A big shop and some new projects...

The big shop that is outside of our house is now all the way sided and waiting for paint. It is too cold to paint but we have been working on the doors and completing the framing for the bathroom inside.

This is one of my projects. I took an old table and chairs set and used a crochet table cloth to recover the seats. I stained the top of the table darker and painted the legs to match the chairs.

This is a funny Spider that Chris welded around Halloween. It is a smudge pot with sickle blades as the legs.

This is a yard flower that Chris welded up using some of the rusty piles we have laying around.

The second flower that Chris made. I liked this one the best.

I don't think I ever took a picture of the handrail for our steps on the porch. They are big metal wagon wheels with a scythe.

This is a vintage hutch that had some water damage to it so I had to paint it. It is a soft grey with blue interior and then I distressed it. I don't have anywhere to put it yet though so I have left it in storage for now.

 

 

 This is what Hunter made me for Christmas. It is an old ladder used as a shelf for pictures. He even made me picture frames!

 This is a fruit stand that Chris helped me make. We took 3 metal bowls, drilled holes in them and took an old standing lamp apart to put it all together. I think it is beautiful!

 

 

 AND since you have read all the way to the bottom...coming soon....we are buying a older commercial building and we are going to open a storefront. It will be for antiques and repurposed items. We are going to decorate the building very similar to our house and maybe use a few of the extra grain bins we have laying around!

the outside buildings

There have been a few building projects going on. I have kind of saved up to publish some of them and I guess I should have been doing it more often! I hadn't realized how long it has been.

 The old front porch off of the mobile home that we moved is now the deck for our swimming pool.

Hannah painted the porch and made a stencil for it. There is now a fence around the pool and deck and a fence around the garden. Those pickets came from an auction. we bought some of them to build a fence at my mom's house but ended up with two bundles of pickets leftover so we have put them to use around here. We still have almost an entire bundle left but I am sure we will use them sometime. We spend $200 on all of the fencing and pickets and that price included the ones we used for my mom's house.

 Chris decided to make our old swing set into a green house. we didn't get it finished in time to use it this Spring so I hope we get to next Spring. The framing wood and flooring wood came in a miscellaneous pile at an auction for $50 and the white panels came from another auction for $40.

The building where the old mobile home used to be is coming along. We got it formed up and then had someone else come in and pour the concrete. The concrete and rebar with labor cost us $9000. it is a huge building thoughand that paid for a small pad where we park our cars and the area where we will set the boiler off the back of the house for the radiant floor heating.

It took 6 cement trucks for all the concrete!

This is the area where the radiant floor heating will be built into the house.

The framing of the building starting out. The building will be 32x50 plus a lean to area.

The next generation of recycled homes

 Our second oldest son, Hunter, was one of the reasons that we choose to build a house in a grain bin. There was a grain bin on the property when we bought it and he turned it into his room. It only makes sense that when Hunter moved out he would buy a place and reuse materials to rehab it. Hunter works for a company that delivers big roll off dumpsters and is able to find a lot of stuff that other people consider trash. We also used some of the stuff left over from building our own house or from auctions. Hunter was able to buy a 3 bedroom 2 bath house and we took most of it down to the studs. We replaced the windows in it. We bought them at an auction for $5 a piece. The first picture is the master bedroom and bath. We gutted the bathroom and rearranged some of the fixtures. It had a shower,garden tub and sink and now has a sink and shower. The barn wood on the wall came form some left over from our house. The tin also was leftover from our house. Hunter bought the carpet. The shower we had leftover. The sink came out of the dumpster at his work.

A camshaft out of a motor. It came from work too. It is his towel rack by the shower

The wood behind the toilet came out of the dumpster at work. It was old fence boards. the flooring was leftover from our house.

The sink came out of the dumpster. The mirror Hunter made himself. The cabinet came out of the dining room of the house. Most of the paint came out of the dumpster at work (a 5 gallon bucket) or on clearance for $9 a gallon.

A barn door that Hunter made out of barn wood we had. It leads to his bathroom.

 The living room. we did have to buy a new door and it cost $200,

The kitchen cabinets Hunter has been refacing with pallets that he got from work. The sink and faucet came out of the dumpster at work,

 These cabinets are in the dining room. The license plates were leftover fromour house and we had to pick up more at antique stores,

The living room is a lot of leftover barn wood and tin. The coca cola cooler came from my mom and Hunter stores his movies in it. The hubcaps came form the dumpster or swap meets.

This was a great find out of the dumpster at Hunter's work.

The decorations mostly came from the dumpster or auctions. The fish and boar's teeth were Hunter's great grandfathers.

This really cool wooden box came out of the dumpster at work. Hunter is using it to hold his shoes.

These are vent covers that Hunter made out of stuff that was laying around.

This mailbox Hunter made out of parts he got out of the dumpster at work. He even got the mailbox out of the dumpster. So the whole thing was free.

This is at our house. It is the railing that goes upstairs to our bedroom. Chris and Hunter collected the tools at auctions and garage sales. Chris welded all of it together.

Around the top edge of our front porch Chris built a ledge and placed glass insulators around it. We put lights under each one. They came from auctions. Usually a few dollars for a bucket of them.

Well, that is all I have to update for now. We are working on building a shop but the weather is turning cold so we will see how far we get on that. It may have to wait until Spring.

The last room...

 The last room to be finished is the master bedroom. We took several months off because our second son bought a place and we were helping him remodel it before he moved in. Someday I will post pictures of what he has done too because he helped to think up alot of the stuff we did in our house. The ceiling took forever BUT I think it was worth it!

This little detail is old tin that we clear coated. it was in a pile that we bought and that pile has been used throughout the house.

the doorways to the master bath and the two closets

we decided to use more of the beadboard that we used on the ceiling as the baseboard/

We ended up putting a piece of trim to cap it and then painting it all white. We already had the beadboard and we already had the trim pieces.

These beautiful solid pecan doors came from an auction. The same auction that we bought a 16 foot trailer full of trim from. The doors were in a stack of 8 doors. we paid $10 for the stack.

This tin has been used a couple of places in the house but we still had some left. I hated to see it left int he barn so we put it behind the sink in the master bath.

The bathroom is hard to take pictures of because of the curved walls. This area is beside the shower.

The toliet area.

The shower

The sink in the masterbath.

The bedroom ceiling

the bedroom

The bed ended up going by the curved wall because it just fit there better. It's hard to fit straight furniture against curved walls.

So this is about it for pictures for now. There are a few more things that we still have to do. A building to build for a garage, handrail, and the few other odds and ends.