2013 Westrate Coop Raising: Part One

Ok friends, last weekend was the official 2013 Westrate Coop Raising! The size we finally decided on is an 8'x8' coop raised 2 feed off the ground with an 8'x16' run. We tried to make the size economical so that we are wasting as little material as possible. We got rained out on Monday, so the Coop Raising will go into next weekend, but you can't control mother nature. Chicks are in the house for one more week. What ya gonna do?

Below is a quick photo rundown of our 2 days pretending to be carpenters.

Just in case it floods?

Belle, not overly impressed with her new digs.

First side framed in!

The exact moment we both realized we may have gone a littler overboard. 

The ladies enjoying their first day in the sun.

State of Things...

We're moving.


Yeah, I just said that! We are moving this weekend. FINALLY!!!!!! I almost don'g believe that it's true. After this weekend, when I look out my windows this is what I'll see.

 

Below are some rough photos of the state of things. I'm hoping to get over tonight and get some stuff cleaned up for some better shots, but bad photos are better than no photos right. The only major change is that most of the cabinet doors are up now and they weren't when I took pictures on Friday.

Promises, Promises

I really am going to get some photos up here. Honest. If I wasn't so busy trying to finish our house, take care of the dogs and chicks, keep up on things at our current house... you get the point. We're busy. But this week... I'll have something for you this week. Maybe.

But here's the quick update. Kitchen sink, Fridge, dishwasher, and range are all in and functional. Brad is working on the dryer as we've run into a little snag with the placement of the dryer vent. We have the hardware on the kitchen cabinets and need to put the doors up. Trim is 90% done... It's almost a house.

Why do the end parts always take the longest? I'm really crossing my fingers that we'll still be able to move this weekend. Maybe Sunday, most likely we are going to get pushed to next weekend, which is a real bummer. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how far we get. I can always start moving non-essential items next week and get them put away during the weekdays and worry about all or our everyday "stuff" next weekend.

And the coop... that's the next thing on the list. Just found some windows on Craiglist. Pretty excited about them. Also, slightly addicted to Craigslist materials. Trying to hunt down a cool door at the moment.

DIY Crazy!

I have a problem. My problem is that there are about 50 million different projects that I want to do and I just don't have enough time to get them all done! Let me outline just a few. We'll start with my lighting dreams...

This is the light that I want to go above the island in the kitchen. The small problem is that Pottery Barn thinks that I should spend $399 on it and I very strongly disagree. Solution, I'm going to make one. I found very detailed instructions here that I am going to alter slightly to fit my needs. I think I can make my version for around $150 which is way more reasonable. I don't mind spending money on a nice lighting fixture, but I am not putting a $400 light in the DW. That is just a little too fancy for us. Realistically, it doesn't look all that difficult to do. I've found most of what I need online, but I want to use cloth cord for the lights and that is proving a bit more difficult to procure. I'm persistent though, I'll find it! I'll find it if I have to make it myself. Add another month on to this one.

Lighting project number two. This one is for over the dining room table. Again, I plan to alter it slightly, I want the cords to be gray cloth cords that match the mason jar light and I want the light sockets to be white. I'm also planning on hanging the bulbs at slightly different heights. In my head, it's really cool. We'll see how it actually turns out.

So far that about sums up my lighting project for the time being. I'm sure I will find more things in the world of lighting. Someday I'm going to make things easy on myself and just buy stuff, but I guess there's not much fun in that huh?

Another item on the to do list is the chicken coop. We've got a lot of the supplies to build it, it's just a matter of finding the time to get it done. The plan is to move next weekend and I've told Brad that needs to be the next thing we do. The chicks will be about 4 weeks old by then and should be ready to get out of the house by 6 weeks. I really don't want them in the house when they get that big.

Dog Run- This one sounds simple enough in my head, but I know these things never are. We've decided that the front door will lead out into the dog run since we won't ever be using it anyway. Like the coop, the picture for this is in my head, but Brad really wants us to throw down gravel. I agree, though I'm a little concerned about drainage. The last thing I was is for it to reek of dog pee.

Coffee Table! I want to build a coffee table out of some old pallets that I have. I can never seem to find a coffee table that I like, so I'm making one. This is kind of what I'm thinking, though I'm toying around with some other options too. I definitely want it on casters, cause that's just kind of cool. I'm kind of thinking I want more of a bleached out wood look, though I'm not sure how to do that without doing a whitewash style. Whitewash could look pretty cool though. Decisions decisions.

