Good egg

I desperately want chickens.  I want to get up in the morning and gather fresh eggs for breakfast and baking.  I want eggs laid by chickens that are raised more naturally. However, I can't have chickens yet.  Our yard is so small it can barely support us and two large, active dogs.  In spite of this, I can't help but pick up magazines like Hobby Farm and Mother Earth News when they feature articles on "the right kind of chicken for you," or, "the best coop for your needs."

One day, when we move out of town, I will have chickens.  Until then, I need a supplier.  I have been searching for someone in the Casper area to fill this role, but surprisingly, this "egg hunt" hasn't been easy!

Right before we moved from Cheyenne I had an egg dealer all lined up.  For some reason, finding a dealer in Casper hasn't been as easy.  I've read the classifieds of the small local and ag papers, have gone to Murdoch's to see if anyone posted about eggs on their bulletin board, and have asked friends who have ranching connections...all with dead ends.

At Todd's office Christmas party last year I got a lead.  A former agent used to have eggs.  She was no longer raising chickens but she knew someone who was!

I called ol' Rob on Thursday last week and in five minutes he had me lined up for a Friday delivery.  He told me he had green and brown eggs, which would I like?  I had never heard of green eggs except in Dr. Seuss' book!  Rob thought this was funny and said that's what he'd deliver.  Apparently, Americana chickens lay green, blue, yellow and brown eggs.  Who knew?

We sampled the eggs this morning and they are just...better than store bought.  Look at those bright yellow yolks!

At $3 a dozen I think Rob might be a tiny bit steep, but I'll take what I can get for now.  Since getting my eggs on Friday I have discovered that another person I know has a dealer too.  I need to find out their price and compare.

It appears I just might have "cracked" the seemingly secret world of fresh eggs in Casper!

Parlez-vous...?

When we walked through our 1920s house before buying it, we asked the owner about the three large doorways into the dining, living and sun rooms.  It looked as though there had once been French doors on each.

You can see the dining and living room doorways here...

The owner looked us straight in the eye and told us he wasn't sure what his dad had done with them.  We were super disappointed someone would get rid of original French doors (what were they thinking?!), but there was nothing we could do about it.  

Shortly after we moved in, our new neighbor (hi Jason, if you're reading this!) was chatting with us about his place and the history our two homes shared.  He invited us to come on in to see his digs and the work he had done to upgrade his old home.

When we got to the master bedroom he pointed out the closet doors, telling us they were actually one of the pairs of French doors from OUR house!  

Todd and I flipped!  We told our neighbor that Rod, the previous owner of our home, had told us he didn't know what happened to them.  Our neighbor said that wasn't right...he had bought two sets of the doors and Rod had helped him carry them out!

I have not one nice thing to say about the lying piece of...grrrrrr...that Rod is.  We discovered he is basically a pathological liar, looking us in the eye and telling us about the "new" roof on the house, or the "upgraded" electrical, or how he didn't realize that one end of the big, pretty fireplace mantel with a matching built-in bookcase to the other end had been removed so a larger window could be put in.  The list of lies goes on ad nauseam.  

We asked our neighbor what he would want for them.  He wasn't sure.  He did, however, think he wanted to move and if that ever happened he would make sure we had first dibs on the doors.   

Recently, our neighbor put his house up for sale and we purchased the doors back from him!  We couldn't be more ecstatic!

Here's Todd, on the left, with his friend Ken hanging the doors in the entry between the living and sun rooms...

The finished look...

The sun room operates as my office, which is one of the reasons we wanted the doors hung here.  This is now my view from my desk.  It's great to be able to shut out the rest of the house for a phone call or just some privacy...

We are soooo happy to have them back where they belong.  The doors have come home and it just feels right.  

Baby room

Our baby room is painted!

I worked hard today to get the color up and, if I do say so, I think it looks awesome.  

Yes, we are having a girl, but I wanted turquoise walls.  I think her room is going to be so cute once we get all the furniture and finishing touches in there.  

