Did I Mention that I hate spiders?
Hey Look! Lots of little baby spiders.(@#$*!)
NOT GOOD!
*No spiders were harmed in the making of this blog... NOT!
Sunday, October 4, 2009
I hate spiders!
Once upon a time, on a cool crisp October morning in an enchanted land of milk and honey, I was tearing sheetrock out of an old building. Gingerly removing the sheetrock and insulation from the walls I came across some unexpected occupants. Squatters you might say. These gutless vermin would position themselves so that when you picked up the pieces of sheetrock they would be only inches from your fingers. NOT acceptable behavior. The end.
Roofus... dont get mad.
Got Roof?
From Blue to Green...
From Blue to Green...
Kinda like magic.
Thank you Mr Lift.
As much as I would like to take credit for all the work myself, I must admit I had a little help.
Thank you Mr Lift.Monday, September 28, 2009
Another Week of Work
Daniel and I took another week of vacation with the intention of working on the cabin and do some running around. We got a lot accomplished but had a few hiccups.
Saturday night (the 19th) was Daniel's multiclass reunion.
Sunday, Rusty took Daniel to the Doctor because Daniel had an evil looking spot on his leg. It turned out to be the bad staph MRSA.
On Friday, Daniel was feeling like his old self so we rented a lift and worked on the roof!!! Here are some pics. 
Friday, August 14, 2009
I got a FROE!!
For the porch roof I want to put wood shingles on it. In my Foxfire books http://www.foxfire.org/ there is a story on how to make wood shingles. So today I ordered the tool that's used to make them.
It's called a froe and mine is new old stock. I kind of lucked into this one. I've been watching some on ebay and I pulled up the search a few days ago I noticed somebody had posted a new one. It had a sticker on it for "THE AXE HOLE" so i googled it up and it took me to their website. http://www.theaxehole.com/ I talked to Doc and he was so nice. He said his dad purchased a bunch of these when a logging co went out of business in the 50s but its never been used!
YEAH! i can't wait to get it
Monday, August 10, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
jacob is destructive!!
this is a small video of Jacob Littlejohn tearing down the last wall of the house in blue ridge. it was so much fun to watch!!
jelly
here is some of my jelly from the year. i made yellow wild plum, red wild plum and rose jelly. i mad way more than 6 jars. i think 8 or 9 batches. . .
Thursday, July 30, 2009
here is my kool a$$ outdoor bathroom
this is the view from the outside
the diagonal floor boards
my $5 toilet and the free (heavy) sink
the toilet was purchased at the longview ReStore http://www.habitat.org/env/restores.aspx
the totally cool $5 (it was marked 10 but 1/2 price) door with destinys boobs. the door was purchased at the tyler ReStore http://www.habitat.org/env/restores.aspx
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Musical Dogs
We have three dogs Trixie, Mack, and Rocko. Normally they all get along great but a couple of weeks ago we had a huge dog fight. Trixie and Rocko were ganging up on poor Mack. Daniel and I could hardly get them apart. It took several tries for us to get it done. Everybody was bleeding - it was horrible. So since then we've been doing musical dogs and swapping who is outside every few hours.
Poor Mack is all alone now.
An upside for him is that he keeps getting to go travelling on the weekends with us now while Rocko and Trixie stay home in the backyard.
Neglected Cabin
the doors shown above (we have 2 sets of them) were purchased at the downtown Dallas ReStore http://www.habitat.org/env/restores.aspx
I hope the cabin doesn't think we've totally abandoned it ~ we haven't, but it's been so hot lately and summer things are going on constantly. Also it's always close in our minds (and hearts) as we keep planning things for it.
This past weekend Daniels mom and grandmother moved and we helped them get the big stuff. They had mostly gotten the little stuff taken care of.
Next hopefully we'll get the roof completed. I think we've definitely decided we are doing a metal roof. What we looked at was less than $2 a linear foot and has a 25 year warranty which is awesome! The roof is going to be more than a weekend job so we'll have to plan week so we can be focused and get it done. And then once we get the roof accomplished we can start working on insulation and start focusing on one room at a time to get them completed (hopefully). ((Historically this has been our plan "let's start a project and not do anything else until we get it completed" but it never works out that way. We start a project and then we get excited about another project so we start it and next thing we have 10 started projects and no COMPLETED projects. I need a "DONE" stamp like they had on Monster House. Maybe that would help.))