A tufted ottoman for our "closet". Our bed and dressers won't fit in a single room, so we are having a master suite with one whole room dedicated to our clothes! I'm buying, yes buying, garment racks to put up and we'll put our dressers in there as well. I've always wanted a giant walk in closet with an ottoman in the middle. It makes me feel fancy, like a princess. And that makes me happy.

There are plenty more to add to the list, but I feel like I should go tackle some of these things instead of just talking about it. Mostly, I need to get my butt over to the new house and finish putting the cabinet doors up, install the dishwasher & stove. Build a platform for the dryer and washing machine.... the list just never ends! One step at a time, and breath, just breath.

XoXo
Erin

The Ladies Have Arrived!!!!

The ladies are in the building! And heaven help me they are as cute as can be! We got 8 chicks over the weekend. I love their little fluff butts.Who knew chickens were so cool. The breeds we ended up with are 2 Laced Wyandottes, 3 Easter Eggers, 1 Buff Orpington, 1 Black Australorp, & 1 Barred Plymouth Rock. We are in the process of naming them.

Tansy- Golden Laced Wyandotte

I'll post more photos as I have time and they all have names.

On the house front, we got a lot accomplished as well. The water heater, water softener, filtration system, and kitchen sink are all done. The cabinet faces are all painted and we're waiting on our hardware to arrive. We'll be installing appliances for the next couple of days and Brad needs to caulk the trim... and then we move. Life is happening so fast!

Slowing Down Again

It feels like every time we knock out a major achievement with the house things go back to a crawl. Why do the details take forever!?

Brad has been working on getting the baseboards put up and I've been painting the kitchen counter tops. We were initially going to go with a dark gray, but after one coat we both agreed that they needed to be darker, so back to the paint store for samples. Back to the house with said samples. Back to the paint store for paint in color of chosen sample. Back to the house to paint chosen color on counter tops. We ended up painting them black. Black Beauty if you want to be technical. I like the darker color much better. I finished up the 4th or 5th coat of poly on Saturday. Not so sure about this whole painting the counter tops thing now. Getting the poly to go on even has been a mess of trial and error. Everything I read said to use a brush, but that didn't go so well for me. I've ended up using a mohair roller and if I don't let it "roll" it seems to be going on a lot more even. I wouldn't be surprised if down the road we end up just pulling them out and putting in something from Ikea. We'll see how these hold up. At the end of the day, if it doesn't work, we'll only down about $100 + all my pain and suffering. I'm toying with being done with them at this point, or whether I should do a few more coats of poly. We'll see how motivated I feel.

Terrible photo of the final color for the counter tops just for fun.

Brad has the baseboards done all of the rooms that have flooring now. It's strange to start seeing everything come together. I've gotten all the nail holes filled so all that is left to do for baseboards is paint and caulk.

Yesterday my man also installed a new water heater (don't ask), water softener (again, don't ask), and whole house filtration system. This is definitely not what we were expecting do to, but on the bright side, everything is shiny and new now. And the down side, looks like we're going to be living off of rice and beans for the month. ;) Brad tore out the funny little tiny closet that the water heater sat in, so now the mud room/utility room is wide open. It looks so much bigger and brighter now.

So, what are the next steps you ask.... or at least that's what I ask myself every day. Well, we need to finish up the paint on the cabinet faces and put those back on the cabinets, put up the back splash behind the stove, install all of the appliances, install the kitchen sink, and sweet heavens I think we can move!

Wow, did I really just type that? I don't know what I'll do with my life after all these major remodels are done...

Also, I know I have posted photos in a while, so I'll get to that this week. And.... Friday is going to be a very special day, so stay tuned!

Future Fancy

My dear Lydia and I are having a "coop off". Now I'm sure you're asking yourself, what is a coop off? Honestly, I'm not completely sure. Basically we're trying to make the most amazing space for our ladies that you've ever seen. While hunting the webs for ideas I stumbled upon this...

It might be the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Now this my friends is a COOP! The author of the Fancy Farmgirl blog is Tiffany and it's a good thing she lives across the country from me because I'm pretty sure she'd slap me with a restraining order, and that would be embarrassing. I think we may have been friends in a former life. Her blog is pretty amazing though and she is basically living the life that I dream of. Aside from the being super crafty part, cause I'm really not. But c'mon, the farm, the chickens, Churro the Burro!!! I'll get there. I'm just a little behind.

In the meantime, I'm off to put a second coat of paint on my countertops...