Puppy Love

One member of our team here in the foothills, is Denali. He is my mom's dog but is too big and rambunctious to live in Virginia so is out here with us till my mom can get here. He is rather large - 100+lbs and very tall, hence his name which actually means "the Tall One". (He is named after the mountain NOT the SUV, thank you very much).

Well, Big D, as we call him, or DeeDee, or Deedle or I call him the Yeti, Kyle calls him the Woolly Mammoth and Jess calls him Sasquatch. Some days he is called other things that won't be repeated as  my mom reads this blog and will wash my mouth if she knew what we really called her beloved son.

He is just very interested in the world around him, both on four legs and 2 (on 2 he is over 6ft tall). He is also very hairy, we pull the equivalent of 2 peekanees off him every week. (Denali is the one on the right) -


He has good days and bad days but overall we love him like crazy and he and Ziggy and Wolf are the bestest of friends. He and Ziggy fully entertain each other and I appreciate living in the wilderness knowing that the Yeti is outside looking out for us. More to deter some larger mammals than unwanted human visitors. But having said this there is a long list of his "accomplishments" a few are below -

The slippers weren't even 24 hours old he also has the ability to get itno trash cans and pull food from tables - so Kyle thought this would be a great idea - and people think we should get a goat - We have one!!


So far to date, I have now been snapped by these things over 6 times and Denali was snapped once, it went off as he was carrying it around in his mouth and he never even flinched. Plan B....

On a side note, I heard this piece on NPR yesterday about putting hair around plants to act as an insecticide and it also conserves water around the plant and has proven to help it grow 30% larger. Well, I think we should start marketing Denali hair, only problem is that they said that Blonde hair isn't as productive as brunettes - hmmmm, this is a good punchline in there somewhere.

Being Disciplined

I am guilty, I am SOOO guilty of this. Lately with the nose dive the economy has taken, whatever your financial situation, we are all keeping our wallets a little closer to our pockets these days and opening them less. For us, building this house is definitely keeping us stringent with our budgets as there are many costs that we are incurring prior to securing the construction loan.

Lately, I have been reading a lot about strict food budgets and challenges to go a week without spending a single penny!! Its hard. I have already made a New Year's Resolution not to buy any clothes this year and so far have kept to it, (if you don't count underwear). But I am enormously guilty of impulse buying in the grocery store, especially pre-packaged snack foods - love my Joe-Joe's!! And I do the grocery run a few  nights a week to pick up "last minute items" that usually finds me walking out of TJ's with a $30-$40 bill each time, that ADDS UP!!

These challenges include shopping once and then living off of that for a week, or more if you can do it. It is hard to buy fruit this way because it goes bad if you don't buy it often. Of course this goes against the old English way of shopping where they would go nearly everyday to get fresh food for dinner prep, but they went to a butcher and green grocer, not to a Walmart Superstore  or a brand new Safeway where we are swooned with premade dinners, gourmet breads, cheeses, cookies, pastries..etc..

The other side is the amount of food we have in our kitchens. Most of our cupboards are full of perfectly fine food we just aren't in the "mood" for. I remember being at a friend's house when I was younger and they literaly emptied their cupboards before going shopping again. I know we have enough food to really feed us for a few weeks but still we venture to the grocery store.

So, I am going to work really hard to go to the store once a week and when things were gone, they are gone. No replacing till the following week. No more going to 4 different grocery stores, maybe one store and a farmer's market. And we will try to empty a few cupboards, save some money and maybe lose an inch or two on the hips, no more Joe-Joe's Can you all do it too?

My Faves

I thought I would share some of my favorite websites and blogs that I follow, as most of these I have found though someone else's blog or their recommendation.

First and foremost is Apartment Therapy, thank you Lesli and my Favorite blog is Chez Larsson, love this fabulous lady from Stockholm, Sweden and her cheerful outlook everyday and such great ideas, so simple.

I also enjoy Inhabitat, How to Recycle This, Ecofriend, DWELL Magazine and Sunset, UTMOST Fave magazine - NATURAL HOME who also have a BLOG who are also the publishers of Mother Earth and GRIT. We subscribe to a lot of magazines at home because we don't have TV and I hate sitting at the computer. We get a lot of use out the magazines, we keep most of them and refer back constantly to good articles, ideas or products and the ones we aren't enamored by I recycled into packaging materials etc..

