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When southern weather puts a damper in your plans: I smell revisions!
Afternoon everyone! For those that aren’t aware, here at our farm we have somewhat of a menagerie of horses. When it comes to horses, I look for a sound mind, good legs, dependable track record, and seasoned under saddle. Unusual coloration (grullo, buckskin, palomino, oh my!) and coveted bloodlines (I’ve always been a sucker for Poco Bueno and Hancock bred horses personally) are always a nice bonus, but picking your companions on looks alone has…let’s face it, never really worked out for anyone, am I right or am I right? As such, we’ve wound up with a Standardbred, AQHA (American Quarter Horse), as well as a couple paint crosses and…
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Spackle & Sand 2.0
It’s day #22,147,895 of remodeling here at Parkside. As of late, it’s been a seemingly never-ending repetition of spackle and sanding. We’ve just started in on our 4th? 5th? 5-gallon bucket of drywall mud. The drop cloths are being washed for the second time in a week and my floors are covered in a fine white dust from sanding which makes me wonder if they’ll ever be clean again. The hubby and I spent a good portion of our weekend working in the hopes that we’ll get one step closer to painting (the paint that’s been sitting in our someday-rec room/current storage of whatever room since Memorial Day weekend.) And while…
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Electric Boogaloo
The super fun part about owning an older home is that you never really quite know what to expect with the wiring. Since the house is 80+ years old, it predates modern wiring and instead has quite a bit of good ol’ knob & tube (UGH!) No lovely color-coded wires and all the other good stuff. Now the previous owner had done some updating and we’ve had electricians out to do work as well trying to get some of it up to code. Still, it’s usually an adventure when we try to update things. Now the previous owner had done some updating and we’ve had electricians out to do work as…
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From Jungle to Field: The beginnings of a second pasture.
Would you just look at that. When I tell you it’s a sight for sore eyes… Darlin’, I ain’t kiddin’! With only an electric push mower at my disposal, it was simply inconceivable to attempt tackling this 3.5 acre parcel of grass/thistle/weeds that was nearing 4′ in height. Had the mulching kit on my mower even been capable of cutting it down…I would’ve likely bogged down the blades every 5-10′. (I may know this because at one point earlier on in summer, I tried. I will summarize it briefly: It did not go well.) On a happier note, by mere chance one day, I happened to be home and you…
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From Shabby to well…Shabby Chic!
Though today is a might bit dreary outside, as the last lingering remnants of Hurricane Irma pass over our little farm, the past month has been anything but! When we first happened upon our home, it had been greatly reclaimed by nature with shrubs and vines covering half of the exterior windows…even those near 10′ up from the ground. Now, while we’re still a constant work in progress when it comes to exterior maintenance of the lawn we have made some progress! (‘Progress!’I always hear that in my head like Bill Nye the Science Guy when he yells out “SCIENCE!”, how about you?) As you can see above on the…
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Living the spackler’s life
Progress on the house hasn’t been booming. We hit what I’d guess would be a lull or maybe a slump after vacation and now we’re slowly crawling back out. Slump aside, I’m starting to feel like we’ll never get past the spackle and sand phase of the renovation. Ceilings, walls, patch here, more walls. Someone save me from the madness! Our current project – the one we’ve been at for awhile now – is corner bead spackling. The corner beads are pretty much all mounted so now the task of mudding over to make them smooth and even with the wall. It’s not SO terrible really, just a slow process…
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We Built This Cat Tower
Taking a break from our regularly – although not so regularly – scheduled remodeling crud to bring you something fun-ish. We built a cat tower!!! It’s something we’ve been meaning to do for awhile, debating back and forth about the details of a cat tree – whether we buy or build and when. We do have scratcher boxes all over the house that we’re constantly tripping over (or maybe it’s just me being a total clutz.) Regardless, the cats seem to ignore them half the time, even when it is RIGHT THERE. Do they walk the extra foot to the scratch box? No. Instead, the little boogers opt to dig their claws into…
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Horse Fencing 101: Not Another Horse Fencing Post
Afternoon all! I think the title pretty much sums this one just right on up. Yet another…horse -fencing- post. *dramatic music ensues* Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I am happy to report that our fence is FINALLY finished. Let me just get that out of my system one more time, I repeat, our fence…is FINALLY FINISHED!!! Where is a rooftop that I can shout this from? …that isn’t ours, as I am PRETTY confident that is the next thing on our ol’ farmhouse that’s going to kick the bucket. ANYWAYS… after two months, twenty-three days, sixteen hours, and give or take forty-five minutes or so…our pasture…
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When Two Worlds Collide: Lawn care Woes
Good morning all! I realized it has been a quick minute since our last update on the farm. To be blunt, this whirlwind never slows down long enough for my head to stop spinning. Still, no regrets! Now then…as you can imagine, going from 1/3 of an acre to 15 acres is a bit of a leap. In our previous garden home, we actually considered our lawn to be quite sizable, yes…I know, looking back, I feel silly for ever complaining about mowing it. Looking back, it was around a year to two years ago that our hand-me-down mower, a.k.a. the one that was left in the garage…
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The Joys of Corner Beading
Okay ladies and gents, this week’s lesson is on corner beads! While it sounds like a super fun craft activity, corner beads are a staple in home building. Apparently they are used to protect the outside corners of your drywall. Now I grew up in the 80’s where people used plastic exterior corner guards so I didn’t even know that these existed until this year. Vinyl corner beads seem to be the way to go nowadays so we jumped on board the trend train and a-wayyyy we went! They’re actually quite easy to install, messy but easy. Whereas metal corner beads need to be nailed or screwed into the wall,…
