Morning routine

I enjoy my morning routine. I actually look forward to waking up and starting it all over again.

For me right now my routine is to get up, drink a protein shake.
I shake up any extracts I have brewing. Currently the only one I have going is ginkgo biloba.
Go out and water my garden. I water twice a day usually but I do not water deeply, so this is fine.
I get ready for work.
I harvest a handful of strawberries if there are any that are ripe and ready to be picked.
Today I also harvested a handful of mallow flowers and a bit of spruce resin for later use in my herbal preparations.
I then make some coffee and read some blogs, newsletters, do research, work on my garden gate book, read, do art, etc… Whatever I feel like doing. Sometimes it is sitting and watching a tv show but lately my tv has been mostly during the hotter part of the day or late at night on my days off.
I make my lunch, eat a little more of a breakfast at this point.
I throw any dishes into the dishwasher if needed, and get ready to leave for work usually after that.
What I get done depends on how long I have.

Basically my routine allows me to do some of what I love every day. It is sort of my meditation. While at some point I would love my garden to have a system set up where I will not need to water it by hand, I enjoy doing it with the size of garden I have right now.
It also forces me to keep an eye on progress and head off anything harmful sooner rather than later.

Of course all of this will change as often as my projects do, when the season does, or as my muse pleases. I like working on many things at once.

Day 15 of renovation

You really realize just how many pieces there are to a kitchen when you have to take it apart and paint each side. I painted 21 pieces today. (shelving, drawers, doors) that had not quite been finished. That is not counting all the pieces that have been reassembled. It is a lot of pieces to say the least.

I was listening to some of the blogtalk radio podcasts I follow while working today. I was listening to Magickal Harvest, though I won’t lie, I could barely hear it over the spray gun. I will have to search up an interesting one for urban homesteading at some point I am sure.

I think when we go to finish the shop we might get some of the cabinets, fixtures, lighting, etc from the Habitat for Humanity store I recently found. They take all the stuff from old jobs, bits from here and there, and sell it in the store. Such a great idea really.

I have no idea when exactly we will be finishing the shop. It just kind of depends on a lot of things and might be a few years unless things fall into place sooner.

Right now we are just focusing on finishing as much of the renovations as we can before we move in and getting packing finished. We are mostly packed up. We just have to pack up the kitchen and the rest of the craft room basically.

Doing lots of laundry now because we will not have a washer and dryer put in immediately, though it will be soon.

Today is just one of those days where everything is seeming a bit like a blur. I will finish up as much packing with my brother and husband today as possible, finish and pack up laundry, and see how many of the cabinets I need to spray the other side of or use the antiquing glaze on.

The idea is to get at least the base finished on all of them so I do not need two rooms to lay them out in. I can do the rest of the antiquing in the craft room if needed. We are moving in almost no time at all and the cabinets will most likely not be finished till much after that.

I keep joking that by the end of this I am going to be hulked out, but really I think it is more a contest of how many bruises will my legs end up with before I become a blueberry lol. I feel as if I am a kid again. So many bruises I don’t know where all but the major ones came from. Thankfully the one from the ladder crashing on me, and the cabinet corner biting my toe are quickly healing.
Sunburn is also now turned into a tan. I have been sure to use sunscreen when possible.

Well my break from work is over. Back to the grindstone with me.

Kitchen crime scene

Oh man what a day it has been. I have pretty much decided I will forever be peeling paint off my skin and my razor blade when I shave lol. Thankfully paint flecks don’t quite look like dandruff in my hair that I might have missed in the shower.
 
Today we had planned on putting the cabinets back up but instead turned our kitchen into a crime scene from Dexter. As we were looking at things, I absolutely needed to paint the cabinet with the range that we could not get down so easily before the others go back up. We sort of just decided to prime and paint them all at once, since it did not take really any more time. The whole kitchen would need to be taped, and drop cloths laid down and taped down anyways.
Honestly the hardest part of it was laying the tarp, taping it down, using the plastic roller with the tape pre-attached on one end, and not letting it stick to itself. It took longer to tape it all than it did to actually paint it.