The color we chose is Behr's Jamaica Bay.  We got it 50 percent lighter than the original sample.  I love, love it.  I've put a lot of work myself in this room.  I'm the one that ground the cracks out, mudded them, sanded them, mudded and sanded again...  Todd used the paint sprayer to put the primer on, but this paint job is all me!  

The only thing left to do in here is clean down the closet and paint the baseboards and trim white.  Technically, I should do the window trim too, but we didn't get around to priming it earlier and right now I just don't care.  We can touch that up later.  

At the moment I'm content to just sit with my feet up on the couch!  

The big push (on house renovations)

We're making progress.

Why the big push to get stuff done, besides the obvious "I'm tired of living in half a home"?  Because my whole family will be here at the end of the month to throw us a baby party, which means we need a functioning upstairs to manage all of us as they stay and our party guests!  The timeline is shortened a bit because Todd leaves for elk camp the week before everyone's arrival.  So, we effectively have about 1.5 weeks left to get 'er dun.  

Let's do a walk through!

Here is the front entry.  Looking pretty good!  Todd and I came up with the tile pattern and then he cut and laid all that tile himself.  I'm so proud of him!  Don't mind the dusty footprints on it though.  It's just the way things are around here until we get the drywall dust up.  Let's see what's behind that door...

That would be our back hall.  That first room there will be Little Kittel's...

Here we are looking in her room!  Very soon (hopefully) it will not look like this.  Currently, it is being used as construction storage and until this last weekend was a guest room.  That furniture has mostly been carted downstairs to one of the two pending guest rooms that will be down there...

Unfortunately, we won't have time to reno her room before she arrives.  Technically, what is happening in the master bedroom should happen in here.  But we figure we'll wait until she wants pink or rainbow painted walls and attack this room then.  Until then, we'll just grind out the cracks in the plaster, fill them, and then simply paint.  And we'll all have to live with the horrid ceiling tiles with glitter flecks...

That turquoise paint sample on the right is the color her room will be!

Ok, let's keep movin' down the hall.  That's the bathroom on the left, then the master at the end...

The bathroom.  As expected, this room is taking us the longest.  We're getting so close!  But still lots left to do.  The mudding and sanding on the drywall will be done in here tonight/tomorrow (fingers crossed).  Then it's on to texturing, priming and painting with our new fabulous paint sprayer! Todd's friend Ken scraped the thinset out of the cracks in the tile over the weekend, to prepare it for grouting and sealing.  The toilet needs moved in, Todd needs to finish his vanity project, and I need to figure out how to keep the claw foot tub project chugging along.  The wainscoting also needs painted (with that awesome sprayer) and installed.  We will likely not have a working shower in here by the time my family arrives, but toilet and sink should be a go!

This blue will be the color of the bathroom, but probably knocked down about 25-50 percent to lighten it up  just a tad...

And the master bedroom.  Not much to sand in here!  Just the seams on the walls and ceiling and the closet. Then it's texture, prime and paint and we're IN!   

Here is the tub project.  I have gotten all the paint off the inside and now am working on the outside, which is a CHORE.  There isn't just one layer of paint.  There is a layer of paint and some kind of adhesive under it which nearly refuses to budge.  I have been coating it with paint stripper, scraping and blasting it with the pressure sprayer and...nothing.  At least precious little to show for it anyway.  Ugh.    

Keep checking things off my three-mile long to do list!  

Labor Day indeed

We are working our butts off around here trying desperately to get our big house projects done before the end of the month.

No rest for us this holiday weekend!

Here is what our Labor Day weekend has looked like:

Let's take a peek in the upstairs bathroom!  Here is Todd mudding the seams of the drywall.  I have already sanded the mud on the seams and screwheads and here Todd was going over it a second time.  Now, it has to be sanded once more and it's ready for texture, prime and paint!    