We have started talking about planning the porches. I think our goal is to have a wrap around porch on the cabin but it will have to be done in phases. I know (pretty sure) phase 1 is going to be the front porch. I hope: it will be 10 - 12 feet deep and I want it to be a screened porch. Also I've been talking to Daniel about making some wood shingles to go on its roof. I have these great books called "foxfire" that teach you the "old way" of doing things and there is an article in them about shakes. I need a froe so if you have one or know of someone who does let me know. I've been watching them on ebay so hopefully i'll get one soon. Yeah I'm so excited!! (see now you got me all excited about the porch and I want to start it now and finish the roof later. shame on you)
Lastly, we've been getting to visit with the Hillhouses (Chris and Shawna) which are our neighbors up the hill to the cabin. Chris is 1 year older than Daniel and they grew up out there together. So it has been nice getting to visit with them the last couple of weekends.
This past weekend Daniels mom and grandmother moved and we helped them get the big stuff. They had mostly gotten the little stuff taken care of.
Next hopefully we'll get the roof completed. I think we've definitely decided we are doing a metal roof. What we looked at was less than $2 a linear foot and has a 25 year warranty which is awesome! The roof is going to be more than a weekend job so we'll have to plan week so we can be focused and get it done. And then once we get the roof accomplished we can start working on insulation and start focusing on one room at a time to get them completed (hopefully). ((Historically this has been our plan "let's start a project and not do anything else until we get it completed" but it never works out that way. We start a project and then we get excited about another project so we start it and next thing we have 10 started projects and no COMPLETED projects. I need a "DONE" stamp like they had on Monster House. Maybe that would help.))
We have started talking about planning the porches. I think our goal is to have a wrap around porch on the cabin but it will have to be done in phases. I know (pretty sure) phase 1 is going to be the front porch. I hope: it will be 10 - 12 feet deep and I want it to be a screened porch. Also I've been talking to Daniel about making some wood shingles to go on its roof. I have these great books called "foxfire" that teach you the "old way" of doing things and there is an article in them about shakes. I need a froe so if you have one or know of someone who does let me know. I've been watching them on ebay so hopefully i'll get one soon. Yeah I'm so excited!! (see now you got me all excited about the porch and I want to start it now and finish the roof later. shame on you)
Lastly, we've been getting to visit with the Hillhouses (Chris and Shawna) which are our neighbors up the hill to the cabin. Chris is 1 year older than Daniel and they grew up out there together. So it has been nice getting to visit with them the last couple of weekends.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Buzzards
One little known fact about the buzzards mentioned in the first post (below) is that they had evidently made a nest in the house in Blueridge. The 1st time we went - we knew something was living in the house because we could hear it moving around in the attic but we couldn't figure out what it was. Of course the 2nd time you already know about. But they just kept coming back. Eventually Daniel found some eggs in the attic so we know for sure why they were hanging around.
EWW the eggs were all gross, and speckedly. There were lots of comments about omelets. We eventually just threw them in Mark's trashcan because we didn't want to break them (Well we did and we didn't) and Mark hoped his trashmen didn't think he was mad at them!!
EWW the eggs were all gross, and speckedly. There were lots of comments about omelets. We eventually just threw them in Mark's trashcan because we didn't want to break them (Well we did and we didn't) and Mark hoped his trashmen didn't think he was mad at them!!
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Side Trip - Lumber and The Well
One side story to the cabin.
One week Daniel worked in Greenville. The highway to Greenville was being widened into a divided highway and he noticed that they were tearing down some houses to accomplish this.
That weekend we worked in Blue Ridge but after lunch we grabbed our tools and drove out that way.
Most of the houses that we passed were just piles of broken lumber, but on one we passed, the floor was pretty much intact just lying on top of the rest of the house. Of course, as we drove by, another man was already there poking around, so we went on by. As we neared Greenville, we could see smoke and as we got to the last house, there was a construction guy there burning it. Nothing else looked promising so we turned around and headed back. As we got near the one house we were interested in, we noticed the guy was gone, so we pulled over.
Daniel got out and started busting up the floorboards with his sledgehammer so we could salvage the beams. As he did that I walked to the next house (pile of rubble) and salvaged a couple of 2 X 4s. As I walked back to load them in the truck, I noticed the other man was back talking to Daniel. He was an older retired man, named James, and we visited with him a few minutes. He was very nice. ((the darker vertical boards in the picture are the salvaged boards))
He helped Daniel break up some of the floorboards, as I went back to the other house and picked up a few miscellaneous bricks. He noticed my bricks and pointed us to another house farther down and said it had lots of bricks laying around everywhere down there.
