Category: home improvement

Posted on

All of the rough in materials are here

Well they delivered the wood, nails, wire, plumbing needs and everything else it will take to get everything roughed in yesterday.  I had them put it in the garage so it doesn’t get snowed or rained on.  This morning, my guy was here laying everything off and by now has already made pretty good progress.

All there will be is two bedrooms, one bathroom, and an open living room, kitchen, dining area.  I have a lot of ideas in my head for things to make extra room but I haven’t really mentioned them to Charles yet.  Of course I want all of the comforts of home for them.  He allowed me to show him where I thought everything should be and he did up the plans for it.  I can’t wait until the drywall goes up so it starts looking like an apartment instead of an open room with nothing but a bunch of wall studs up.  I’ll keep you up on the progress.

Posted on

Time to do some remodeling

Celeste and Little Joe need a place of their own.  This isn’t something she is saying, it’s something I realized.  As long as she’s here in one of my rooms, she feels like she’s under my thumb.  I don’t want her to feel that way.  She has her independence from an overbearing father and sure doesn’t need to feel I’m watching her like a hawk either.  I sure don’t want her to leave so I have come up with the perfect solution.

There’s sort of a studio over the 2 car garage.  I have decided to turn it into a two bedroom apartment for her and Little Joe.  That way, she has her own place to call home and can work for me part time to pay for the apartment and everything that goes with it.  She also has a part time weekend job waitressing so she has some extra money of her own.  That will allow her to buy her food for them and pay her own insurance too.

My guy that does all of the work around here for me has already looked at it and said it will run me about $4,000 to do it.  That’s not bad at all so I told him to get the material list together and I’ll take care of it.  I guess you could call this a graduation present for her since she graduates from school this year.  I haven’t told her a thing about it and won’t until she asks what’s going on.  She doesn’t ask many questions so hopefully the apartment will be close to being finished before she asks.  We shall see though.

Posted on

Hey, wanna see my place?

I realized that all I do is talk about my Bed and Breakfast and haven’t shown you what it looks like.  Well I had to do a lot of work to get it turned into what I wanted but I loved every single minute.  I have already told you about the different rooms that I rent so there’s no need to repeat myself.

This picture was taken when we got an early snow before I got the Christmas decorations put up but I still think it’s a pretty picture of my place.  My new barn and animals are off to the right.  My garden is off to the left.  You can see the gazebo on the back of the wrap around porch.  Now you can see why there are deer, and other animals that come around the house.  Anyway, here it is.

Posted on

It’s been 10 days

Well it’s been 10 days since Celeste and Little Joe showed up on my porch and knocked on my door.  I can honestly say that they have been nothing but pure pleasure around here.  Celeste works her rear off when she’s scheduled to work.  She goes to school every day and studies hard when she gets home.  She is a great mother to Little Joe.  She’s just an all around good kid.

I have to admit that Little Joe has stolen my heart.  That child has brought so much joy into this house that I didn’t realize was missing until the two of them moved in.  I never got the chance to be a mother and now I have found myself mothering Celeste and Little Joe.  He calls me “NaNa April.”  My heart just melts when he says it because he says April so cute.  I never knew what I was missing until now.

Posted on

Celeste

Late Friday night, there was a knock on my door.  When I opened the door, there stood a young woman with a little boy.  She said her name was Celeste and her little boys name was Joe.  She didn’t have anywhere to go because her family had thrown her out that evening and she wondered if maybe I had a job she could do to pay for a room tonight and some food for her and Joe.

This is a 17 year old young woman with a 15 month old beautiful little boy.  I invited her in and got her and Joe something to eat.  I sat with her and talked to see what I was dealing with here.  I sure didn’t need a teenager that was on drugs here but I didn’t see any signs of anything like that.  All I saw that she had a bruise across her cheek that she had tried to hide with makeup but didn’t do a very good job of it.

She said her father was bad to get drunk and take everything out on her and her mother and she just couldn’t take it anymore.  He had gotten angry about nothing and threw her out.  She said she was still in high school and had someone that kept Joe for her to be able to go to school.  She really wanted to stay around here so she could finish school and then hopefully go to college so she could take care of Joe and herself.