Another look at our new walls.  This entire room we have gutted and rearranged - meaning Todd moved all the plumbing so it made sense and the electrical followed.  What's left for the bathroom before we can make that first celebratory flush?  The walls need textured, primed and painted.  The wainscoting needs painted (it's already primed) and installed.  The vanity, which Todd made himself, must be finished with putty, sanding, and varnish.  The clawfoot tub (see below) must be finished.  The tile must still be sealed and grouted.  And there is still a strip of tile in the doorway that needs set.  These jobs will make the room FUNCTIONAL.  There will still need to be some finishing touches.  (Don't mind that blue sample in the pic. The room will be painted blue, but that sample turned out horrible!  On to option no. 2.)

Here we are entering the master bedroom.  That wall in particular has had spray foam insulation AND batting put behind it.  Why both?  The spray foam was to help insulate, yes, but to also help stabilize the 90+ year old plaster wall on the other side that is in the living room.  The batting was to provide an additional sound barrier...

A view across the room toward the closet.  We got that mostly drywalled today also.  Only a few more boards and it will have complete walls!  Tomorrow evening I will mud all the screwheads.  That window there?  Before that wall where the window is was spray foamed for insulation (there was none, not a lick, in that room), Todd had to re-mortar brick in around the window to fix a shoddy job done who knows when.

So, what else needs done in here?  I have sanded all the seams (minus the ceiling, which Todd will do) and screw heads.  The seams and corners all need one more coat of mud and to be sanded one last time.  Obviously, texture, prime and paint.  We have to reinstall the heat.  We are going to put crown moulding in here and the baseboards need attached.  The closet needs finished.  But, we are not worrying about the moulding or baseboards before the end of the month...

This is looking back down the hall from the master.  The bathroom is the next room to the right and that room at the end will be the nursery.  I share more on the nursery another time...

Here is Todd cutting a chunk of drywall...

What else have we done this weekend?  

Well, we spray painted the frame we will be using for the bathroom mirror.  And we started removing the old paint from the clawfoot tub we are using for the bathroom.

Todd has a power washer that we started with...

A lot of the paint flew right off, but there are still some stubborn pieces that refuse to budge.  So, we'll have to find a way to scrape that off without damaging the enamel on the tub.

What's left here?  Finish scraping the paint.  Then we will turn the tub over, lightly sand the outside of the basin and prime and paint the tub gray.  We are going to remove the feet and either have them chromed or, most likely for the time being, we'll just remove the white paint leaving them the bare metal.  They will have to be sealed, however, so we have a can of clear coat we will use to protect them.  We already have the fixtures, so that just needs installed.

And now, after a long weekend of working on the house, we are watching a movie and trying not to pass out!  

Questionable investment?

At 22 weeks pregnant most couples invest their money in baby things.  Dropping big bucks on nursery furniture and baby necessities is likely where a lot of their cash is going.

Not us!

We bought ourselves an airless paint sprayer!

It's all in the name of baby though.  You see, we still don't have a master bedroom...an upstairs main bathroom...or a nursery that's even on the road to being ready for Little Kittel.  And almost every one of these projects requires a LOT of painting.  Todd putting together the new (amazing) tool.  Yes, that concrete jungle is our backyard.  One day, there will be many posts on it as we rip it out and start over with awesome landscaping.  Anyway...painting...

Lulu just has to check everything out.  Kind of looks like she's about to do karaoke, doesn't it?

Never mind, she probably thought it was the hose, which she loves to drink from...

Here comes Rigby!  A duet...

Back to the important stuff...This new sprayer is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!  Over the weekend I primed and painted 1/4 round for the dining room by hand.  It took awhile.  Todd had an old sprayer, nothing like this one, that we tried using to paint the wainscoting for the bathroom, but it went caput (hence the new sprayer).  With all the clogging of the nozzle, the small amount of paint it held, etc., we covered the backs of about four boards in an hour.

The NEW sprayer??  We covered one side of six boards almost all at once in under a minute!  Talk about production improvement!  We blew through all the boards of wainscoting!  They are now sitting patiently waiting for their quick coats of paint and then...voila!...on the wall they go!