Other blogs I love - Crafting a Green World, Eco Etsy Blog (the same people as Etsy.com), Ecofabulous, Unclutterer (to satisfy the OCD in me), Sheltriffic, Cleanistry, Remodelista, BeJane, DesignSponge, and Cottage Living (though they no longer publish, its a static site) and for those who live near an IKEA (sorry Carrie, I know you hate IKEA) this site is sometimes good for a laugh or creativity.

There are a slew of other sites that I follow but those are the ones that most often have really creative or intriguing ideas. Happy surfing

How the Tables have Changed

I was reading today on a blog about how people covet lovely laundry rooms, and it does make a difference in a house to have a nice and easily accessible laundry room. Amazingly enough, in this trailer we call home - we have a laundry room..and its not bad. A little dark and really old cupboards, it is lovely have to have a dedicated room on your main level to do laundry.

This is one thing that was a priority from the start in the new home. I have never lived anywhere where I had to use a laundry mat, even on the road with the horses, there were laundry facilities at the barn. You just had to get your clothes and unmentionables in BEFORE the sweaty horse stuff hit.

Having a full laundry room in our house that had room to move and fold and iron and store things was a high priority for me. So i got thinking back to houses 10 or 20 years ago. What was the priority then. From what I remember in the houses I grew up in, a formal living and dining room were all the rage in the 80's. I wonder if we add up all the time we actually spent in those rooms vs. the time we spent running down to the basement to switch over laundry or fluff and fold, which would win out. I think about all the money spent on expensive furnishings to go in those rooms that you were yelled at if you even looked in with feet. I think its just a reflection of the way we lived life and what we valued back then and how it has changed today. Today we wants friends that hang in the kitchen with us, take us at face value and don't care if they park it on the old leather couch. We don't need fancy entertaining rooms with plush carpets and chandeliers.

But this leads to a bigger issue. Back in the day when we were all building those fancy entertaining rooms for the twice a year use - that became the norm and realtors were quick to tell you that your  house wouldn't sell without a formal living and dining room. Today they like to the same thing with jacuzzi tubs etc.. but what if you don't want those things, what if you build a house sans sunken, plush formal room and jet propelled hot tub in the master, are you dooming your house to be snubbed in 15 years when you put it on the market. What will the trends be then? Is a house to live in and for you to enjoy or purely a resale endeavor. Sigghhhhhhh.....

To me its much nicer to have a well laid out laundry room, easy to get to, good for storing all the laundry detergent etc.. or is it just a reflection of me being Martharized?

Some lovely laundry -

Utilitarian

We are very big on things that straight forward and utilitarian. No fluff and fancy, just good pieces and ideas that work and stand up.

Paper Towel Rack in Kitchen

Kyle loves utilizing pipe for so many applications and we have already started to incorporate some in our temporary house here.

TP Holder in Bathroom

The closet in our bedroom has lovely but not user friendly wood sliding doors. It made the closet hard to get into and very dark. So we took them off and put up a light, organic cotton curtain and hung it on a pipe. It worked so well as the curtain had a pocket header but also because the closet ends on one side at the perpendicular wall, which would have made a traditional curtain rail very hard to install. The pipe was super easy, looks great and the curtain slides so smoothly. The closet is now fantastic to find things and get in and out of.

We have other ideas for pipe including a bookcase that is in the works, future hanging bars for closets in the new house and who knows - lets see what else we can come up with, Stay tuned.....

Girl's day out inspiration

Kyle and I get inspiration from all kinds of places. We will be sitting in a coffee shop and all of a sudden Kyle will say, look at this fantastic door or ceiling. We have now gotten in the habit of checking out the architecture, interior and exterior designs everywhere we go.

Often times we come across great uses of corrugated metal both inside and outside. It has a very cool, modern, minimalist look that we like and with a splash of color can be very cool. This weekend "the girls" and I went to Nevada City to hang out and have lunch. A great little foothills town it has an obvious battle raging between the older miners and fur trappers and a very present Bohemian/Nepalese/Tibetan culture. Its an odd mix and it seems like each party has taken hold of one side of Main St. and the battle rages. I have to say I think the latter group may be winning. There are a ton of cool stores in Nevada City, a new one I found is 33 Degrees which has a great collection of salvaged goodies at amazing prices. The had a fantastic bar that I loved which incorporated corrugated metal -



There is also a Belly Dancing store whose entire ceiling is angling corrugated metal, its fantastic. We also came across a newly renovated building that utilized corrugated metal on the exterior with color.


Here are some other examples of corrugated metal used in homes -






And on a final note - I am in love with this tub - yes, for you horsey people, this is a water trough!!