Taped up and primed.

I used the spray paint gun in the house, hence the plastic also being on the ceiling.

I let it dry for a few hours and then sprayed on the base coat. Below photos are still just of the primer.

I finished glazing, and clear coating the one larger cabinet I didn’t finish yesterday due to spilling a bunch of glaze on the tarp, and being done with it. I also primed and final coated the pantry. Primed a couple more doors. Basically making progress.

Of course I ran into an emergency gardening situation today early on. The past two days my tomatoes have been wilting. They got so bad today I panicked. My brother and husband agreed to help me till another area to move them to. I think even though they are full sun, our full sun is a bit too strong for some full sun plants. I noticed this with other potted plants I had before that were full sun, but could not handle direct sunlight for as long as they said they should. Because of this I will be moving them to a more shaded area and cross my fingers.
I do very much find humor in the fact that in tilling said area, we found a piece of concrete that looks like a tombstone. We decided to prop it up and make it look even more as such. I find it amusing that I will be planting my wilting tomato rows in front of it. I really do hope they make it.

Photos were taking as it was getting dark out. It was also windy, so the tree is blurry due to movement.

The  running joke today was that we had turned the kitchen into the murder room, then we were digging the grave in the back yard for the body. Guess my urban homestead garden may end up being a bit like one of the books I am writing. The book is based off an idea, that sprung my painting “Funeral Home for the Strange and Deranged” though the book has a different name.

It got too dark to get the tomatoes moved. The holes for them have been dug though. I will be moving them into their new home carefully tomorrow. I am thinking I might also bring some of my dried used tea leaves I have been saving for the garden, as well as my dried used coffee grounds. I think they might like a bit of those in the soil.
Thankfully the center stalk is still healthy looking on all of them, it is just the leaves and off branches that are weeping. As long as I can get to it in time, I am sure they will survive. Staying positive! I refuse to admit failure with them.

On the bright side though, my grape vines are doing wonderfully. They are quite happy in their new large temporary pots. 

I was sad it got too dark to continue in the garden, even though at midnight I was exhausted, with the way I am I would have kept going until the job was done.

The ride home was nice. The wind brought scents of damp earth, straw bails, corn fields, cows, and the threat of rain that has yet to come. It is Spring, not quite yet summer, and it feels like both Spring and Autumn to me. I like being closer to corn fields, horses, and dairies.

Dreaming of arbors and trellises

I got to have my fun in my garden yesterday. It is such an amazing feeling to be able to call it my own. To not have to worry about whether I can actually plant directly in the ground due to land lords. To only be limited by the space my house is on, both the land area itself, as well as vertically.

I have all of these wonderful ideas bouncing around in my head. My garden is ever evolving into something magickal.

Last night I decided I would not buy trellises and arbors (Aside from the $12 metal one I already got for the front yard) Instead, I will be building my own.
We need to prune the maple tree out back this Autumn, and I am hoping the branches I get end up making about 2 sturdy arbors. One for the three grape vines and one for my pumpkin and squash patch.

I want to make trellises for my beans, peas, cucumbers, small squash, etc, that have yet to be planted.

I have never constructed anything quite like this before. I had planned to purchase lumber at some point to build the arbors, but once I saw the ones made from branches, I fell in love. I have no idea what I am getting myself into but I can’t wait to give it a try.

Here are some of the inspirational photos I found on pinterest.












It is wonderful seeing our dreams become a reality. That being said, today will be focused on cabinets and wall outlets today. Cabinets are going back up tomorrow, so the base of the top ones need to be glazed and clear coated by then. I can finish doors, drawers, and the other lower half later.. Thankfully I think I only have 2 uppers to glaze, then I need to clear coat them all. If I have time, I will get to priming the pantry, which isn’t easily moved due to size… or get to painting other cabinet drawers and doors. As much as I am loving the cabinets, and love that I can do this to them, I am so ready to be done with them.