If the new sprayer means we have a completed upstairs by the time we a) have a baby shower here, and b) actually have a baby, then I think this was an excellent investment indeed!

Water closet wonderfulness - Part 2

The floor in our upstairs bathroom is almost tiled!

Todd and his friend Ken have been working hard on it for the last couple of days.

Take a look...

Here the guys are starting to lay things out to get an idea of how it was going to go down.  That orange mesh is the heated pad that was supposed to go under the tile so we can have warm floors when we want them. The "supposed to" part of that mesh will be explained a few pics down...

Row one of the tile going in.  They had to level it starting with this row.  It's an important row to have even otherwise all other rows would be slanted...!

Starting row two...

About 1/3 of the way at this point.  Ok, the heated part.  The guys ran into a problem with the heating wires because they aren't going under every part of the floor.  Just down the center.  There's no sense in heating tiles under the tub, for example, but heating up to the tub is a good idea.

Apparently, it requires at least 1/4 inch of Thinset to put the wires in.  There has to be a layer to stick them to the floor, then the thickness of the wire is on top, then a layer of Thinset goes over them so the tiles can lay on top.  The problem was, they had to use only about 1/8 inch of Thinset to lay the tiles.  Any more and it would squeeze through the tile lines.  This is a problem because grout has to go in those tile lines and if they're clogged with Thinset you would have to clean EVERY ONE of those lines out first!  Could you imagine??

So, their solution was to cut the heating wires from the orange mesh, draw where the wires would go on the floor, then use Todd's saw (a special electric saw that I can't remember the name of) to carve out those lines in the cement board on the floor.  The wires would then set slightly down in those lines and they would seal them down with a little Thinset.

Success!

You can see the lines for the wires at the bottom of the photo...

Except for what looks like about three sheets of tile, the floor is DONE!  Todd said they had to stop for the time being because of something to do with the threshold at the door.  He was walking out of the house, so I didn't get a good explanation yet...

Old Glory

We have been wanting a flag on our house for a while, but we just haven't gotten around to it.  With the 4th of July just around the corner flags are everywhere in stores, so we decided to pick one up.

Here's Todd marking where the screws have to go for the base...

Drilling the holes...

Base is up...!

Putting the flag up...

Doesn't it look AWESOME!  (What doesn't look awesome are our front steps.  We pulled the nasty green astro turf off and the adhesive is still there.  It looks bad, yes, but not as bad as the astro turf.)

Flying proud...

Water closet wonderfulness

We have bathroom walls!

And a ceiling.  And a floor!  

Very soon we will have a fully functioning upstairs bathroom that will serve as our main bathroom, as well as mine and Todd's primary powder room.  

We have been doing all the work ourselves (well, mostly Todd and some friends here and there), so projects are taking longer than they would if we hired a contractor.  

I'm proud of Todd too.  He's a regular handyman kind of guy who knows how to do the job RIGHT.  He ran all the new plumbing in there, had to replace a couple old, cracked floor joices, replace the sub floor, insulate the exterior wall (this was hired out because we did spray foam), put up a new ceiling, put in the ventilation fan and run it to the roof, he and a electrician friend finished up the electrical, and most recently...

Got dry wall up on the walls!

For a little perspective...Where Todd is standing is where the vanity (which Todd took a woodworking class to make himself) will go.  To the right of that the toilet.  Those two pipes sticking out of the wall are the hot and cold lines that will go to the claw foot tub that will run along the back wall...

That big hole in this wall is for a built-in cabinet that will be kinda Hoosier-cabinet like.  Todd will be making that himself too.  Right now, the hole opens into the master bedroom closet...

So what's left?  Mudding and taping and sanding the walls.  Laying the heated floor pad and tiling the floor. Priming and painting the wainscoting and putting it up with the baseboards. Putting the finishing touches on the vanity, and hooking the sink, toilet and tub up!  

Of course the fun stuff is yet to come too, like picking a curtain, wall color and shower curtain.  

