And Now You Know The Rest of the Storage

Remember this story about storage under the stage?  Paul hadn't finished it yet when I posted it, so here's how it turned out:

The rounded part of the stage is an addition to the original, so the floorboards never matched to begin with.

Using a good friend's suggestion and an old piano hinge, Paul turned what had originally been a plan based on pull-out drawers and made something fabulous and immediately vulnerable to stashing.

Someday we'll get more serious about organizing it, but for now it works great.  Especially when we can keep the cats out of it.

Storing the Storage

What do people do when, on one hand, they need lots of seats for hosting several families at once, and on the other hand, don't have lots of space to store the seats when they aren't hosting several families at once?

The answer: they make storage table benches and store the benches as tables.  At least, that's what the people at The Swallow's Nest did.

I always loved our antique coffee table.  My grandma tells me that my great-grandfather adapted it from a discarded library table by cutting down the legs.  You can see a picture of it at the end of this post.

What you can't see in that picture is how incredibly small and inadequate this pretty piece was in our living room configuration after we moved more furniture in.  Here is another picture, but we've never kept our chairs and sofa as close together as they were when it was taken.

Even from the start, though, we knew we'd need something different.  This is where we turned to one of my favorite blog authors: Ana White of www.ana-white.com.  With some simple instructions, we were able to turn out three of these great benches in one weekend, and with plenty of time for us to put them to use during our hymn sing on Sunday night.

They worked beautifully!  We had plenty of room for plates and beverages during the meal while the kids ate outside, and when everyone gathered around to sing, none of the 33 people here had to sit on the floor.

Add to that the additional storage under the flip-top lid and the shelf below, and we have great potential for tidy organizational happiness.  *contented sigh*

They still need to be stained and finished, though, so you haven't seen the last of this project.  We made them out of pine, so I don't expect them to look like fine furniture when we're done, but we'll get them as close to it as we can.

In the meantime, it's time to purge in preparation for this weekend's garage sale!

Answered Prayer...in Progress

Remember this post?

God provided the shredder!  Okay, it's not exactly what we had in mind:  it's pretty old; it's only a shredder and not a chipper, so we can only shred branches up to 1/2  inch in diameter; it doesn't work.  Yet.

Here's what we've learned from this: when a person offers to sell you an item whose functionality is unknown for a certain price, offer half that amount until it is known if the item is in working condition.  If it works, pay the full balance.  If it doesn't work, fix it, then negotiate a lower price and pay the balance of that reduced amount.

We thought of this after we discovered that the shredder doesn't work.  Paul's still working to fix it.

But we don't regret the $20 we spent on it.  With the trimming we'll continue to do on the fruit trees, we'll have plenty of opportunity to use it.  And wood chips are far more useful to us than a column of smoke and a pile of ashes. 

Yeah, it's pretty old.  Pray with us that replacing the coil will be easy and cheap.  =)

Floating Row Covers

They might not be pretty, but Paul made them from the materials we had on hand, and they will provide the greens that extra layer of protection that they'll need when it gets very cold.

And just what are the floating row covers protecting?

Lettuce (without that little weed in the foreground; I plucked it after I saw it in the photo):

Spinach, with onions in the background:

The successive plantings of radishes:

And the mâche:

We've read that it's important to keep the plastic from touching the leaves so that the condensation won't freeze the leaves to the plastic.  Our row covers float over the large raised bed about 15 inches from the box and about 12 inches over the narrow bed.  Hopefully this will be enough to keep everything protected from both the harsh winter and the moist plastic.

Undo, Redo

If only it were as easy as ctrl-Z and ctrl-Y; we would be able to get all six windows done before winter strikes.  But by now we'll be pleased if we can strip and then repaint the frames and trim around just two of our windows.

Undo.

Redo.

Undo.

Redo.

If it looks like I don't know what I'm doing, it's because I don't.  However, I've glazed a few panes since then, and I'm much handier at it now.

And while I'm dreaming about ctrl-z, I sure wish I could tap my fingers and undo the breaking panes of glass. For one, those old panes reflected back little wavy distortions characteristic of old glass.  For another, replacing them will cost us more money than we'd like.  Finally, missing panes of glass delays the whole project from being completely finished.

But we're still making progress.  Undoing.  Redoing.

Oh, Is It Autumn?

I prefer to think of it as late summer.  And under the double protection offered by our 3-H once it's completed, it will still feel like late summer.

Paul installed part of the plastic on the 3-H today.  We needed to get all the spinach and lettuce seeds in the soil today.

We also planted the first of our radishes and onions.  Only two more weekends are available for successive  plantings.  In the meantime we're waiting for seeds to plant our mâche, which is known as corn salad in the United States or lamb's lettuce in England.

If all goes as hoped, our winter garden will mature enough in the autumn for us to harvest in winter, when our boxes will be further protected with floating row covers.

Can you imagine dining on fresh homegrown salads in the winter?  We can.

As we bask in the glow of hope, it's time to call it a day.

Not Framed: I Really Did It

The height of the windows from the inside is one thing.  The height from outside is just a little bit more.  Look carefully, and a small person in navy blue should be visible next to that red space elevator leaning against the building.  Near the top of that ladder is where I've spent two of my recent afternoons.