After he left Daniel and I loaded up the lumber. We got ten or eleven 2 X 8s in all and they were all 13 feet long. Really nice boards, however they stuck way out of the back of the truck. While Daniel was securing them with tiestraps I tied a bright orange glove to the end of them so people would notice they stuck out. (Daniel laughed)
On our way back to Blue Ridge, Daniel stopped at the "brickhouse" and I immediately began loading bricks into the back of the truck. Daniel (always thinkin) noticed a gaping hole in the ground and went to investigate.
There was a fairly deep brick lined well that the construction workers had evidently uncovered. And they just left it uncovered for anybody to wander up on! It was creepy because it wasn't just a straight column -- at the bottom it was bulbous (like a thermometer). Daniel and I took some pictures and got out of there before we tried to throw each other in.
One week Daniel worked in Greenville. The highway to Greenville was being widened into a divided highway and he noticed that they were tearing down some houses to accomplish this.
That weekend we worked in Blue Ridge but after lunch we grabbed our tools and drove out that way.
Most of the houses that we passed were just piles of broken lumber, but on one we passed, the floor was pretty much intact just lying on top of the rest of the house. Of course, as we drove by, another man was already there poking around, so we went on by. As we neared Greenville, we could see smoke and as we got to the last house, there was a construction guy there burning it. Nothing else looked promising so we turned around and headed back. As we got near the one house we were interested in, we noticed the guy was gone, so we pulled over.
Daniel got out and started busting up the floorboards with his sledgehammer so we could salvage the beams. As he did that I walked to the next house (pile of rubble) and salvaged a couple of 2 X 4s. As I walked back to load them in the truck, I noticed the other man was back talking to Daniel. He was an older retired man, named James, and we visited with him a few minutes. He was very nice. ((the darker vertical boards in the picture are the salvaged boards))
He helped Daniel break up some of the floorboards, as I went back to the other house and picked up a few miscellaneous bricks. He noticed my bricks and pointed us to another house farther down and said it had lots of bricks laying around everywhere down there.
After he left Daniel and I loaded up the lumber. We got ten or eleven 2 X 8s in all and they were all 13 feet long. Really nice boards, however they stuck way out of the back of the truck. While Daniel was securing them with tiestraps I tied a bright orange glove to the end of them so people would notice they stuck out. (Daniel laughed)
On our way back to Blue Ridge, Daniel stopped at the "brickhouse" and I immediately began loading bricks into the back of the truck. Daniel (always thinkin) noticed a gaping hole in the ground and went to investigate.
There was a fairly deep brick lined well that the construction workers had evidently uncovered. And they just left it uncovered for anybody to wander up on! It was creepy because it wasn't just a straight column -- at the bottom it was bulbous (like a thermometer). Daniel and I took some pictures and got out of there before we tried to throw each other in.
a LOT to get you caught up
So Daniel and I are building a cabin. For awhile we bickered back and forth regarding the plans. His plans vs my plans; 1 story vs 2; kitchen vs no kitchen; itty bitty vs big. What we’ve come up with is 20 X 24, 1 story with a loft, open floor plan. 672 square feet of living space.
Well before we settled on a floor plan we decided to try to salvage some old wood to build this with. We actually talked about this way back when we were living in Tyler, but nothing ever came out of it. I’m a craigslist junkie so one day while perusing (back last Feb or March) I spied a listing for a house to be torn down. Most of the free stuff on craigslist goes really quickly, so I called the guy and we made arrangements to go out and see it. It was in Blue Ridge which is just east of McKinney. A very small, old, farming town. Daniel liked the look of the house and thought there was a lot of salvageable wood, so he made arrangements with Mark Littlejohn that we would take it.
That first weekend my mom, and uncle Doug, and cousin Austin came up to help us work on it. When Doug, Austin and I arrived, there were 3 buzzards sitting on the roofline. Doug said “Hey do you think I can hit one of them?” I being the doubter said “NO!” and Austin just laughed. So Doug sneaks out of the car and sidearms his knife at them. Believe it or not – he hit one! But it didn’t hurt it and they just flew off.
It took us 6 months to finish demolishing that house. (originally I'd told Mark 2 weeks!) We got 4 or 5 trailer loads of lumber. That summer was the tannest I’ve been in years! Additionally, we got to know Mark and his son Jake really well. They’re great people and I wish them all the best. Lastly, if you’re ever in Blue Ridge, there’s a little restaurant on the square called “Cattleman’s Café”, you should definitely eat there. They have great chicken fried steak and awesome chicken fried chicken. (( below is the last of the floor))
Also one fall day I noticed another ad on craigslist to tear down a shop/garage in Detroit. Daniel and I went to see it that Sunday and decided we wanted it. Made the arrangements with Scott the owner. Daniel was off the next Friday and he went and tore the shingles off. Clayton came up Friday night and we got up early Saturday and went out there. We worked on it all day – except for our lunch break. It was BITTER cold that day – I believe Detroit TX is a suburb of Antartica. Anyway, we finished knocking it down just as the sun was setting. I fell asleep on the drive home but woke up just in time to order pizza from Picasso’s for pick up. The next Friday Daniel went back to take the trailer load of lumber back to Liberty City. While he was there he ran into Scott – Scott said he couldn’t believe that we tore the whole thing down in essentially one day! (A funny aside – Clayton took a poop out in the pasture with the horses watching him. ewww)
So now we have lumber literally running out our ears. This is where the plan bickering happened. Not bad bickering, just “you don’t like my idea because you didn’t come up with it” stuff. But we eventually worked it all out, or tabled it until we have to talk about it.
