At Home Therapy

We don't have a wood stove or fire pit at the moment, but an hour with an axe and a wood pile after a day in the office is quite therapeutic. I think I can produce about a 1/4 cord of firewood an hour.  At that rate and I could produce a years worth of fire wood in less than 40 hours. With all the dead fall and property cleanup I should have years of firewood stacked and waiting to be used before the snow shows up this year.

Future Plans

Just when you thought all we did was pull down wallpaper and consider wall colors, this is where we start getting into our long term plans for our mini-homestead.

Plans for 2014:

Make maple syrup - I just marked the ten maple trees that will be tapped next February so I can try my hand at making maple syrup.  I have very fond memories of my grandpa's homemade maple syrup and I'd like to see if I can manage it (without burning the house down).  Did you know you can make granulated sugar out of maple syrup?  I sure as heck didn't.  We'll have see how far I can go with my ten little trees.  There's more out there, if this goes well.

Grow food - Our first season will be modest so we don't get in over our heads, but raised beds are planned and the compost bin is being built now.  We'll start with the usual (lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, squash, beans) and see how we do.

Keep chickens - Yes, we want to raise chickens for eggs and meat.  The neighbors are cool with it so long as we don't have a rooster keeping them up at all hours.  I'm not fond of roosters myself, so no problem.  The current plan is to have a laying flock of six hens and however many meat birds.  Not many to start with so, again, we don't get in over our heads.  Coop plans are drawn and we're starting to consider construction sites.

Longer term plans:

Produce most of the fruits/vegetables/plants/poultry that we eat.

Turn our 'flood plain' into a pond, reclaiming flood area for use.

Build a root cellar.

Add solar panels on the garage.

Plant fruit/nut trees in place of some of the current trees.

Our eventual goal is to be as close to self-sustainable as possible.  We're not preppers or tree hugging hippies, but we like the idea of producing our own food and not having to wonder what we're eating.  We also like the idea that if the power goes out, we won't really notice until we see it on Facebook.  I don't know if it will be cost efficient (probably not), but we're going to enjoy the attempt if nothing else.

Ding dong

The witch is dead!

Well, not witch, but that's definitely the tune that was in my head when I finally climbed off of the ladder and looked around my office.  All of that hideous foil wallpaper is finally gone!

The picture sucks, but I was too tired to do anything more than snap off a picture with my phone using the lousy lighting that was already on.  Tomorrow I'll start cleaning the walls and making sure that all glue and backing is off of the walls.  We could be patching screw holes tomorrow night and painting by the middle of this week!

I will sleep better knowing that all of those horrible purple flowers are gone forever.

Afternoon with Chainsaws

After pruning a bunch of dead limbs and branches that I couldn't walk under I tackles my first standing dead birch tree. It was fun and I dropped it roughly where I wanted the pieces to land.

I read the instruction manual for my little 10 inch cordless chainsaw and was pleasantly surprised by all the detail given for felling and bucking. It made the task much safer and simpler.


Here is the pile of burnable logs from the birch tree I felled in the above picture. I have 2 more piles like this, and pile of green pine boughs, and still a mess of branches to chop up and stack.

For 3 hours of work, I went through 3-2Ah batteries and 2-4Ah batteries (that's 14Ah). Running on batteries has a nice side effect. You get a regular reminder to stand up, stretch, get a drink and not over do it.

Now that we have firewood piles forming we might need to move the fire pit project up on the projects list.

Home ownership

I woke up this morning to some very strange sounds on the roof.  Joe got a jump on the day and was cleaning out the gutters.

Our power washer is going to get a lot of use.  My contribution to home ownership today will be chasing our new lawn mower around the back yard before it completely gets away from us.  Most of the weekend was spent moving the bulk of our belongings (how did we fit so much into an apartment?), so now is a day for catching up around the house.

The gutters got high priority after a line of storms pushed through last week.  We had thunder almost non-stop for twenty-four hours and our area was under a flood warning.  We could hear the splashing from the jammed up gutters.  I went out the next morning and was pleased to see that the property was just fine.  The little brook at the back of the property was up, but in no danger of flooding outside of the low lying area that seems to double as a flood plain.

Joe has plans for that flood plain.  Joe has plans for just about everything, but he's an engineer.  Go figure.

We also got the new thermostats in so we can keep the house at a consistent temperature.

It's chillier than I'm used to, but in the apartments we barely had to turn on the heat.  Our neighbors kept everything over 70 year round.  Now I have to adapt to 67 - 68.  Brrr.

First frost advisory was last night, so it seems fall is fully upon us.  With less than a week until our final inspection at the apartment, our attention is shifting to getting everything set before it gets really cold.  And also finding everything we own.  It's all in boxes.  Somewhere.  And lurking on the fourth floor is the last of that foil wallpaper, waiting for me to have a lull in the move so that we may continue our epic battle.

