Porcupine Time

I am so sorry to have missed the Porcupine that visited the Greek's house on Sunday morning at 5 am. Yes, it was causing quite a stir and eating the porch!!!

 

I obviously wasn't awake for this, but Gram handled the situation and tossed a shoe to get him to leave. This was the aftermath:

 

There was also one lonely quill stuck in the wood...that must have happened when he was startled by the shoe and rolled down the steps! I was sure to give Gram strict orders to wake me up the next time this visitor was around. I don't know about you, but I'd like to snag a picture of a Porcupine.

 

For now, Wikipedia will have to do:

 

He is pretty fierce looking.

The Quill he left was similar to the 4th one down.

 

 

In other news, the weather Saturday was wonderful. So nice in fact that I took to tending to the lawn. While we don't have our Cub Cadet up at the property yet, I had no issues using the push mower on this sunny Saturday. The parts of the yard with tons of leaves was a bit rough, but otherwise, I had a good time.

 

 

 

While I was tending to the lawn, C and RobSr. were fishing through wires we had saved from the mobile to start wiring the Porchouse:

 

Those are all of the wires we used.

 

Seeing that most of the work was being done on the inside of the Porchouse, we decided to move everything outside for the day, including the coffee station:

 

Here is a picture of my first light being put into the place on the porch:

It's a Jelly Jar!!!

 I purchased it hoping I might be able to swap it out with a vintage mason. This will do for now though.

 

RobSr. and C continued to make laps on the floorboards for seamless installation, when all of a sudden, the table saw broke :(

 

Damaged Goods:

It was a good table saw...but no one has time for broken equipment. C and RobSr. ventured to the Outlet mall in search of a new table saw. In addition to the table saw, they also came across a "Peace, Love and Little Donuts" shop and had to stop in there for some snacks. I wish I had a picture of those little donuts for you...but I fear they didn't make it home!!!! (Just kidding, they did save us some, but you better believe there were a few MIA from the package when they got home)

 

It wasn't long before the new table saw was up and running!

These are the floor boards still left to do

 

So, they started out as rough cut pine boards. They were put through the planer twice so they are nice and smooth. Then they cut the edges so that there wouldn't be gaps when the floor was laid. Additionally, we are staggering the floor boards so they are all different sizes and there won't be seam lines after they are placed.

 

The first one was installed:

 

 

 Unfortunately, we purchased the wrong size installation. So while we would have liked to get the insulation up in the roof, we had to wait until Sunday for that. Which worked out well because the weather was looking a little rainy.

All was well until we were one bay short on insulation. No worries, they just put up the Ply bead in the spots that were ready for it.

 

 It looks great!!!

The rain did stop for about 30 minutes, just long enough for me to Whirly Bird some grass seed.

I might be doing this a lot, as you can clearly tell from the state of the lawn. hahaha.
I also took some close ups of the few floor boards that were in:

Has a bit of rustic charm don't you think?

Clearly, C is my Hubby. He is sweeping! Not only is he aware that messes and clutter make me anxious, but it actually needed to be swept in between the boards before installing another one.

 

 With everything turning green seemingly overnight, we thought it would be a good idea to take a picture of the trees now, and one next weekend to compare them.

Hopefully, there will be some grass sprouting up too! 

 

 



The Porchouse Ceiling

We took some time off from Porchouse construction last weekend. C was at drill and the weather was actually quite cold, so it was likely for the best.

 

This weekend, we are back at it and have a list of items to get for the interior Porchouse. I already discussed my thoughts on the floor and walls, and I can hardly believe I didn't touch base on the ceiling. We plan to get the Porchouse wired this weekend, this means we get to pick lights as well!

 

 

We already know we are going to use pine boards for the floor and walls, leaving the floors natural pine and we want to white-wash the walls. We were really wondering what the best method would be for the ceiling. We wanted to keep it simple, so we will be staying away from drywall yet again. After a lot of searching on pinterest and tiny house blogs, we have settled on the Beadboard sheets:

 

SOURCE: Home Depot

 

We will probably go with the natural for now, and see how it looks once the floor and walls are in. These keep it simple because they come in sheets and we only have to buy a certain amount. There might be some slight trimming on the edges, but all in all..they should be easy to cut for light fixtures as well.

 

To put this look into perspective:

 

SOURCE: Unknown

 

Now, onto the lighting situation. C and I visited Home Depot and honestly didn't like what we saw. After taking to Pinterest, we came upon these beauties. Finding them will be a different story, I'm sure.

 

Aren't they cute???

 

I really like it all, except the strange looking counter top. But, to each their own. Unfortunately, I don't have a source for this picture either. But whoever this belongs to, they have some cute lights.

 

Meal Planning:

 

Saturday Lunch: Grandma's Chicken Noodle Soup

Saturday Dinner: Mexican Perogie Lasagna

 

Sunday Lunch: Sweet Sausage Sandwiches

Sunday Dinner: Leftover Time!

