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.

If You Have Livestock You Have Deadstock: Lesson Learned

Part of the reason we moved to this land and home was for sustainability and freedom from HOA's and nosey neighbors.   With that freedom we started farming chickens.  A coop was already on the property although it need a LOT of cleaning.   It was gross and full of old chicken poo!   It was beat up and old with holes and a huge nesting box set up.     

We started with 5 day old chicks in April 2016 (not long after we moved in) while doing all of the other rehab.   The chicks didn't require much.  They stayed in a tupperware bin with a heat light for a couple weeks until they could go in the coop.
They were darling and the kids loved to hold and play with them.    
While we waited for the chicks to grow we were visited often by wild turkeys.  In a sense they prepared us for birds wandering around the yard.   The plan, when the chickens were old enough was to let them free-range around the yard.

As they grew we were anxious to see them outside so many time we would take them out and let them forage in the yard under a close, watchful eye.   Around this time we got Everett.  We figured we had a big yard and wanted a big dog.   A new "chicken" friend was looking to re-home a rooster.  She said he was too sweet to butcher and I volunteered to take him.  His name is Rascal.   We got him at the perfect time too.  The chicks were ready to enter the coop and I had it all ready for them.   It took about 4 hours of sweat and masks to clean it out.   Research encouraged me to use sand as the base for easy clean-up and the weather was warming up.

By this time the chicks were getting stinky so it was a relief to get them out of the garage.

We were so excited....soon we would have fresh eggs every day!   Well....that didn't go as planned.

Inexperience is a danger for livestock.   

We secured the coop with new doors and latches and the weather was warm enough so out they went for their first night alone in the coop. The first few nights were fine.  The chicks jumped up on the low perches each night and Rascal jumped up to the top perch and watched them all from above.  Soon they learned to go into the coop at dusk without prompting.  It was great.  No more smelly chickens in the garage!

I had read that venting is important with chickens and fortunately the coop had a couple windows (although when whoever made the coop installed one of the windows they put it so close the a rafter that it couldn't be opened....DUH!!!.....I fixed that) so I opened them up.  

Well, like the title says, maybe you can guess what happened next.  One day I went to check on the chicks.  I could hear them from my office but on my breaks I would go out and watch them walk around.  They were cute and would follow me around so I enjoyed the breaks and watching them.   So call it chicken TV.    But when I went out I found only 4 and Rascal.  Where did it go?  I was no where to be found.   It was so strange.  It vanished!    The girls were sad and so was I.  

That night around 11pm I was laying in bed.  We had the windows in the house open and I heard something strange outside.  I got a robe on and walked out the coop.  Inside I heard a ruckus, no scared peeping from the chicks but I could tell something was in there.   What was I going to do?  I didn't have anything but a flashlight with me.  No gun or shovel or ..... so I ran back to the house to get Matt.   He woke up, got his night clothes on and came out with his gun.   By the time we returned all was quiet.  We opened the door and there on the floor were the other 4 chickens.  Dead.  No blood, no feathers scattered everywhere.   Just limp, warm, peacefully dead chickens.  No sign of the perp either.   I was devastated!   What was I going to tell the kids?

Rascal was big enough that he was able to get up high.   We saw him, alive, in the top corner.  He was "crying" making a strange sad noise.  He just witness the brutal murder of his fellow chickens but could do nothing about it.  Roosters are notorious for saving their flocks of chickens, or in this case, a cluck of chicks but he was confined and young and could only watch from his perch else he would have been killed too.

We put their limp warm bodies in a box, locked up the coop and went to bed.  What else could we do?   I didn't wake the kids because they had school the next day.  We decided we would tell them after school.   

Here is what happened.  I mentioned we left the windows open.   When I cleaned the coop and changed the dilapidated door and secured everything in the coop to be sure it was safe for our chickens I didn't think about the windows.   They are the type of windows that open outward on a hinge.   The gaps for the opening were small.   WHO KNEW??   That's how the killer got in!   and got out.....

I asked on several FB chicken groups, what would kill chickens without eating them or leaving blood by breaking their necks. What would kill chickens for sport.   The consensus was a raccoon.

not my picture

That next evening we set up a trap and caught a HUGE raccoon who, I believe, came back for more.   Matt sent him to raccoon heaven.

We buried the chickens right after we told the girls.   They were so upset!   SOOOOO upset!   The very next day I went to get new chickens, older chickens that would lay sooner.  Then I got some more and then even more.   It's addicting.  Most chicken people will tell you so.

In talking with a man at a homestead conference he said something to me that I won't soon forget.   He said, "Hon, if you've got livestock, you've got deadstock.  Whether it's killed by you or something else, wild animals, weather, it's going to die at some point."   He is absolutely right!   We learned that the hard way.

Since that first experience with death of our animals we have lost several more.   Its been less than a year but here is the count of intakes and losses.  I think this will be the last time I count.

5 chicks in
1 roo in
                  1 chick lost
                  4 chicks murdered
5 chickens in
5 more chickens in
5 more chickens in
                  1 chicken killed by our puppy!   Another story
2 rabbits in
3 ducks and 1 turkey in
3 rabbits in
                  1 duck murdered by a hawk
                  1 turkey died from shock of seeing the duck murdered
12 babies bunnies born!   Yippee!
2 little chickens in - someone needed to rehome them.
2 rabbits in - someone needed to rehome them - I guess I am now the girl to take in the animals others cannot keep.  1 rabbit out - he was badly hurt and sick when we took him in- couldn't survive
                  2 roosters - freezer camp (don't need more than one rooster and we had too many)
                  1 rabbit - freezer camp (served him for thanksgiving)
                  2 little chickens disappeared - bottom of the pecking order and wouldn't go into the coop:(
                       1 opossum that likely killed the little chickens.
                  1 rabbit - got loose and Everett trampled his foot and broke it!   I was so sad!  He was my favorite buck and the dad of the babies (at least his bloodline continues)  We couldn't save his foot - freezer camp

Picture taken and edited by Rachel Stella

So that's that.   Either the elements or the wild kill them or we do.  Another person told me, "Everything loves chicken."  I can see that!
           

Here are some updates of our animals and coop:

In the back of the coop you can see the rabbit area.  We have since moved that too a hut that we built for protection from the elements for the winter. It too is behind the coop. 

Bunnies are the cutest animals and so sweet!