The Messies

Dark cabinets...

Or light painted cabinets.

I love the cream colored kitchen...hubby likes it too.
But I think we have to go with a wood stained cabinet look.
I found these pictures online cruising real estate listings...these condos have the same layout but different color schemes.
The layout is quite similar to the layout of the kitchen upgrade we need to do here at the farm. When I look at the two photos side by side I really prefer the cream colored cabinets.
But I don't think I can have them, it's just not practical.

We're messy... plain and simple. Call us Mr. and Mrs. McMessie.
Hubby farms, he's dirty. I garden...I'm dirty.
We eat almost all of our meals at home. I cook a lot, and I don't mean popping something out of a cardboard box and shoving it into the microwave.
I chop, slice, dice, saute, fry, bake, and simmer...my kitchen gets a serious workout. That means splatters and spills, hubby opens cabinets with sticky fingers and no amount of whining from his lovely wifey will change this behavior.
So...I think dark cabinets are our only option - to hide some of those splatters and sticky finger smears until they get cleaned up by yours truly.
If anybody has any advice for me on kitchen remodels I'd be more than happy to hear it, all I know how to do is dream about a new kitchen...never really done more than that.
Yikes.

For my irl friends, yup...it looks like it's going to happen.
I'm getting that kitchen upgrade that this old farmhouse is sorely in need of.
Guess we better plan a little farewell party for those nasty 60's cabinets and the lovely 70's linoleum.
Maybe it should be a demolition party.
Champagne and crowbars ...
I just love a good theme party.

The Dizzy Gardener

Lovely...absolutely lovely.

The Husband and I went on the Horticultural Society Garden Tour this weekend.
Ooooo Laaa Laaaa!

We've been trying to play catch-up around here, the last thing we need is to go trotting off to drool over other peoples gardens, and that's exactly why we try to go every year.
To dream, to gawk, to marvel at the time, energy, creativity and oh yeah...lots of money that other people spend on their gardens.

The other thing this gardener/blogger doesn't need is more ideas for her own garden, because she has about 3767 unfinished projects at this old farm.

But there they were, those chairs..painted black...next to a big black shiny pot.

Wait...I have chairs just like that! I should paint them black!
And set that big shiny black pot I have next to them..and plant purple blooming plants...and set it on the dock just like they did.
OK..so I'm lacking a dock.
I still want to paint my chairs shiny black and find a pretty spot for them with that big black pot.

Make that 3768 projects.

Perfect Planters

Oh my goodness...I want these planter boxes. This is the worst case of planter box-itis I have ever had. They remind me of the old whiskey barrel planters, only with attitude... sometimes a little attitude is such a good thing.

We're racing around handling a lot of deferred maintenance here at the farm. Lots of blackberry brambles are getting chopped and snipped, branches are getting sawed and hauled off to the wood shed. Yesterday we put together some new raised beds since my old ones are falling apart.

Today I'm off to the cabin to get a handle on the weed problem there...but ohhh boy...when I get back?
I wanna build some planters!

Honey? Did you say you have some old weathered lumber in the barn that I can use?

The Evil Troll

Adding on to the farmhouse.

There...I said it. Now I'll never get a building permit.
I made a little trip to the county building permit office to ask some questions about getting a building permit to add on to the farmhouse. The Husband finally admitted he's never going to move. If this is going to be where I'm going to live until my dying days it might be a good idea to make it "old lady friendly" - that means a bedroom and bathroom on the same floor, right now the bedrooms are upstairs and the one bathroom is on the main floor. Negotiating the stairs in the middle of the night with arthritic joints is becoming more of a challenge.
The guy in the permit office was a creep...there were three other people who weren't, but the guy that they made me talk to about the process of adding on couldn't have been less helpful.
Here's a little of the conversation...I'm still seething.

Him: Who is drawing the plans?
Me: I've drawn it to scale and your inspector told me I should be fine.
Him: Do you even know how to draw a plan?
Me: Uh...well...I aced my drafting and design class but that was a few years ago.
Him: You think you can draw a plan? Are you an engineer?
Me: No, I'm not...
Him: I require a plan of the existing structure, a plan of the proposed addition, section elevation drawings and site photos.
Me: Okay...I've done that. Anything else?
Him: They're probably not to scale.
Me: Actually...they are.
Him: But you said you're not an architect or an engineer....they're probably not to scale.

At that point in the conversation I got a hot flash...or perhaps it was seething rage...not sure.
The evil troll inside of me is doing a freaky little happy dance that the construction boom in the county has come to a screeching halt.
Maybe that little creep at the county permit office will get laid off....
Oh...I can think that but I shouldn't really blog it.
Hot flash.
I did.
I AM the evil troll.
I am the evil troll that will never get a building permit.
Oh well, one more excuse to not spend the money on an addition.