Spending Control

Despite budgeting for incidentals and moving expenses, the worst thing about the move from renting to owning has been the loss of control on the spending schedule.

It's not an issue of not having funds to cover the expenses it's the part where it feels like every time you blink you have to dole out another $100. Like this past week we had to pick up some yard tools, a chain saw, thermostats, lights, groceries, extra gas, rental truck. and the list goes on. The part that bugs me about this is that it is spread out day after day after day. For me it would feel easier if I could just pay one large lump sum and be done with all the shopping for the transition.

So now 2 weeks into the transition, the end is in site and soon we will be done with apartment renting for good.

Joe's office = complete

One office done!

Before:

After:

Joe will be getting some new blue curtains once the accent paint is dry enough that I don't have to worry about getting paint on the curtains.  I'm really happy with how the lines came out, even if it was a circus getting them laid out.  It took both of us and the biggest level I've ever seen to get them drawn, but they are very precise.

Joe's moving into his office tonight now that he's gotten the go ahead.  I'll add pictures once it's set up and the curtains are up.  Now I can focus on making my office match his.  Hopefully I'll have an update on that project this weekend.

Little victories

Progress is being made!  Last night was our second night staying at the house.  We're sleeping on an air mattress, but it still counts.  This house is primarily heated by a pair of pellet stoves and we're dealing with the learning curve on those.

All the ambiance, none of the work

I was quite cold in the house last night when the stoves did not turn on.  I fiddled with the thermostat and got them fired up, but in the meantime I added another blanket to the pile I was sleeping under.  The thermostats are the old, plastic kind and aren't exactly accurate.

Not high tech

We're now shopping for a digital version that we can actually set to a certain temperature and not have to guess what the little plastic bit is set at.  When they're going, they heat the house nicely and should save us a fortune over the electric baseboard heaters that are scattered around the house.  Most of those are completely turned off.  We'll see if we can make it through the winter without turning them on.

Joe had his first victory in the house.  The bumper rails project is complete, letting our dogs have run of the stairs.  We lucked out and the previous occupants left stains and paints that were used in the house.  That made it a lot easier to stain the added wood to match the existing rails.  It's not an exact match, but the original rails are 34 years old.  We're pleased with how it came out.

Safety and style!

You can see the lower rail on the left that was added to keep the dogs from plunging off the side if they're running too fast or if our older dog loses his balance.  We also filled in the gap between the stairs and the wall on the right so we don't have to worry about the dogs falling through on that side.  Or the people for that matter.  I was in a hurry and missed the steps before the gap was filled and almost put my foot through.  We feel a lot safer with the additions and they didn't ruin the open feel that we love.

That would be a very long fall

While Joe was constructing and moving things in, I was hard at work in the offices.  With the foil wallpaper thwarting every attempt, we decided to back up and focus on the easy room so that we could get one of the offices ready for move in while I keep working on the other room.  This means I got to take a break from wallpaper scraping and paint instead!

First step was to remove all of the piles of wallpaper that had accumulated.  I had the bright idea of throwing it off of the balcony rather than dragging it down the stairs.  I didn't plan on it snagging on the railing and flipping over on the way down.

Oops

Fortunately I got it cleaned up and out of the garden before Joe got home.  My helpers were very amused.

Our dogs, Cowboy and Peyton

With the mess out of the way, I taped everything up and secured the drop cloths.

It was a bit of a heart attack to get the paint up on the wall.  I've lived most of my life in rented housing of one form or another, the walls are universally white or some shade of white.  This was seriously grey.  I'm glad I didn't go with the stronger color we originally picked out, I would have chickened out!  The first coat went up at 8pm and the second coat went up at midnight.  Joe helped with the second coat so we were able to head to bed by 1am.  This morning I woke up to find this.

It came out great!  It's hard to see the color in the photos and with the shop lighting (power is off to the fourth level while I steam wallpaper), but you can see the contrast to the white ceiling.  The eggshell finish worked really well and the second coat smoothed out the little flaws left from our drywall repairs.  I'm really, really pleased with how this came out.  Joe is, too, which is good because this is his office.  I'm going to let it set for about 36 hours, then add the accent lines I have planned in white and sapphire blue. 

My little victory has given me the boost I need to go back into my own office and finish that battle.  It's not a pretty sight right now.

But the wallpaper is 75% down.  Once it's down, the walls will need a scrub and some repairs.  But then I can paint this room the same nice shade of gray, add the accents, and I'll be DONE with this project!  I can't wait to move on with my life and actually get my desk and fish moved into my office.  Sharing the dining room with Joe when we work from home is not the most efficient office set up.  He doesn't like my taste in music much.

I hate wallpaper

The current status of the house can be completely summarized by the title.  I hate, HATE wallpaper.  Especially stubborn foil wallpaper that refuses to come off.  Using the scoring tool and my steamer, I was a able to get about 75% of the paper off.  Then my steamer up and died.  Ugh.

