots of pictures of the renos you were following before just as soon as I find that cable. Things are moving along here for us, we just need to keep the momentum going and complete more to let us completely move into the homestead. Right now, we feel very in limbo with our stuff and needing to get settled for good. Until next time, cherish each other and your homes!
Grace Note Homestead 