Door a Dear

photo - one of my lovely old doors, waiting for me to come up with an idea

Several years ago I was at my favorite recyled building materials haunt and I found a pair of doors. It was love at first sight and I plunked down the money for them. It's never a lot of money at the ReStore but considering the fact that I didn't need them, didn't have a place for them, didn't really have the foggiest idea what I would do with them...it's a bit odd that I made the purchase. But...like I said - I saw them - I loved them - I bought them.
Ever since that day I've been moving them from one spot to another out in the barn to make sure they don't end up sitting in a puddle of water (leaky roof) or get bumped , knocked over and broken....perish the thought!
This week the light went on...I found a picture that will now give those doors a home, a function , a chance to be all they can be!
And I will have a really groovy cabinet....
I just have to build it....hmmmm.
I'm sure The Husband would be happy to give me a hand, this thing is gonna be big, and those doors weigh a ton! Really honey, I've got it all figured out...it doesn't have to be fancy...it's just going in the barn!





Of course the idea photo is painted gray...it's all I see these days. ;)

My Man's Trash

Here at this old farm we like to rescue stuff. Every cat we've ever had was a rescue cat, our first dog came to us because he was looking for a home...and the dog we have now was found wandering a country road.

The furniture and cabinets in the party barn are all recycled, the cabinets at the cabin are all recycled...mostly from the Re-Store in Bellingham.

I love the Re-Store, I hadn't been there in a while so last week when I was in town and just happened to be driving by....well...of course I had to stop in and see if there was anything that needed to come live at the farm. I saw this desk, I walked away from this desk, drove home...and this desk haunted me all evening. I told The Husband about it and he gave me his usual Re-Store chuckle....this has happened more than once...I see it, I walk away from it, and then I can't stop thinking about it.

The next day I went back to look at it again and I decided I just had to have it. When The Husband went with me to pick it up he looked at me - he looked at it - he looked at me again and said "you paid how much for that?".

It's the first time in oh-so-many purchases at the Re-Store that he has questioned my judgement. I told him he's gotta have the vision. I see it stripped all the way down to raw wood and sitting in front of a window at the cabin, or painted a really soft buttery yellow and scuff sanded, or painted a glossy black with glass drawer pulls....oh....imagine the possibilities.

The man needs the vision I tell ya, now that the desk is home and in the project barn, I still really like it...he still thinks it's UGLY!

What do you see? Painted? Stripped? Returned to the Re-Store and re-donated?

Crazy?...Why yes...I am!

It all started innocently enough. We decided to turn the calf barn into a craft barn. It's not a huge building, I think it measures something in the neighborhood of 24 feet by 24 feet. The walls are around twelve feet in height, above that.... open rafters.

Once we finished dismantling the calf pens and everything had been pressure washed, we put some plywood on the exposed walls, Papa Jack put in some cool old windows and I painted the walls in colors I wouldn't dare to use in the house. The ceiling and the rafters were still gross, thirty years of calves and dust and flies and spiders and a few other critters I don't really like to think about had taken a toll. Up the ladder I went with a bucket of soapy bleach water and a scrubby sponge, then....a brainstorm...I decided to paint clouds on the ceiling and in the peak of the end walls. I'd never really done any kind of artsy painting before, but one afternoon I went up the ladder with some leftover paints and did I ever have fun! I was out there all by myself giggling 'cuz I was so happy with the outcome. Well...about four years have passed since that giggly afternoon, sad to say this project has been in a holding pattern since then. Every once in a while I climb the ladder with a bucket of soapy bleach water and do a bit more scrubbing, then climb back up with a bucket of primer but hokey pokeys Bertha...this is gonna take forrrr-everrrrrr at the rate I'm going.

It's a really fun room, there is a wood stove and a big desk, a few big work tables. There is a really funky old yellow velvet couch and matching chairs circa 1973. I use the big work tables out there to make my flower arrangements from all of the flowers growing in my yard, I can be as messy as I want! We always have a pumpkin carving party out there with some friends and their kids, and this year I had a wreath making party the day after Thanksgiving with some lovely ladies...that was so much fun. But... wouldn't it be cool if the whole ceiling was painted with clouds? Perhaps I should set a goal for a completion date...perhaps September...yeah...September....of 2012...that sounds reasonable.

There are approximately 439 more projects around the farm just like this one. I am never ever bored. All I have to do is turn my head ten degrees and I can find something new to do. Isn't that just lovely? Ayyyeeee....what was I thinking?

I think we should move to a condo.