Guest Room

My Mom and Dad just called. . . they are about 2 hours away.  The first members of our family to visit the Apple House, and I can hardly wait to see them.

 The guest room is finally ready for them.

Including the lovely vintage quilt, a cherished gift from the most frequent visitor to The Apple House, my dear Sarah.

Happy Easter.  Dinner tonight will be a true celebration!

Keep Calm

Sometimes the only way that I am able to keep calm is by destroying/ demolishing/ dismantling something.  Today I took my frustrations out on the peeling paint on my front porch.  It's nearly ready to paint now.  (It was a rough day.)  I made this sign to help me recover after my two little monsters were in bed.  What do you all do when you need an outlet for the frustrations of life?

A Start

The Apple House has a one acre yard. That, my friends, is a lot of yard.

It seems like an overwhelming amount of yard when you consider that it has been neglected for many many years.

Well, when faced with an overwhelming project, the only way to tackle it is to break it down into smaller bits, so that is what we have done.  We've got a start on our veggie garden, I'll show you more of that when there is something other than dirt to show you.

Next on the list was the steep slope from the back deck down to the back yard.  For some reason in the 33 years this house has stood no one ever bothered to dig steps out of this steep slope.  We have been braving the trail that had been worn there over years and years of use, and all of us have slid down it more than once.

(Sorry I don't have any before pictures of it - the above photos were taken last fall and today was the kind of day that you don't stop to go back for your camera once you get going.)

So, with this picture in mind for inspiration.  

Isn't this stunning!  I love succulents.

John Henry and I got started.

First we dug out the steps.  That alone was a major improvement.  We can now walk down this slope without the fear of death.

Then we weeded, and weeded, and weeded some more, and YES, this is the AFTER shot.  There's still a lot to go.

Last Saturday we went to help some friends reclaim their once beautiful but long neglected yard at their new home.  They have many large patches of "chicks and hens" and different stone crops.  As payment, I filled up a small box.  You couldn't even tell I had been there.  (Did I mention that I love succulents?)

John Henry and I planted away.

It doesn't look like much now, but I'm hopeful that as these wonderful, amazing little plants take hold and begin to spread that they will keep the stairs from eroding away and make them look beautiful.

John Henry has declared this "his" garden and very happily used his new little watering can to gently water the new baby plants.  It's a good thing that succulents don't really need much care or attention, or I would be worried about this garden.  As it is, I think John Henry will be the perfect gardener for a succulent garden.  Even if he pulls the plants out I just have to tuck them back in and they start to grow again.  :)

Oh, and L.  don't be surprised if you see me out in your yard harvesting another box full of plants.  We still have the bottom half of the stairs yet to go.

Chickie Babies!

The newest creatures at the Apple House arrived a few days ago.

Aren't they adorable?

We have three of each breed right now, with two more breeds coming soon.  This is a Light Brahma.

These pretty little girls are Silver Laced Wynadotte's. 

And this these beautiful red heads are Rhode Island Red's.

I'll post more pictures when our other girls arrive.

First Bookshelf

Lincoln and I love to read and we love books.  In the Seattle house we turned the walk in closet of what was supposed to be the master bedroom (but that we used as the boys room and guest room) into a mini library with built in shelves.  It had 12 foot ceilings and it was awesome!

This was a problem, however when we got to the Apple House.  We brought everything that was on those shelves, but not the shelves.  We looked into buying some bookcases and determined that the people who make particleboard shelves must be smoking pot and the people who make solid wood shelves must be doing crack.  GOOD NIGHT, shelves are expensive.

We have a no particleboard policy in our home, so we were left with one option, build some new shelves.

We used Ana White's Favorite Bookcase plan and shortened it to fit the space where we wanted it to go.  Then we primed it, painted it, and Link turned it over to me to distress and glaze.

Here she is.

I love the color.  It was an "oops" paint from HD.  Gotta love those $5.00 gallons, especially when they are such a pretty color.

The glaze is a light brown that I mixed myself.

We're very happy with how it turned out.  It is very sturdy, built all from planks and standard lumber.  We also added supports under the shelves to ensure their weight capacity was high enough to be loaded down with book.

And the best part, because we were able to use some lumber from the "cull" box at HD, the entire thing only cost us a little over $30.00.  Gotta love that!

We all ready have the materials for another shelf and will probably be building a few more after that.