I feel like an archaeologist as I chip through the glue and paint to uncover the frightening wallpaper beneath.  The flash really brings out the metallic glint.

 
One room was this purple and silver stripe, the other was silver base with purple flowers.  It was all hideous.  And after this is done, there's that awful wall covering in the second living room that looks like burlap!  Maybe I just don't get interior design, but none of this sounds like a good idea to put on walls.

Tomorrow we'll be doing final prep on the office that has all of the wallpaper down so we can start painting.  The dry wall repairs are drying tonight, so that office should be done this week.  The other office (which happens to be mine) will be done when I eventually chip, saw, and beg the rest of the wallpaper off of the walls.

Otherwise the move is going slowly but well.  The internet is in (absolutely essential for existence) and the first load of heavy things has arrived.  We actually spent the night in the house this week!  We were sleeping on the floor in the living room, but hey, that counts.

This weekend is mostly about moving things into the house.  After four days of scraping the walls, I'm sore enough to have trouble doing things like typing, opening containers, and anything else that requires dexterity.  We decided it was time I took a break before I decided to just blow up the house to solve my little wallpaper issue.  We just bought it, after all.

I am never, ever putting up wallpaper.  Anywhere.  Ever.

Sticky situation

Now that the house is all ours, time to make the changes that will make it feel like our home, as opposed to just some house.  For Joe, that means the bumper rails so the dogs can safely come into the house.  For me, that means wallpaper removal.

I did a lot of Googling to get ready for this.  I ordered up a wall paper steamer, we picked up putty knifes and a drop cloth.  I thought for sure that I was ready.  When I started pulling and the vinyl paper peeled off of the wall in giant strips, I thought I was in for a quick, easy update for the offices.

Ha.

First there was this little blooper when I got too excited about pulling off the paper.

Oops

I thought getting the wallpaper off the wall would make me feel accomplished, but it only showed me how much work I had to do.  Lots of screw holes to fill and lots of glue to remove.

It also showed me this.

Why hello there, 70's

By all the saints of interior design, what is that?!  A little investigation showed that under the textured vinyl wallpaper was more wallpaper.  That had been painted over.  Foil wallpaper.  My simple project suddenly got a lot more complicated.

The previous occupants got the foil wallpaper off of about half of the fourth level, so that half was easy.  Use the steamer, scrape off the glue with a putty knife, no problem!  Super messy, but not difficult.  But as soon as I hit the painted over foil wallpaper, I was slowed to a crawl.

Tomorrow I will be picking up a scoring tool so that my steamer has a chance of making it through this mess.  I can't paint over this, especially the sections where the paint bubbled.  No choice but to take it all off, one way or another.

My new neighbors brought us a gift basket and it included a six pack of beer.  I think I'm going to put that to good use scraping my way through the little 70's flashback I found on the fourth floor.

The American Dream

Who doesn't want to own their own home?  A place where you don't have to get permission to paint the walls, no neighbors through the floor or ceiling, no landlord keeping you from creating a trebuchet in the driveway . . .

After living in apartments for fifteen years, my husband and I just purchased our very first house.  It took a long time to get to this point and it still doesn't feel completely real.  We closed on August 30, 2013 on 3.7 acres in southern New Hampshire.  The house is about 2,500 square feet, plenty of room for a married couple that works from home and has space devouring hobbies.

Home sweet home!

It's an eccentric house with an odd layout.  I'll post a floor plan later, but it has four levels and no basements.  It's all kind of confusing.  The housing inspector got turned around during his inspection, saying that he had never seen a house quite like this in his thirteen years of experience.

Built in 1977, it's the same age as my husband.  It also means that there are a lot of things that need to be updated.  The house is in great shape, but oh, the wallpaper in some of the rooms!  That's more my domain.  I'm in charge of colors and updates.  My husband is in charge of the big building projects.

The stairs between the second and third level.

This is Joe, my husband, measuring for some additional rails that we're going to add to the open stairs to make them safer for our two small dogs.  One has some neurological issues due to his age that affect his balance, so we're adding 'bumper rails' to make sure he can't fall the thirty feet from the fourth level to the entry way.

As for my first project?  The fourth level wallpaper is not only ugly, it's already falling down.  I'll be ripping that out and repainting.  The fourth level will be our home offices, so it has the highest priority to be completed so we can move our desks in and set up shop.

The hideous wallpaper.  Vinyl and textured.

It's going to be an interesting (and probably hilarious) adventure into home ownership for the two of us.  We're looking to make a lot of changes to the property.   The property will be our very own high tech mini-homestead and experimental facility.

This blog will follow our attempts in permaculture, getting our house off the grid, and updating the house's interior.  Expect lots of updates of our successes and failures, complete with pictures and unedited replays of the difficult lessons learned.
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