Last fall, Daniel took a week of vacation and borrowed his bro-in-law’s tractor. That was a busy week for him: He cleared an area of land just on the Gregg County/Smith County line to build the cabin on; He put in a septic system for the cabin; He started building me an outhouse out of some of the reclaimed wood. We drove to Houston for my cousin’s wedding; We went to visit Rusty in Bryan/College Station. ETC.
Then I took off January 2nd so we had a 4 day weekend because of the Holiday. We finished up the outhouse that weekend and Daniel’s mom(Lorraine), my mom (Debra), and I raked and burned about 1 million leaves. We also pruned trees and weeds that have been growing unmolested for a long time. Really we’ve ignored the land for several years so we had a lot of cleaning up to do.
While we did this, Daniel mostly worked on the outhouse and it is mostly done. It is so cool!
A – it’s not a tree. This is very important.
B – It has a super-expensive toilet that we got from the Longview Restore (for $5). The toilet was brand new and the next day we went to Home Depot – where it was priced $309. WOW!
C – It has a totally awesome old mission style door. Yes, with glass that you can see through.
Anyway, the outhouse is 6 X 6 with a toilet and a sink and some storage. The sink came from a house on White Oak and is very old and very heavy.
The first week of March we both took a week of vacation. We worked Monday through Saturday of that week every day. My mom’s house was our hotel, and our schedule was pretty much the same every day.
7:30 – 8:00 a.m. wake up
8:15 a.m. leave and head to Home Depot or Lowe’s (drive through for breakfast)
9:30 a.m. leave store and head to land
10:00 a.m. arrive and start to work on whatever was that day’s project
1:00 p.m. I’d leave and go get lunch
1:20 – 2 p.m. lunch break
6:30 – 7 p.m. evening break – go get supper, go take showers, fall asleep on couch
By the end of the week I was so sore we could hardly walk. I mean – I work at a desk, people! But I know Daniel was a little sore also. One day we did venture to Tyler and we ate at Stanley’s BBQ. We also went to the Tyler Restore and purchased an old door for the cabin. It’s really cool. But that was about the only break we took during the week. Of course “some people” (DD) think we went shopping too much. But we worked really hard and we did need an awful lot of supplies. That week we started and completed the foundation (pier and beam), installed the sub-floor, and built 3 exterior and 3 interior walls. It doesn’t seem like much when you can write it all in one sentence, but I was really happy with what we got accomplished in those 6 days.
Now we are really working just 2 or 3 days a week. Daniel is usually off on Friday, so he usually will head east about 6 a.m. and work out there while I am at my job. Then Saturday morning we both get up and head out there about 7:30 and work all day. Sometimes we come home on Saturday night and sometimes we stay the night at my mom’s house and come home on Sunday.
The last 2 weekends we’ve been working on getting the rafters up. Since ½ of the cabin is open to the roof and the ceiling is 18 feet, we had to build some temporary flooring to work up there. It was shaky and scary. But we got those rafters finished up this weekend.
That's it for now. Mor e to come
Well before we settled on a floor plan we decided to try to salvage some old wood to build this with. We actually talked about this way back when we were living in Tyler, but nothing ever came out of it. I’m a craigslist junkie so one day while perusing (back last Feb or March) I spied a listing for a house to be torn down. Most of the free stuff on craigslist goes really quickly, so I called the guy and we made arrangements to go out and see it. It was in Blue Ridge which is just east of McKinney. A very small, old, farming town. Daniel liked the look of the house and thought there was a lot of salvageable wood, so he made arrangements with Mark Littlejohn that we would take it.
That first weekend my mom, and uncle Doug, and cousin Austin came up to help us work on it. When Doug, Austin and I arrived, there were 3 buzzards sitting on the roofline. Doug said “Hey do you think I can hit one of them?” I being the doubter said “NO!” and Austin just laughed. So Doug sneaks out of the car and sidearms his knife at them. Believe it or not – he hit one! But it didn’t hurt it and they just flew off.
