I Said I Wouldn't Keep Count

As I was sitting here in my office working something made me stand to look out my office window.   Down on the front lawn of my yard was a dog, no not a dog, wait....it's chasing my birds!   WAIT THAT'S A COYOTE!    Holy crap!

I run to the front door just in time to see it catch my biggest duck.  "HEY!" I yell as if I expect it to look back and drop my drake from its mouth.  I panic!   I've never caught a predator in the act.  I run out in my pjs and slippers.   Do I let out my 90lb dog?  I think to myself.  No I don't want him to fight....but wait that's, kind of, what Everett is for; to protect the birds.....   SHIT!   Open the door Everett COME!  Not you Misty, you might get eaten.  (12lb chihuahua).

I run to the driveway as the coyote disappears into the woods, down the trail, duck in mouth.  I stop, I'm wearing slippers, I can't run after it with these.  "Everette, GO!"  I run back into the house, grab my gun and put on my boots in the hope of finding that coyote with my duck still alive.   I chamber my little gun with hallow point bullets, I've shot it one time before, and head into the woods.

"Everett! Damn it where is the coyote?" I exclaim as I slosh through the mud and melting snow.  I'm really nervous.  If I find this thief do I have it in me to shoot it?  What if Everett gets in the way, I don't want to hurt him.  I hear a....gunshot?.... maybe from the farmer on the other side of the hill.   Maybe. It wasn't far.  I yell, "Guy with the gun, I'm coming in the woods with my dog."  Not sure why I yelled that.  Maybe hoping for a response like, "Hey Lady, I got him, and your duck is alive!"  Yeah, I know, dumb.

Anyway I walked for 20 minutes calling Everett every so often hoping he wasn't fighting or freaking out the gunman.  Don't need my dog dead too.

I didn't find the coyote or my duck.

I got all the chickens back in the coop except one.  Puffball. Mandi's chicken.  I hope she is ok.  I walk the perimeter of the house and find her tucked into our rock wall.  Tail feathers pulled and what's left, soaked with coyote slobber.  She survived!   Scared as shit but alive!  THANK YOU!







I lost an escaped rabbit the other day too.  Found his beautiful fur in the woods.

15 chickens and 2 ducks cooped for the rest of the day.  >:{

Rehab: The Hole In the Stairs

Minor Changes Make Big Impacts

This was a small change in the house that made a big impact.  The stairs are quite beautiful in this house.  The rails are wood with large reclaimed barn-wood banisters.  Off the main stairs from the front door there is a small, narrow staircase that goes to the other side of the house.  

In the original design this other stairway, and anyone walking up or down it could not bee seen from the main family room.  So....I had a GREAT idea!  Lets bust that wall out.  Matt says, um....no, I don't want to do that yet.  :-/   

Well... When he was working on the stairs to remove staples from the old carpet he put a hole in the drywall.  That was all I needed.  I thought it was intentional so I started busting up the wall.  The kids saw me doing this and they thought it looked like fun so they asked to join in.  "Sure!" I say.  

Busting up drywall is messy!

 The demo began. Matt didn't really intend on starting this yet but the damage was done, the fun was had, and the hole was gaping.  Sorry Matt.  :*

So then the question was how to redesign it.  Forest and Matt worked their magic and within a couple of hours this was the beautiful result. 

Now, when sitting in the family room I can see anyone sneaking up and down the stairs trying to avoid going to bed. ;)

Rehab: The Kitchen

Its amazing what a little color can do!

Our new kitchen.   The designers of this kitchen did, for the most part, a great job.  I love the brick feature and the double oven.  The picture window at the sink and the skylight allow a lot of light and fresh air in the warm weather.  The cabinets are very beautiful with knots and texture showing through the wood.  The added shelves along the sink, the crown molding and under-cabinet lighting are also very nice.

If money were unlimited I would change a few things but that's a story for a different day.  I changed what needed to be changed that was affordable.  The big change that was absolutely necessary, I mentioned it before, was that location of the cooktop. I did not want to be bumping my head every time I cooked.  There was no prep room either in its original location.  The designer must have been 5'3" or shorter to be able to cook there.   Just sayin'.  

The other necessary change, other then cleaning the dust, dirt, soot, grease and noodles off of everything was color.  As in every part of the house but the couple places I mentioned previously the kitchen walls were dull and dirty white.

Here is what we did.  This is how it looks today.   Color and functionality!

Before.

Below is the original cooktop and oven.  I think it is original from the house build date.  The cooktop was old, rusty, cracked and in a place that reduces the amount of cooking that can be done.  You can see there is no space to prep food.  Above it, not pictured is a exhaust fan - to nowhere- and a light.  The back and side walls are made of masonite and were full of grease and handprints.  