In preparation for winter and to protect the wood storm window frames and trim from its effects, I've been scraping out old glazing and paint while trying to balance comfortably on the narrow ladder rungs.

The view from there isn't always pretty, either:

What is that cloudy stuff on the inside of the glass?!  I don't know, but I really didn't want to leave it there.  We hadn't been planning to take the storm windows down, and Paul was reluctant to undertake that project, even though it would be the only way to clean it up.  What to do?  Leave it there to spoil the look of the freshly painted windows?  Or spend a lot more time on each window than we'd originally thought?

The answer came in a way I would have rathered it didn't:

Yes, that's a crack.  I applied to much force on the putty knife in trying to get out that old, stubborn, dried-out glazing, and I cracked the glass.  Argh.

Long story short, Paul climbed the ladder to take a look at the situation and began taking out the panes of glass.  Now I'm cleaning the windows (I still don't know what that stuff is, and it's awfully stubborn about coming off!), and he's being more particular about removing the old paint from the wooden frame.

It would seem that to do the job right we can't just paint the weathered wood; because of its age and condition we need a wood restoring product that will allow the paint to properly adhere for years to come.

It's not that I don't like hanging out with a paint scraper in the upper strata of the troposphere, but I'd really prefer to do the job right the first time and do something more enjoyable a second time.

Wouldn't you?

Introducing the 3-H

Remember this?  This past spring it became this:

and this:

Then this:

and this:

What a great spot this is for growing things, and what a great blessing it is to have fresh, homegrown greens!  We've enjoyed it so much, in fact, that we decided to enlarge on it.  Now it's become this:

and this:

It's what I call "The 3-H", or sometimes "The Triple H".  I confess I can get a little funny with household acronyms, but you can imagine how cumbersome it would become to keep calling it what it is:  a half of a high hoop.  Not a greenhouse, exactly, because there won't be any artificial heat or forced ventilation; just wind protection and solar heat retention.  Then, coupled with some floating row covers or some full-fledged cold frames, we hope to someday plant some cool season crops for a winter harvest.  Paul holds out hope that we aren't too late to try it this year, but I'm not so sure.

Work is still unfolding, so I'll continue to post pictures so you can see how it all comes together.

And now that the temperatures are cooler, we have a lot of work projects going on.  I should have plenty to write about!

Home is where...

February 21

...the living room furniture is. Thanks for leaving your couch and chairs for us, Randy and Tamara!

the weekend of February 21

...the birthday party is accompanied by music and lots of friends. Thanks for celebrating Paul's 40th with us, everyone!

March 14

...the water gets hot. Thank you, James and Mr. Bausch! And Mike and Elizabeth!

March 18

...hands are washed, teeth are brushed, and basic needs are met. Thanks, Love, for being so happy with the yellow floor! Working together is a delight.

March 25

...the past is exchanged for the future. So many thanks to those who helped pack, lift, and provide food for moving day!

March 25

...a hot shower awaits. Thanks again, Dad and Paul.

March 26 and following

...finishing touches can wait a little longer. Thanks to anyone who puts up with the rough edges!

April 11

...the garden grows. Thanks, Patsy and kids, for helping us uproot the old plants to make room for the new!

April 11

...we air our clean laundry. Thanks, Becki, for letting me teach music in exchange for clean clothes!

Yes, this is home. By the grace of God, through the labor of our hands, and encouraged by the kindness of those who love us, we are carving out a place for ourselves, bit by bit. We thank God for the riches He bestows on us.

Nave Cabinets

A unique space requires unique storage, especially if we hope to host people in the same place we work and live. Stuff that is used on a daily basis needs a place to hide, and there isn't a lot of room downstairs to store essentials like fabric, the microscope, recording gear, and LEGOs.

The solution will be massive, custom-designed cabinets and hutches, engineered to our specific storage needs, and built and installed along the perimeter, much like the drawing above demonstrates. Both sides of the nave will feature the same basic layout.

One key element of this design is the modular nature of the tables. They are intended to be pulled out from the wall without messing up the integrity of the overall design, and having a 2:1 length to width ratio, they can be placed in many different configurations, depending on our need: a square, a skinny rectangle, a fat rectangle, a hollow square... Purposefully flexible.

To get an idea of how well my theory might work in reality, I recently pulled out the measuring tape and a roll of painter's tape. Now that I can see the outlines on the wall and the floor, I'm still quite happy with the size of the future furniture and how it fits the scale of the building.

But that means that the top of the hutch comes to 9 feet tall! At that height, I'll need to plan to store one more thing: a short step ladder for reaching items on the top shelf!

The depth of the cabinets will be 30 inches instead of the traditional 24. This will create a smoother line to unify the tables and the cabinets, increase our storage below, and give us a more roomy and comfortable work space on top. And again, it fits the scale of the room. Then to complement the extra-deep base cabinets, our upper cabinets will be 15 inches deep instead of the traditional 12.

My inspiration for thinking about custom cabinets comes from Ana White, a woodworking mom who, in her words, likes to put the "make" back into "homemaker". Visit her site and see if you don't begin to feel inspired and empowered to create some great things yourself!