It took us 6 months to finish demolishing that house. (originally I'd told Mark 2 weeks!) We got 4 or 5 trailer loads of lumber. That summer was the tannest I’ve been in years! Additionally, we got to know Mark and his son Jake really well. They’re great people and I wish them all the best. Lastly, if you’re ever in Blue Ridge, there’s a little restaurant on the square called “Cattleman’s Café”, you should definitely eat there. They have great chicken fried steak and awesome chicken fried chicken. (( below is the last of the floor))
Also one fall day I noticed another ad on craigslist to tear down a shop/garage in Detroit. Daniel and I went to see it that Sunday and decided we wanted it. Made the arrangements with Scott the owner. Daniel was off the next Friday and he went and tore the shingles off. Clayton came up Friday night and we got up early Saturday and went out there. We worked on it all day – except for our lunch break. It was BITTER cold that day – I believe Detroit TX is a suburb of Antartica. Anyway, we finished knocking it down just as the sun was setting. I fell asleep on the drive home but woke up just in time to order pizza from Picasso’s for pick up. The next Friday Daniel went back to take the trailer load of lumber back to Liberty City. While he was there he ran into Scott – Scott said he couldn’t believe that we tore the whole thing down in essentially one day! (A funny aside – Clayton took a poop out in the pasture with the horses watching him. ewww)
So now we have lumber literally running out our ears. This is where the plan bickering happened. Not bad bickering, just “you don’t like my idea because you didn’t come up with it” stuff. But we eventually worked it all out, or tabled it until we have to talk about it.
Last fall, Daniel took a week of vacation and borrowed his bro-in-law’s tractor. That was a busy week for him: He cleared an area of land just on the Gregg County/Smith County line to build the cabin on; He put in a septic system for the cabin; He started building me an outhouse out of some of the reclaimed wood. We drove to Houston for my cousin’s wedding; We went to visit Rusty in Bryan/College Station. ETC.
Then I took off January 2nd so we had a 4 day weekend because of the Holiday. We finished up the outhouse that weekend and Daniel’s mom(Lorraine), my mom (Debra), and I raked and burned about 1 million leaves. We also pruned trees and weeds that have been growing unmolested for a long time. Really we’ve ignored the land for several years so we had a lot of cleaning up to do.
While we did this, Daniel mostly worked on the outhouse and it is mostly done. It is so cool!
A – it’s not a tree. This is very important.
B – It has a super-expensive toilet that we got from the Longview Restore (for $5). The toilet was brand new and the next day we went to Home Depot – where it was priced $309. WOW!
C – It has a totally awesome old mission style door. Yes, with glass that you can see through.
Anyway, the outhouse is 6 X 6 with a toilet and a sink and some storage. The sink came from a house on White Oak and is very old and very heavy.
The first week of March we both took a week of vacation. We worked Monday through Saturday of that week every day. My mom’s house was our hotel, and our schedule was pretty much the same every day.
7:30 – 8:00 a.m. wake up
8:15 a.m. leave and head to Home Depot or Lowe’s (drive through for breakfast)
9:30 a.m. leave store and head to land
10:00 a.m. arrive and start to work on whatever was that day’s project
1:00 p.m. I’d leave and go get lunch
1:20 – 2 p.m. lunch break
6:30 – 7 p.m. evening break – go get supper, go take showers, fall asleep on couch
By the end of the week I was so sore we could hardly walk. I mean – I work at a desk, people! But I know Daniel was a little sore also. One day we did venture to Tyler and we ate at Stanley’s BBQ. We also went to the Tyler Restore and purchased an old door for the cabin. It’s really cool. But that was about the only break we took during the week. Of course “some people” (DD) think we went shopping too much. But we worked really hard and we did need an awful lot of supplies. That week we started and completed the foundation (pier and beam), installed the sub-floor, and built 3 exterior and 3 interior walls. It doesn’t seem like much when you can write it all in one sentence, but I was really happy with what we got accomplished in those 6 days.
Now we are really working just 2 or 3 days a week. Daniel is usually off on Friday, so he usually will head east about 6 a.m. and work out there while I am at my job. Then Saturday morning we both get up and head out there about 7:30 and work all day. Sometimes we come home on Saturday night and sometimes we stay the night at my mom’s house and come home on Sunday.
The last 2 weekends we’ve been working on getting the rafters up. Since ½ of the cabin is open to the roof and the ceiling is 18 feet, we had to build some temporary flooring to work up there. It was shaky and scary. But we got those rafters finished up this weekend.
That's it for now. Mor e to come
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