New Stuff

Kyle just installed our new passive solar dryer and its fantastic. I have been using it everyday and it works so well, is so easy to use and fun....You got it, its a clothes line.

Not too high, more than enough clothes pegs (though I need a peg bag now) and out of the sun so the clothes don't fade but in the wind so they dry quick, smell great and it means a LOT less ironing.

 Kyle won't let me take a picture of it though because its location doesn't show off the best side of the house (there isn't really a best side, maybe the roof) and he says it just confirms that we are trailer trash for sure...sighhhhh, when will we become container squatters, oh I dream for the day. Of course Kyle never reads the blog so I can post whatever I want.....

Anyway, I digress. I haven't used the dryer (the electric one) for 2 weeks, take that PG&E!! I have also started collecting all the water that used to go down the drain while we were waiting for the hot water, I am keeping it in a big barrel so we have water for the flowers in the summer. It will be nice when we have the new house and this function will be plumbed right into the house as our greywater system. Till then I am enduring running out onto the front porch in my skivvies to empty full milk jugs of shower water...but its still completely worth it, it just makes sense.

Another Container Structure

The scuttlebutt is that for the Volvo Ocean Race -  another container structure is being built in Boston as its the only North American stop the race will make. Its called PUMA City and it is a 11,000 sq ft retail space that utilizes 24, 40 ft shipping containers (all in cool PUMA red) on 3 levels and cantilevered. Construction began April 7th, the store opens April 27th through May 16th after which it will be dismantled and moved to Galway, Ireland - how cool is THAT!!

poor, poor David

We are officially dubbed as pests in the eyes of our architect. I think he truly despises, I know he thinks we are insane. He sends a sketch, we say "its great, lets just change, this, this, this, this and this" and he sends another sketch and we say "its great, lets just change this, this, this, this and this"...and on it goes.

He is just designing a very specific place and we just don't want to be defined. We don't want a house that screams, this is the living room, this is the dining room, this is the blah, blah, blah. I want to be able to have the living room here one week and there the next...shake it up a bit. I love change and like to change it up pretty often, have something different.

Hopefully if he hangs in there with us, we are getting closer to having a design and who knew there were soooooooo many different ways to place big boxes!!!

On a more simpler note, I finished the first of the dog beds -

built specifically for the large boys so they had outside beds and inside beds and beds in our bedroom and we didn't have to constantly drag beds around all day - well, the only one who uses it is little Ziggy, you could fit 40 Ziglets on this bed!!

The things that push us to become aware

I just saw an amazing statistic over at Natural Home editor-in-chief, Robyn Griggs Lawrence's blog that the trash going into Landfill's has dropped by between 20-30% since the recession began. People are buying less and therefore hanging on to what they have for longer and getting more use out of it. It is really stunning how the wallet can drive true change in how people value and live their lives.

Its a shame that it takes a job loss or a house loss before we truly start to value the possessions we have and getting the most out of them, or recognizing that if we have no use that someone else will and taking the time to pass them along to someone else that will find value in them instead of just throwing them int he trash.

eBay
Craigslist
Freecycle
Salvation Army
or your local charity or church

FYI if you have granite countertops or thinking of it

Obviously, we all know that granite is a radioactive stone. That is why New Hampshirites glow in the dark, just kidding. But many older NH homes do have radon detectors in the basements. Now take that to the kitchen and imagine what is off-gasing from your countertops?

The level of radioactivity varies from stone to stone but one granite was tested and  well, you can read for yourself -

"We measured more than 500 microR/hour of gamma radiation from a slab of Jupurana Bordeaux on display in the showroom.  At that dose, a person in close contact with the granite for an hour a day would receive 182 millirem of gamma radiation in a year. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recommends that members of the public should not exceed 100 millirem/year above background. No more than 25 millirem/year should come from a single source, like granite counter tops."

I am not a scientist or a doctor but you have to wonder with the increased developmental problems they are seeing in children these days, autism, where is this coming from?
So especially if you have kids - think twice about granite, especially since there are so many, much more beautiful, environmentally responsible and healthier alternatives for your kitchen surface.

You would never Guess

For those who poo poo the container idea and take the "they are far too modern" and "I love my farmhouse/cape cod" check out these container homes - yes, they are made with containers!!

and there is a farmhouse built out of containers in the Mohave Desert, a little piece of Amish PA in the desert.

FYI if you have granite countertops or thinking of it

Obviously, we all know that granite is a radioactive stone. That is why New Hampshirites glow in the dark, just kidding. But many older NH homes do have radon detectors in the basements. Now take that to the kitchen and imagine what is off-gasing from your countertops?