My heart almost broke as I listened to this beautiful young woman talk.  I made a deal with her.  I told her that she could clean the rooms and help with the other chores around there and she would have a place to live as long as she stayed in school and took care of her son herself.  No male visitors to her room and no drugs or drinking.  When I saw the tears swelling up in her eyes, I knew this was not a bad kid.  Just a kid that had made a few mistakes and was trying to do right by them.  I guess I now have somewhat of a daughter and grandson if all works out like I think it will.  I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

Posted on

I’m a farmer

Well I checked to make sure my insurance was good with the animals, made sure I had all the proper permits, and even got a pair of pot belly pigs, pygmy donkey’s, and a miniature horse so I guess I’m now officially a ‘farmer’.  I got the little donkey from the ‘Little Ass Farm’ up the road.  I love the name of that place.  It’s a sweet little donkey too.  Her name is Blossom.

So far, the animals have been a huge success.  I even have people stopping by just to see the animals.  Yeah, I do charge for them to pet my animals.  Hey, you gotta pay for feed for all those critters ya know.  I even got a pair of pheasants and some quail too.  Man those are some pretty birds.  I can sell the babies they hatch because I’m not eating their eggs, that’s for sure.  Maybe we could have ‘pheasant under glass’ for dinner if they raise babies.  I’m not killing them if we do.  That’s going to be someone else’s job, not mine.  I’ll just sell the babies, I’m not eating any of the animals!!

Posted on

Chicken coop

Well the chicken coop is finished and it’s great.  He even found me some Rhode Island Red chickens that are grown and already laying.  I also got some Jungle Foul too.  Those are supposed to be the original chickens, or so I was told.  One things for sure, the rooster is absolutely gorgeous.  The hens are rather small but the rooster is about as big as the Rhode Island Red rooster.  I also got some Bantam hens and a rooster.  They lay little eggs and are just the cutest things running around.  Of course they are each in different ‘runs’ and have separate parts inside the barn too.

Now he has talked me into getting a few pygmy goats and pygmy sheep too for a petting zoo type thing.  He’s trying to talk me into getting a couple of those pot belly pigs too.  I think he’s trying to make a farmer out of me.  I’m thinking about the pigs.  I guess I need to check and make sure there won’t be a problem with having a small petting zoo and what if any, special insurance I would need too.  I better call my insurance agent right now before I get in over my head.

Posted on

Another Monday

Well here it is another Monday after a pretty busy weekend thank goodness.  The funny thing is I got an interesting suggestion from one of my ‘guests’ this weekend.  They asked me why I don’t have chickens to have fresh eggs for the guests since I have a garden to provide fresh vegetables for them?  They were saying the chickens would also provide education and entertainment for the children since a lot of the city kids have never seen a chicken up close and personal or seen eggs being gathered either.

I thought that was an interesting question so I called a friend of mine that does all my repairs and building that I need done and asked him about building me a chicken coop.  He said it wouldn’t take too awfully much to fix one since there’s already a small barn on my property.  He said he could attach it right to the side of the barn and make it so that the nests are inside the barn in a small fenced in area where the kids can see the eggs in the nest but can’t get to them.  He’s going to start on it tomorrow.

Posted on

Happy 78th Birthday Daddy

Well today is my fathers 78th birthday and I just wanted to wish him a ‘Happy Birthday”.  He’s doing pretty good considering he’s had 7 heart attacks.  He’s still just as ornery as ever but I still love him.  The funny thing is he has absolutely no idea just how important he still is to our family.  He thinks that because he can’t do all the things he used to be able to do that he isn’t of much use to us anymore.  Well he’s totally wrong about that.  We all still need him if for nothing else, to keep us all in line or keep trying to anyway.  Love ya Daddy!!!!

Posted on

I love frogs!!!!

The latest “craze” are frogs and I’m talking live frogs too.  I got a ‘froggie tank’ for my kids (well the ones next door are sort of my kids too) and I know they are going to have a blast ‘growing froggies.’

Since school is out for the summer it seems fitting to get the froggies going and growing.  It should be a pretty cool thing for everyone to participate in and enjoy, while learning at the same time to boot!  I’m thinking that maybe over this weekend, while out running errands, I should stop by the closest pet store and see if we can find a some frog eggs and get this thing going.