We're so close!   

Cool as a cucumber

Summers in Wyoming are pretty amazing.  It can be hot, sure, but there's no humidity.


After growing up in the Midwest, living for a time on the East Coast, and being reminded of how sticky-miserable a humid summer can be while at family reunions in Illinois, I decided without a bit of hesitation that I will never, ever again live in a region with humidity.  


In humid climates an air conditioner is an absolute must.  I can not imagine Washington, D.C., in August with no A/C - and I have a pretty vivid imagination!  But in Wyoming, air conditioners strike me as silly and wasteful.

I also hate being in a bottled up house.  I love the windows open, breeze blowing in, and fresh air circulating through the house.

Recently, we were at dinner at our friends Jeff and Linda's and they very graciously offered us an old window air conditioning unit stored in their garage.  I politely declined, telling them of my preferences for fresh air blowing through our home and we eventually changed the subject.

This week, 90+ temps and no wind - NO WIND! Unheard of in Wyoming! - has made our old 1920 home HOT.  Rigby and Lulu just lie around, trying to find relief on our tiled entryway floor in front of a fan.  Todd and I can't bear to even accidentally touch legs on the couch watching t.v. at night.  The ceiling fans are pushing around hot air.  There isn't a breeze to be had.

I told Todd he should ask Jeff if they still have that window unit.  I knew I was going to eat crow because of it.  I didn't care...at least too much.

I figured it could help us through this week, which is forecast to be much of the same dry, hot, still weather.  Also, there is a life development coming our way that I haven't talked about yet on here (I will, it's just not time yet) and I wanted to experiment with making the house more comfortable.

Jeff dropped the A/C off last night and Todd got it up and running immediately.

It's not a total miracle worker, but it's made a difference.  It's really meant to only help cool one room, but we hoped with the openness of the living room into the dining we might feel a little more far reaching effect.  Combined with the fans it's not too bad.  And as much as I dislike having the windows shut it does keep the heat from pouring in.

And I console myself for breaking down by the thought that it's only temporary.  We'll only be switching it on when needed and not relying on it all the time.

Besides, there are only a few weeks each year in Wyoming when an A/C is desirable.  So, if we're looking at even one month of air conditioning out of 12 I think we're doing pretty good.

Recipe mania

I have this issue, see...

I love recipes.  I'm kind of addicted to them.  

I already have an impressive assortment of cookbooks and recipe binders, but for some reason I can't bear the thought of cancelling my Cooking Light subscription.  I am a little disenchanted with the Rachael Ray mag, but until my last renewal runs out I will diligently flip through each issue and pull out new recipes.  I pin a new recipe on Pinterest almost every day it seems.  

I don't like missing new recipes and ideas!  There are so many interesting concoctions out there!  But I've got to stop, or at least slow down.  

I've acquired a few bigger kitchen accessories lately like a blender, food processor and ice cream maker and I have no place to put them...except on the shelf where my recipe books have been stashed.  

I pulled them all down this evening to a) clean that shelf and b) put the appliances up there.  This is what our kitchen counter now looks like.  Overwhelming, huh?

These are my two recipe binders that are literally busting at the seams. Mind the stack of recipes on top waiting to be put in their appropriate sleeves...

I have a handful of these homemade cookbooks like Coy and Angela's wedding favor; and a very nice subscription to Cook's magazine that was an engagement gift from a girlfriend...

I'm thinking this Best of Cooking Light book will have to go.  After all, I've had a subscription to the magazine version for years and some of the recipes are already clipped and in the recipe binders!  I haven't gone through the top book, a Farm Journal's Country Cookbook, very thoroughly, but I don't want to get rid of something so cool and old...

I'm also thinking this one to do with tofu is going to go.  I love tofu, but let's be real.  Our deep freeze in full of antelope, elk and the like.  There aren't many tofu dishes going on our table...

More of the homemade cookbooks...

And more...

Seriously...

Oh man...

The new home for the appliances.  Now where will all those books go...?