I just want to play in the garden all day, though this time with better protection from the sun. I got my first sunburn in years yesterday. Thankfully it is already turning into a tan. There is not really much more that can be done in the garden right now though. I planted everything I could.

I will say I love the reaction I get when I tell people how many tomato plants I planted, and that each are completely different varieties. My comment to it is “Well yea, it may seem like a lot, but the guy I got it from had like 56 varieties growing, and many of each type… So it is not really that many” I swear I am not a crazy tomato lady haha.

In any case, it will provide a good crop and I can actually get to some canning this year. I will create a masterfully delicious spaghetti sauce one of these days from scratch to go with my teriyaki garlic meatballs. Sounds weird I know, but they hold so much more flavor than traditional meat balls. I would share the recipe, though I don’t have exact measurements. I just know what goes into making them, and eyeball the amount of ingredients I need. Unless you cook like I do, or unless I could give an estimation, you would most likely not create quite the same thing. I cook with teriyaki and soy sauce all the time, but it is very easy to over do it with those if you do not know what you like.

Anyways, off to get coffee, get dressed, and get a jump on house things. Hope everyone is enjoying my posts.

Cabinet glazing and tomato plants

Today has been quite an eventful day. I ended up finding someone who was selling over 50, probably closer to 60 tomato varieties. He had plants that were about 1-2+ feet tall. I had about 2 hours before I would go to pick up some new tomato plants, and with a list that long, I had no idea what I would get. Most of the types he had I had never tried before. I did a lot of research on all 60 or whatever plants to see what ones would be sweet, and good for eating or making sauces from.

I went there with a list of 4 musts, then my “I really want” and then “If I can get these I will” with a total of 16 on the list for all three categories combined.
The guy was selling the plants for $1 apiece. I happened to have $8 in cash on me and decided I did not want 16 tomato plants, as that would be too many, but I did want a variety to try, so I decided 11 would be my goal.
I got to the mans house and told him I had $8 in cash, but that I had a list, and hoped he might work with me on the price a bit. The guy agreed to work with me, and in the end I ended up with 11 new plants without saying that was my target goal. So basically I got each plant for just under $0.75 cents instead of $1 each, which was very nice of him.

The 11 different varieties I got were:
Green Zebra
Brandy Wine
Speckled Roma
Sweet 100
Gardeners Delight
Gold Nugget
Mint Julep
Orange Strawberry
Sun Sugar
Wapsipinicon
Yellow Brandy

I have a few regular roma tomato starts at home that may end up making it to the new house as well. I plan to do a lot of canning, sauce making, salsa, munching on fresh tomatoes of course… So I am excited for my first harvest.

I will be planting them and supporting the vines very shortly. This was a spur of the moment purchase so I did not have time to gather all tools and supplies needed to plant them immediately. I put them on the chair to help keep them from falling over. They are already fruiting and will be a lovely addition to my urban homestead. Most of these are heirloom varieties that I will be saving seeds from in the future. I have to double check to make sure what ones are heirloom and what ones may not be.  Some of my choices were changed when I got to the guys house.

Did I mention I love the smell of tomatoes?

For those who do not know, NIghtshade is also in the tomato family, as is eggplant. Just a fun little fact there. People used to think tomatoes were toxic due to the relation.

So once upon a time….
Just kidding. So once I got my new plants, I went straight to the new house. I unloaded and watered the tomatoes for good measure. Today was a cabinet only day. Yes, lots of posts about the cabinets. It really is a multi step process.

I sprayed the bottoms of some that needed it, flipped and sprayed the other sides of a few, then coated some others that were only primed.

