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.

Plans for a healthier lifestyle

In the beginning of this project I had so much energy and drive. Now I just feel tired all the time and lack motivation to get some projects finished.
I honestly think part of it is my eating habits. With the renovation it is so much harder to eat healthier when you aren’t really shopping much for the month before the move. We eat out probably more than we should. I am honestly excited to get my healthy lifestyle back on track. All this high calorie not so good for you food is making me feel sluggish. Not to mention we probably shouldn’t be spending the money on it.

On the bright side, while I have been drinking more pop, I have also been drinking more water. I am sure I will be phasing off the pop here soon. I am mostly drinking it for the caffeine. Yes, I do know I should be drinking tea instead. I did have some sweet tea today ^_^

It will be so much easier to stick to healthier eating once my garden is all planted and mature. I loved when we had a fresh fruit stand right at the corner of the house we will be leaving. The fruit stand did not come back this year though. They seriously had the best peaches ever. I can only hope my peach tree I will eventually put in will be as flavorful.

I am hunting around trying to learn about the nurseries close to our new place. I have been told I may want to go out to Fruitland to find my dwarf fruit trees. The problem with that is they do not deliver, and I do not own a truck… Nor can I think of anyone off hand who has one, and would go with me when the time comes. I will have to figure something out for that if I do end up needing to go out there.

For the time being at least, I think I need to get a few more healthy snacks, and more of my protein shake mix, so I am not tempted to run out for things that are not healthy for me. Some of it is healthy, just to high of calories for my bodies needs.
Not to mention I think I need to cut milk out again. I have been drinking more of it and noticing the difference in the way I feel. Luckily I actually like the taste of soy, and almond milks, as well as other alternative milks.

I cannot wait to be moved in and have the larger kitchen that I can cook again in. Not to mention have the availability to make my own healthy snacks. The kitchen in the place we are renting is not super tiny, but it is not large either. The kitchen here also does not have pantry space, whereas the new house does, so I can actually have a place to put things now, and not just pile up dried goods under the breakfast bar as we have been.

Our urban homestead will most certainly promote healthy living. Plus I get a good workout in the garden, as well as a new neighborhood to walk around and explore.

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.

Tomato planting and grape vines

We started the day off by tilling up a approximately 6ft wide by 12 ft long section of the slope for the tomato rows.

The slope was tilled with a shovel and manual tiller to get the ground workable. The spot is the area near where the chair is in this photo.

There are two spots that were free of weeds mostly and this one got the best sun. The other bare spot closer to the far right corner of the photo will eventually have corn.

So we tilled the ground, then we also dug 11 individual spots for each tomato plant 20 in apart from each other. I put a little of the bagged gardening soil in around the tomato plants and then filled further with the soil that was already there. We quickly learned that we actually have some really good top soil from what my tests are showing. Not to mention it already has a lot of nitrogen in it from what we were seeing from water tests.

I decided to rotate the colors so I would not end up with one all red and one all yellow and green..
Here is how my tomato rows are laid out from back to front. * indicates that it is an heirloom variety. I have both Heirloom and Hybrid in my garden.

                            *Orange Strawberry
*Speckled Roma                                      Mint Julep
*Gold Nugget                                          Sun Sugar
Sweet 100                                             *Gardeners Delight
Yellow Brandy Master (Brandywine)      *Brandywine
*Wapsipinicon                                        *Green Zebra


I also felt money would be wasted on tomato cages. I also felt it would look too unnatural to use the metal cages. I always liked the look of using branches for support. It feels more old world and a better alternative for my Green Witchy side.

    

I used two fairly tall branches with each one. I would have preferred three, but I was running out of branches funny enough. I tied the tops of them with gardening wire. If my plants get too large, and need more support, I can always swap the branches out with longer ones later.

Most of them are already fruiting.



I plan to save seeds from the heirloom varieties. I would save seeds from the hybrid ones, but who knows what would end up growing from them.

I also splurged, with my husbands pleading for us to buy some grape vines. We both love grapes and the look of grape vines. He also very much wants me to try my hand at making wine with our own grapes someday. While we cannot have quite the vineyard he has always wanted, we did get 3 grape vine starts. We got white, red, and concord blue. all of which are seedless.



I will be putting up some kind of trellis for them to climb up here soon. They are in large pots right now until I figure out the exact design for the trellis or arbor and can put them in a more permanent home they can grow into. They will most likely be in this general area due to the sun exposure.


A look at my yard

This is just kind of a brief look at the space before anything has been done with it. As noted above, the white chair is where the tomato rows are currently. That short, almost barely noticeable chain link fence at the bottom of the slope, is also where I plan to plant my mini orchard of fruit trees using the Espalier “trained to grow like a fence” method. 



The maple tree is quite large and mature. It will need some pruning here later this year. The right corner of the shed is where I put the grape vine starts. That fence line will most likely become my berry/fruit bush corner. I was going to put in some thornless raspberry starts but the person selling them ran out and now all I can find are thorny ones. I don’t want thorns if I have raspberries or blackberries.


This is the area to the left of the shed in the above photo. I plan to build a trellis that comes off the shed and will become my hanging squash and pumpkin patch. I may also rotate it out with melons.

This is the left side of the slope, which is behind the shop that is not pictured really, except in the first photo you can see it a little. Here I am thinking about making shelved planters but I have yet to decide.

I plan to use permaculture techniques where I can. I want my garden to be cohesive yet not overly typical garden/farm row design. I want to use new ideas and create a garden that is as self sustaining as possible once established. My garden will be quite enchanted once I am finished with it.

Right now I am kind of just keeping my eyes open for things I can recycle/reuse in the garden. It is amazing how expensive super cheap material items can be for a garden. I am sticking to a low cost budget and won’t result to spending hundreds on small things that cost almost nothing to make yourself. Used stores are my friend as are natural resources i.e the branches for the tomato cages. If you think about it, someone on Craigslist was selling them for $8 a piece… x that by 11 and there you have already easily spent $88 on some wire basically. I think that is absolutely nuts. So I saved $88 by using natural materials I found in my yard. Basically what I am saying is that “essentials” for growing certain things, don’t have to be bought from big stores, or even used at all depending on the growing method. Think outside the chain store box haha.

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.