 

Snack/Dessert: Chocolate Cream Pie

Beverage: COFFEE

 

 

 



Porchouse Floors and Walls!

Hello there. In all of the excitement from this past weekend, I forgot to mention that RobSr. got all of the pine boards ready to lay as the floor in the Porchouse. He used a planer to make the boards nice and smooth.

 

Planer Station

This is the pile of new, smooth floorboards!

 

 

Obviously, I knew I wanted the pine floors, so I took to Pinterest to find some examples of how it will look. At first, I thought I wanted to white-wash the pine floor. While I still think it looks great, I am having second thoughts about that, mostly because I have decided to do the walls with pine boards as well and will definitely be painting them white. I'd like to know thoughts and opinions about this. Keep in mind that this space is very small, and we want to choose color options that will open it up.

 

White-washed pine floors:

 

SOURCE: Home & Harmony

 

SOURCE: Unknown

 

Natural or Stained Pine Board Floors:

 

 

This one is more of the natural look. If we were to lay the floor now, it would be similar to this:

SOURCE: Unknown

This example appears to have a stain on it. 

SOURCE: Active Rain

 

 

As for the walls, we had many options. The first was drywall, which we thought was way too labor intensive for our quaint space. The next option was wainscoting half way up and then drywall or pine. Still, too much work for such a small space.

 

I think we finally decided to go with pine boards everywhere. They were relatively inexpensive from our Amish friends at the local mill.

 

RobSr. was experimenting with different ways to cut the boards to add character to the walls. When they are installed, it won't look like the floor at all.

 

 

Can you see the edges?? Here are some examples of what it will look like:

SOURCE: Titus Built Blog

SOURCE: HGTV

 

I will obviously be interested in this for my house too someday. I think it looks so charming, not to mention cheaper and easier. The second picture is my favorite. I would love to do a girls room like that someday... too bad C thinks we won't have any girls. :(

 

 

In other news, the Greek built steps to my rock. The ramp was getting a little shaky the last few hunting seasons. My record on the rock is pretty good. I have gotten 2 of my 3 deer from this location. I took some pictures of the new steps. This is fancy hunting!

 

Obviously, I had to test them out and this is the view from the top.

 

 

 

 



Planting Shrubbery

Sunday Morning C and I decided to take the woods to get to the property. Fat Danny had already arrived and was eager to get into the Bobcat and start working.

 

He started off by cleaning up the mess from the shed from the night before. Cleanup is a lot easier with a Bobcat.

The picnic table had finally met it's match.

RobSr. is more than likely rejoicing as he reads this.

 

Once the mess was cleared, it was time to start laying the gravel for our driveway.

 

We found the stake that Mr. Sleeveless put here to indicate where to dump the gravel.

This will end up being like a parking pad. It could hold up to 3 cars, or even 4 if parked well enough.

This is the view from the street.

 

I know what you are thinking: Why doesn't this gravel look like gravel? Well, we got this kind because it packs down nicely and thus, the stones don't come out of place as much. I did some googling to see if I could find the name, and this one seems to suit it the closest: 3/4" Minus Crushed Aggregate. It is light grey to brown in color. It has a binder material, which helps it to pack in.

 

I tried to get a picture of this. If you look closely you will see a gutter on the roof of the van. Our neighbor down the street, Cliff, gave us this to put on the porchouse! We will put a rain barrel off of the side of it so that we can water our newly planted trees :)

 

C- putting the finishing touches on the Blue Spruce

The start of our privacy shrubs.

 

Not only did we plant shrubs and trees, we were able to lay grass seed! Before doing that we had to use a roller to go over the newly exposed soil.

 

At first, we were going to use this one that attaches to a tractor and fills with water.

Then our neighbor, Pat, showed up with his that he just finished using on his own property.

He rolled the entire thing for us. He also lent us some diesel cans to use to refuel the Bobcat. We really have nice neighbors!

 

After it was all rolled, RobSr. laid out the grass seed. Turns out, the bags I purchased didn't quite fill up all of our new found lawn space. I'll have to get more this week.

This is the Bobcat going on it's final run in the woods. Apparently, a path was cut  clear to the woods, but it was too dark so I will have to take pictures of that at a later date.

 

You might be wondering how I fed all of these people. I visited with the Cavs on Thursday. I cannot think of anyone better to get large recipes from than Mrs. Cav.

Saturday for lunch I made her Tortilla Bean Soup. It was a hit, and was enough to feed everyone. The recipe says it feeds 16 people!  Saturday for dinner was Italian shredded beef on french bread, which was soooo good. I didn't do a think besides dump the roast in the crock pot in the morning. I love those types of recipes. And Sunday for lunch I did some Ham Barbecues! Always a favorite.