The level of radioactivity varies from stone to stone but one granite was tested and  well, you can read for yourself -

"We measured more than 500 microR/hour of gamma radiation from a slab of Jupurana Bordeaux on display in the showroom.  At that dose, a person in close contact with the granite for an hour a day would receive 182 millirem of gamma radiation in a year. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recommends that members of the public should not exceed 100 millirem/year above background. No more than 25 millirem/year should come from a single source, like granite counter tops."

I am not a scientist or a doctor but you have to wonder with the increased developmental problems they are seeing in children these days, autism, where is this coming from?
So especially if you have kids - think twice about granite, especially since there are so many, much more beautiful, environmentally responsible and healthier alternatives for your kitchen surface.

Time for Ingenuity to Kick In

When you buy a house, money is always tight till you know where you are and with the advent of building upon us, we are trying to save our money for the big things, like containers and flooring. So when we are "in need" (or want) of something we are trying to think creatively and reuse something we already have or make it from scratch.

First moving into the trailer, some of Kyle's furniture stayed in Sonora and therefore we were in need of a coffee table (which has since become the location of Kyle's magazine piles). There is an old barn on the property that was full of old junk from the previous owner's, so my mom (Jo) and I went shopping. We did in fact find a coffee table but it was hideous. Lovely vinyl topped and just nasty. So a good sanding and new mapped top and we have a coffee table. Is it a long term keeper, probably not. But it serves its purpose for now, was free, will eventually be relegated to Kyle's office in the shop but saves us from spending money right now especially since we want to hold off getting new furniture for the new house till its up and we can see what we need and want and what will fit.

You can see we covered the top of the table with maps, we used CA, NV, UT and AZ, all our favorite places. Not too bad for 3 hours of work!

On a side note - hummingbirds - 12, bags of sugar - 2, number of times refill feeders a day - 3!!!

And another one....

Look out everyone, container home builders are sprouting up everywhere - Even Lesli's state of Missouri is not immune. We found this great blog of a wonderful lady, Marti, who is in the process of building a fab new container home that will take advantage of her great land lot that is overlooking a river in Missouri.

Check out more HERE

We are also toying with getting sheep. We have almost 23 acres and a lot of it is covered with blackberries, sounds romantic, like an old English cottage garden, think again. They are rampant, fierce and ruthless. Its impossible to get their roots out, they hurt like the dickens and apparently Shetland Sheep LOVE them. So its a thought we are toying with....maybe we will make Denali a herding dog!!

Puppy Love

Thought you would like to see the rest of the team who will be working on the house -
Project Manager, Resource Coordinator and heckler - Ziggy


The real brains of the job is Wolf - he is the engineer, methodical, thinks all his calculations through to ensure every detail is taken care of....and then sleeps.


Then we have the brawn of the operation - all the heavy lifting, large machinery operation and moving is the job of our site guy - Denali - he is tough, really he is.

Our Project Team

Thought you would like to see the rest of the team who will be working on the house -
Project Manager, Resource Coordinator and heckler - Ziggy


The real brains of the job is Wolf - he is the engineer, methodical, thinks all his calculations through to ensure every detail is taken care of....and then sleeps.


Then we have the brawn of the operation - all the heavy lifting, large machinery operation and moving is the job of our site guy - Denali - he is tough, really he is.

Trailer Update

Because I know you have been on the edge of your seat - here are the much anticipated MID-TRAILER-PROJECT pics...still much welding to do and painting but this is the progress thus far...

from this 

so we are making progress. Gosh - these pics really confirm we are white trash...Jeeesh.

Our Family is Expanding

I know that will get some of yours' attention - No Kristy, not that way.
We got these great hummingbird feeders from a greyhound rescue place in Sonoma (get cool feeders, support greyhound rescue AND it comes from the BEST wine country and you have to drink the wine before using it for a feeder, win win) The feeders for the hummingbirds are on the left, its a upside wine bottle that sits in a copper hanger - go here to find them...


They are fabulous and in no time we had -


and then we had -


Yes, you counted right - 7!!
This is fabulous for us and with the deer, jack rabbits, cotton tails, woodpeckers, Stellar Jays, all the other little birdies including the one making her babies nest in my outside lantern and sundry other wildlife that pass through at night that only Denali sees (because he sleeps outside all night), we love it and are thrilled that they all come. But we are going to have to consider the exorbitant amounts of money we are now spending on Sugar and birdseed.....