For me, this simply was not practical nor functional.  I thought it might be nice to put a refrigerator here but that would require demo of the brick feature that Matt and I like.  

So.....what to do with that space?

I knew right away that I would prefer to do my cooking on the island.  My parents have a vacation house in central WI with a cooktop on the island and it allows the chef to visit with guest or family while they are cooking. The chef is not isolated in a corner with their back to everyone.  This kitchen would allow me to have that.  So that answered the question of where to put the cooktop but there were problems with that idea. 

Firstly the existing cooktop was gas which meant that the gas-line was in the cabinet beneath the cooktop.  How could we move it?  Would it be worth it to move it.  

Remember this house has hydronic-radiant heat.  Perhaps I didn't mention that before.  It means that the floors have pipes of hot water running through them encased in cement.  If we move the gas-line we need to drill into the floor and chance hitting a pipe. EEEK! The island already had electric installed so perhaps an solid, flat-top, glass, electric cooktop it would have to be.  They are sleek looking....

You will see our changes in the pictures below with captions.

We purchase a stainless steel double oven.  I don't remember where....  Measure, measure, measure.   We had a problem.  The old style double oven is larger than any I could find.  And because the double oven was going to be installed in brick there was no way for me to change the installation hole size.  I measured and measured but I didn't take that important info into account.  So the oven we got was short and needed to be lifted.  But first the old one needed to be removed.  Matt wasn't very happy about doing this but we got the job done.

Now the problem was to lift the new one.   Fortunately the builder left bricks everywhere on the property so we placed some bricks inside the hole and lifted it to fit snug.   It worked but then we were left with a gapping hole under the new beautiful oven.  So, Matt, creatively came up with a way to cover it and make it not obvious.   Nice work Matt!  I think it looks great and matches perfectly!

Amazon.com is an amazing place to shop.  I found the cooktop with no shipping.  I could see the reviews, dimensions and have it delivered within 2 days cheaper than I could buy it at a local store.  SCORE!

Here it is sitting on the old island top.  I went shopping for a new piece of granite.  I had many ideas of how to top the island.  My favorite was patina copper.  I think it's beautiful and would have added so much color and sparkle but alas money is not unlimited so I found a gorgeous new granite piece to fit the island with.  I didn't like the existing granite anyway so this was a way to push the old stuff into the background with a new beautiful focal piece. 

This is Bristol Marble and Granite.   They came out to measure after I found the piece of rock I wanted installed.  They are getting ready to cut the hole for the cooktop. 

And this is the piece I picked.  I love it still.  You can't see from the pictures but it has purples, reds, blues, yellows and many other colors veined and speckled throughout.  I found this piece in their remnants yard at a very discounted price.   I found a rock piece that I loved and would allow me to have a larger island for prepping, cooking and seating. 

Unfortunately when they finally brought it they realized they cut it upside down.  ARRGGG!!!!   I would recommend this company with a caution.  Stay on them.  They are slow and made this mistake.

It worked out better that they cut it wrong because the bulk of the cream got cut out for the hole rather than all the beautiful veining and I didn't loose size but WOW that could have been bad!

Here they are measuring again and again to see if they can make it work with the piece cut the way they did.  This gave Matt and I an opportunity to see how to run electric also.   It tuned out that we still needed to drill a hole to move 220 electricity.   We hired an electrician to install it and get it working after the island was finished.  

When we drilled that hole, because no one else wanted that responsibility, Matt and I were sweating bullets hoping we didn't hit a pipe.   Whew!   

 In this triangle is where we blindly drilled.  We tried to use heat sensitive tools to find the best spot to drill down but they didn't really work.   We guessed; we got lucky.

It was nice to see how the island was made.  We didn't know if it was veneered or solid brick and wood.  We also got to clean it out.  It was gross with cobwebs and mouse dropping.   Not anymore. 

 

What a difference it made already.  Color and lines and size.  I was really excited!  I knew that with old piece I wanted them to cut it to put in the spot where the old cooktop was and to cut 3 more small pieces for the new bathroom we were building and a small cutting board.  They said they could. 

Here it is not quite installed. 

Here it is done!   I love it still.  Though the cooktop surface is a PITA to keep clean!

So you ask, what did I do with the old hole in the wall where the cooktop was?   Here it is.  You can see the old island replaced the old cooktop.  I, with the help of my girls, tiled it, added shelves and turned it into a coffee bar.  All our mugs are kept in the cabinet below and the gas-line was removed after hours and hours of work......   I love this new feature of our kitchen too!

Soon I will back-spash the rest of the kitchen.    Thanks for reading.