Home Projects

Favorite Home Improvement Blogs
Young House Love
       My close encounter with Young House Love!

Kitchen Remodel 2011
See how it all came together from start to finish! 
(Links are in reverse order)
Final Kitchen Reveal
A Little Shelf Part 2
New Coat Rack Part 1
Spice Rack
New Counter Tops!
New Appliances
The Flooring
Making a Cabinet Smaller
Painting Cabinets
Wallpaper Removal

Finishing the Basement
Our documentation of this big project is lacking, some day I might go through our old photos and do the project justice. These posts give you an idea of how it started, but not how it looks today.
Cutting in new windows
Installing some new windows
Last egress window is in
A little sheet rock is up
Toy Storage Organization

Other Projects
Blake's Baby Room
Rebecca's Big Girl Room
New Front Porch
Improved Swing Set
Cork Board Cabinets

The Joys of Farming

Freeze Branding  2012
Updates on the Farm 2012
Hauling Hay (Dec. 2011)
Farm Tiling (June 2011)
A day in the life... (April 2011)
Spring is Here...Almost (March 2011)
The New Grain Bin (2010)
Chicken Saga (2010)
The crops are in and up (2010)
In the Fields (2010)

Our New Chickens (2009)
         Chicken Drama
         Chicken #3
Grinding Hay (2009)

Introducing Rebecca to Farming (2008)
It's a Hay Buster!
Meet our Bull Dozer

Life on the Prairie (2007)
At the end of the Rainbow (2007)

A Collection of Recipe Posts

Favorite Food Blogs:
Finding Joy in My Kitchen
Good (cheap) Eats

Freezer Meals
Homemade Baby Food

My Posts on Food:
Main Dishes:
Sesame Chicken
Cream Soups
Whole Wheat Rolls
Stuffed Shells

Side Dishes:
Sweet Potato Fries
Whole Wheat Rolls
Granola
Strawberry Freezer Jam

The Sweeter Side:
Cream Cheese Dips
White Cake Cookies
Oatmeal Cookies (with cinnamon and craisins)
Banana Bread
4th of July Cupcakes
Snickerdoodle Blondies
Chocolate Zucchini Cake
Almond Bars (sold at Tulip Festival in Orange City)

Kitchen Redo...progress

Just because we haven't posted about the kitchen lately, doesn't mean no progress is being made. With some vacation days between the holidays I am trying to make good progress.
The ceiling has a fresh coat of white paint and there is a new light fixture in the dining room. The new light and paint brighten up the space so much!

We also started with the upper cabinets. We removed the doors to get ready for paint. Thankfully the inside of our cabinets are in great shape and a light wood finish, so we are not going to paint inside - that saves a lot of work!

So far most of the upper cabinets have been primed and painted. The doors have one coat on them and are waiting for some more coats. I am so happy with the results so far!

We are trying to do as little construction as possible, but the cabinet above the stove needed to be changed to make room for an over the range microwave. The current cabinet was 5 inches too big. My solution was to buy a new smaller cabinet to replace the old one. Dan's solution was to cut the current cabinet in half and cut out the 5 inches from the center. Well, much to my dismay, Dan's solution seems to be the best option because I could not find a matching door style at the local home improvement stores and getting a cabinet specially made would be $200 or more. The cabinet pieced back together pretty well, but he hasn't tried to cut the doors yet...to be continued...

Next up...replacing hinges and hardware on the painted cabinet doors and getting the kitchen back to "normal" in order to host my family (15 additional people) for New Years!

Holiday Goodies

I love and hate making holiday treats. I love looking at them and eating them, of course, but the preparation and clean-up I hate. Regardless, these have to be the cutest treats I've ever made and they weren't too hard either.

How to:

1. Dip Nutter Butter cookies in melted chocolate (I used almond bark with a scoop of peanut butter in it).

2. While chocolate is still soft, add an m&m for the nose, white chips for the eyes, and broken pretzels for the antlers.

3. Use a toothpick to add melted chocolate to the eyes.

These are really easy and I will definitely make them again!

Step One: Wallpaper Removal

What a nightmare!! Anyone who has removed wallpaper knows what I'm talking about. I didn't think that it would really be that bad because I knew that the wallpaper was only about 10 years old. But I guess it doesn't matter how old it is, it is still GLUED to the wall.

Here is an official BEFORE picture of our kitchen. I know that it is not that bad. But we really want to update it and brighten up the space. The biggest things are the beat up linoleum floor and the "older than me" appliances. But why stop there? We are also planning on painting

cabinets, replacing the hardware, and getting a new counter top - bye bye fake butcher block!

To start, I bought a wallpaper scorer and the blue striper gel. We had a scraper from previous drywalling projects. Those are really the only tools you need in addition to A LOT of muscle.

Here is the main wall of paper that needed to be removed. Those are little roosters on the wall.

At this point I was cursing the previous owners for puting up the paper and rubbing my aching shoulders. I might add that the next day I could not raise my arms above my head without massive pain!

I might add that removing wallpaper is a very messy job. It would be nice if it all came off in long strips, but that would be too easy. The floor where I was working was covered with tiny pieces of paper. As Rebecca watched me, she told me that I had to sit on the naughty bench for making such a big mess. But she finally let me off the hook because I told her that I would make sure to clean up all my mess.

But at last, a few days later it was done and the spotty paint job underneath was revealed. Next up - painting the ceiling and walls and getting the cabinets ready for a coat of paint. (No promises on when the next post will be!)

Our Little Bowling Fairy Princess

We went bowling with some friends which is something we did often before having kids, but haven't done since Rebecca was born. This was her first bowling experience and she had a great time. It was slow going, but once we started using the dino-ramp Rebecca even got a strike! She was everyone's cheerleader.

Rebecca dressed up as a fairy princess for Halloween. We had a few neighbors and family that wanted to see her and then we went to a friends house for a little party and the kids had a great time in their costumes.

Coming Up...we have started our kitchen re-do. I wish I could just post the before and after pictures, but this is going to be a looonngg process. Project number one should be done later this week. Stay tuned...