Bath Tub Addiction

My addiction to bath tubs and finishing old cast iron ones has been fed with this post from my favorite blog EVER, Remodalista. I love every one of these tubs and it gives me renewed excitement to try my hand at refinishing the two we have to be incorporated in the new house and the cottage.

I am in the midst of redesigning the blog a tad, as you can see its a bit off kilter. Recently the fabulous Brian Bussiere (Jess's redder half) gave Kyle and I a rundown of how to use Photoshop. Unfortunately, its loaded on Kyle's laptop, and you think I ever get my hands on that thing. So once I can get in and fix the pics, hopefully it will look a bit more professional.

Fantastic Malaysian Container Home

http://www.jetsongreen.com/2010/04/upcycled-container-house-in-malaysia.html

 This is a great example of utilizing containers in home and shows some great shots of how it was done.

Here is a video of the house.

More Time

Long time no post - its one of those times where things are just taking a long time to finish. We are hard at work but most of the projects we have going are taking a bit to come to completion and I hate posting mid way through.

We are working on insulating the workshop office, which is proving to be a challenge to be green and cheap!! The outside siding and interior windows are in and it looks fantastic. We have one wall done and as soon as its finished we will give you a preview.

We also acquired 11 trees from the Arbor Foundation. they had sent me a survey this winter and because I love trees I filled it out and sent it back with a little donation. Low and behold it came with a membership and they sent 11 bare root trees. They are the littlest stubs right now but are at home in their new 5 gallon buckets where they will live for a year (if I don't kill them first) and then be located to their permanent home.

On top of that we got 20 new blueberry bushes from a great local source, thanks James. We got Bluehaven, Duke, Blue Ray, Rubel and Hannah's Choice, He threw the last one in for free, how could you not! So we are now getting ready to get them settled in their new home in the newly cleared acreage just west of the workshop.

Yes, we have been busy clearing a lot of the blackberries and overgrowth from the fields. Its amazing how the tractor makes quick work of it but its also all the growth that has accumulated.

So now we need a rototiller to prep for the blueberries. They are about 2-3 years old and ready to go to a permanent home. We need to do some soil work first as, though we have good acidic soil in this area, we need to aerate the soil and improve the drainage before they get situated. I also settled some lavender in as an experiment. Let's just say, to date, the experiment is failing.

The next project is to clear an area between the driveway and the road for some bee hives. We met a family that is 4th generation bee keepers and they will be bringing over some hives to keep honey bees on the property. We are really excited to get them situated and hope they help our fruit trees but they do need to have a bear fence around them, naughty bears!

So that is the update for now. The house is coming along. We are desperately trying to select windows, which is difficult because all the windows I see in magazines that I like are nothing like what you see when you go to the big name window manufacturers. Its a very frustrating process. We also moved the staircase. It was a constant problem with alllowing for headroom and maintaining the structure of the container. We moved them over near the front door and master bedroom and love the new location and the look of them there. So now that this issue is resolved we are pushing forward on to the next issue......

The rain this spring has been insane. Non-stop rain and cold. Which is great for the state and water levels and the waterfalls are gorgeous, but enough already. The blooms are certainly pretty but quite late this year because of the cold.

We got both the water tanks hooked up on the workshop so the 3,000 gallons are saved for the summer and it took no time at all to collect with all this rain. Plan now is another 5,000 gallon tank and a 2,500 gallon tank.

On Friday we are off to the El Dorado Home Show to scope out some windows, I have little faith.

Not the Weirdest of the ALL

We sure get some strange looks from some people when we tell them what we are building, apparently some people can't get past little wooden sticks. Here are some fabulous folks that went even further than we did - what great thinking and re-using...I really love the barn, always loved the idea of living in a renovated barn and the fire tower, one for the view and two for the fact that they are usually so remote. I also love the yacht. When I lived in the Bay Area, where houses were so expensive, I toyed with the idea of buying a big old fishing boat and docking it somewhere and living on it, a few did and they are fantastic. The land yacht is intriguing if nothing else but a statement on desertification and the disappearance of bodies of water worldwide.

Check them out - http://heralddaily.com/2009/11/11/13-repurposed-dwellings/