Then moved the finished ones to the corner of the living room

It is from this set that the doors started to evolve. I took my first shot at glazing with one of the smaller cabinet doors. I figured if I horridly fucked it up, it would be a smaller one, and easy to cover up with paint again.
To my great delight, my cabinet door came out amazing! I developed a technique of my own, and got all 3 doors finished that were ready to be glazed. I will still need to clear coat over the glazing, but this is the end result ^_^

Keep in mind, it was about 10pm when I finished, so the interior lighting put off a bit of a pinkish hue on the photos. They look great, though more amazing in person.

I had so much fun glazing these. My massive ball of nerves I had about the cabinets is slowly unraveling into confidence. I am really no longer freaked out about how they will turn out now that I am confident in my technique and actually can see the outcome.

Funny thing about it is I hated the old door knobs… They looked dated to me. While they are not in the photo, they actually ironically matched the new cabinets from what I was seeing tonight. They didn’t look so dated on these compared to the straight wood grain they were before. I may not spray paint the knobs after all…

Still have a ton more glazing to do, but I am happy to have gotten to this point now. This is the moment I was waiting for. To actually be able to envision the end result.

And as with every day I use the spray painter, my feet make me look like I am an African Tribesman. *blinks* or so my hubby joked. Sadly, I did not wear a band aid on my wound between my pinky toe since it had dried enough to not need one… Which means I have a thick layer of paint on that foot as well. Soaking feet will be a must tonight. Hopefully it will wash off without any pain from the bruising.

Update on renovation

I mentioned in an earlier post about the awesome door handle I got a steal of a deal on. Well I finally got photos of it after the hubby installed it. So much better than the crappy round door handle that stuck a bit,



Today we got the final coat of the tea bag color on the walls. We only have two areas that we need to fix and it will be done with that wall color.

Eventually I want to put either some metal art or plaster filigree up in the little triangle area that is its own level in the kitchen.

The tea bag color is in the kitchen, though sadly the photo makes it look more sandy than the light creamy green it actually is. Hopefully I will get better photos of the color.


Before I think I mentioned that the cabinets have been through some things. I have had to repaint a handful of them a few times. First time I painted the base, I had them outside.

They were on the two tarps but closer to the house… We of course forgot about the sprinklers. Thankfully mostly dry, we moved them onto the porch. I sanded areas that needed to be re-sprayed.

Next goof up was spraying several sets of cabinets and drawers on the tarp in the laundry room. Great space to do it in, but the tarp, while it was a good tarp, ended up with layers of paint and stuck to the cabinets, leaving weird textured chunks of paint on some of the cabinets. Thankfully the ones above, which are just primed, did not end up with any issues. The doors and such did in some areas though. The ones that did have issues got re-sprayed with the final coat after sanding.


So this time I decided to lay down different tarps in the back bedroom (future crafting room) and living room. I needed ample space to get the base coat on as many as possible. I am currently behind schedule by a little bit but thankfully not as far behind as I would have been if not for the spray gun.

I like this photo because it shows the creamy white with hints of yellow that the gilded endive paint has. While I am still nervous about the end result, I am excited to see it as well. This is the first time I have painted cabinets. I am crazy doing this all at once before testing it on one or some other wooden piece of cabinetry. I have not always been known to test something before jumping into it though. 98% of the time it works out great, so I am keeping my fingers crossed.

I managed to get 15 + pieces sprayed with the gilded endive. Still have all the drawers and a few other shelves/doors to paint. The lower section is not on a deadline like the upper section is. Those have to get put back up shortly, and I am trying very quickly to get them finished so they can be put back up on the wall.

I am excited to get to the actual glazing. I feel this is where my artist skills will come in handy. My family is loving the progress with everything so far. Walls are coming along nicely. Cabinets will become a French country dream.

Happy that today was a semi short day. Basically only needed to paint the kitchen and one other wall, then get as many cabinets sprayed as I could with the surface area I had available. I wish I could spray them all in one go but I just can’t due to needing to rotate them out for space reasons. They will all get painted. I just wish the color coat dried as fast as the primer does haha.  My brother brought his friend and having three people there to tackle the projects of the day made it go by much faster. I think we were only there about 4 or so hours? So not too shabby compared to the 9+ hour days we have been spending there as of late.
I actually get to relax and eat my mint chocolate chip ice cream ^_^

Day five of the renovation

Sadly this post will not have any photos due to leaving my phone at the new house accidentally.

So the boys got to the house early and got to the spray texture and second coating of paint. I showed up a few hours with food.

The first thought upon waking was one of “Oh shit…” We left the cabinets out back, no worries right? Well being that it is a new house we did not think to check and make sure the sprinkler system was off… For some reason when I woke this morning that was the first worry I had.
I called the boys and they confirmed they did in fact run but they were mostly ok and drying out. Basically upon inspection I just need to sand and repaint a few cabinets in a couple of spots. Honestly, if that is all that happens, I am fine. It is an easy fix and thankfully did not happen after the glaze will be put on.
Because of this little snag though, it did mean that the glaze is put on hold for today. I instead went to priming the lower cabinet drawers. I  got all but some of the doors done and the pantry. I will need to tape off and spray the actual unit the doors go into and the counter sits on after we finish painting the kitchen. We will let the paint dry and then tape it all up.

I used the sprayer to put the base primer on the drawers this time and boy does it really make things easier. The mask on the other hand feels impossible to breathe through :/
I would spray about 4 of them in the laundry room with a drop cloth underneath. They would take about 20 minutes to dry to the touch, then I would move the mostly dried ones onto the tarp in the bedroom, so I could lay out the next set to be primed.
I think I primed like 8 drawers? I honestly did not count so I am not sure.

The walls are looking so much better now with even just the first coat of the tea bag (light greenish) on the front wall. The previous color was a white with pink undertones. Yes, our favorite color is green if you did not realize this by now. We have always known we would want green walls.

All the utilities will be turned off tomorrow so we will have to get them turned on shortly after waking.

We keep finding things in the house that make us go “What the fuck were these people thinking doing it this way?!” but thankfully either it is easily fixed, or is mostly cosmetic.
Like for instance, painting over a patched up wall that every other area has spray texture on… So you have this big palm sized flat surface on a textured wall. Yea we fixed that. I would say they just didn’t care, but really I just don’t think they knew what they were doing. Funny thing is we barely know what we are doing and can do it a million times better. I guess some people have better beginners luck than others? Or maybe they did not bother to ask anyone at the store how to do it and what is needed.

One thing I have noticed when painting the walls is with the first coat I am freaking out that I made the wrong choice on wall color. With the first green, it looked like horrible green salmon camo when it was drying. Hard for anyone not to freak out a little. The second coat really made all the difference. Not to mention it is completely worth it for the $6 or whatever extra dollars for the paint and primer mix. I would not use anything else for this job. I chose satin for the paint type. Satin, as described to me is between a semi gloss and a matte. Matte being hardest to clean.

I am sure the tea bag will look exponentially better once the second coat is on there. I will say it is a little annoying that whoever painted the house did not know how to edge or use painters tape… I may have to go over some of the crown molding with white to fix some areas they got globs on.

We did not get into painting the kitchen today but it will happen tomorrow.  Still a lot that needs to be done but we are making good progress.

Kitchen cabinet photos

 It is hard to see the actual colors in the photo, but this is sort of my color palette. The green I have gotten 2 gallons of the paint primer mix. The green will go on two of the living room walls. The middle color was the plaster color I cannot use and will need to try and tone match it with another paint color. The brown is the eventual color of the trim.


The above have a double coat of primer.
In the photo below the bottom cabinet door has a double coat, the top one has a single.

The single coat still shows a lot of the grain. I did not think even with a paint and primer mix that it would not show through that. You can see how big of a difference that second coat makes below.


I painted the insides as well. Thought it would look weird if I did not.
The primer I used allowed me to not have to sand down the cabinets. I thought I would have to but the guy at Lowes assured me it would be fine if I primed them painted over it. The pour spout lid really helps keep the mess to a minimum, though it will spatter a bit when you close it.

Below shows the what the cabinets looked like before I got started on them.

Day two of renovation

I am so very nervous. We decided to take the leap and paint the kitchen cabinets. O_O
While I am quite excited for it, I am also nervous as hell that I will monumentally screw them up. The thing that my husband finds so amusing about this is I actually am an artist. I paint. I love to paint all the time… I just have never taken on a project like this before.
Not to mention the biggest home renovation we have done is patch, texture and paint a wall. Fix some crown molding,.. So nothing too big

The decision on whether to really completely change the cabinet look was tossed around quite a bit, but really was finalized when we found out we had to remove the cabinets in order to get rid of the horrid wallpaper. Mind you, this wall paper was damn near falling off the walls on its own.
They had put the cabinets up after the wall paper, and with the wooden pieces behind the cabinets, there was no way it would not be noticeable if we left it behind there. So cabinets are all pretty much removed but one right now.

I would like to mention that I do actually like the cabinets as they are. I like the look of natural wood. I just think it is so amazing we can actually change things in our home that we should take advantage of it and go a little outside our comfort zones to make it our own. I like wood floors and wood cabinets, though painting the cabinets will open up so many more options when we go to change flooring in the years to come. We do actually plan on putting in wood or pergo flooring.

Ok, back to the current.

Washed half of the hanging cabinets in addition to the walls that will soon be painted. I got one of the larger ones double primed. I was not happy with a single coat of primer. I also got 75% of another one single coat primed so far. I will have to get photos of the painting process tomorrow.

I am using this blogs post for inspiration for the cabinets. http://porchswingsnhoneysuckle.blogspot.com/2013/02/paint-and-glaze-cabinet-tutorial.html

Mine will be the same basic idea, though I am not using a stark white for the base. Since my glaze is antique, and not the same tone as hers, I thought blending might be easier if there was already a slight bit of color to the base.

I am lucky enough to have great friends who have let me borrow some tools and a ladder. My sister, brother, and my sisters boyfriend are being awesome with helping tear down and clean things. I can’t imagine how we could even begin to do all of this without  the extra help. There is absolutely no way we could have done anything to the kitchen without them.

We decided we cannot take down the second layer of wallpaper with the way it was put up without having to re-drywall the whole kitchen. Since it is already sealed, we decided we would patch it, spray texture as planned, and then paint over it instead. Not the ideal situation but pretty much the only option at this point.

For the cabinets I recommend using a faster method than a brush and roller. I am sure a sprayer would have been a million times faster. I am tempted to look into the prices of one for the final color coat before the glaze.

I still need to get the paint for the kitchen and part of the living room. That will be for another day.

For now here are some photos of what we have done so far, minus the cabinet painting progress.


My handsome man tackling that wallpaper like a boss. Ok, so in reality anyone who breathed on it could probably remove it, but that is not the point.


Ugly wallpaper number 3.. There was a total of 3 different wall paper styles. Don’t ask me what they were thinking.


All removed except for the cabinets and what is behind them.


Look at that mess! Would you believe me if I told you we swept it up into a snow shovel because we could not find the dust pan? Yea, we can be a little crazy.

 
My sister and her boyfriend are in the above photos. I would say they are helping, but I don’t know if this counts as my sister helping haha. She was actually a big help but I had to say that anyways.


As you can see the separation between the wall and the cabinets shows the ugly wallpaper.

We started a bit later today than we had hoped to. We normally work late nights so our sleep schedules are much different. We wanted to start around 3pm but we really only picked a few things out and actually got started much later than that :/ Yea… We are new to this. It is a learning curve. We will get it down though and it will be amazing sauce when finished!

It has been a long day. Did not get done until about 11pm. I am sore and tired but it is so worth it. Actually feeling like I am getting more things done in the day than the day before. I am still nervous but really excited to see how it all comes out. To go from not decorating our rentals aside from the mantle really… to decorating and painting… It is a huge change and a much needed one at that.