The Bathroom Remodel

 You probably won't be surprised when I tell you a lot has changed at the Heap since I last blogged. Nearly 20 months has gone by since I revealed the kitchen remodel. Since then, we've made some decisions about homesteading and our lives in general which include a refocus on the Heap and the lifestyle we were so excited to embrace in the beginning. But, I'll share all that later because let's be honest- you just want to see the BATHROOM!

You may or may not remember the lovely bathroom pre-remodel. After seven and a half years at the Heap, I had gotten used to it. In the beginning, I was super creeped out by the grody floors and disgusted by the wallpaper walls that could not be cleaned because getting them wet caused them to start to disintegrate. But, over time I just didn't really notice too much anymore. We fully moved into the space, I maximized storage to the best of my ability, and we just had the bathroom we had. No biggie. I didn't really expect the bathroom remodel to happen any time soon and I was fine with that. 

In July, the Hubs lost his job. After a little bit of shock and, maybe some dismay, we quickly decided to embrace this change as a gift. If he was not working, he'd have plenty of time to focus on a remodel. The bathroom was the last room in the main part of the house that needed done and we had avoided it because we really couldn't be without a bathroom for months and months. A month or two, we could totally manage, though, and if you're going to have to use a port-a-potty for awhile, the warm summer months are the perfect time to do so. 

The original plan was to rent a port-a-potty, take wipe down baths most of the time, and rely on neighbors' hospitality for a weekly shower, but the Hubs is smarter than that, of course. He quickly realized that he could rig up a temporary shower in the cellar. It wasn't the prettiest environment to shower in, but it worked perfectly, and I did not have to go even one day without access to a shower. As usual, I'm so grateful for my Hubs and his resourcefulness. The port-a-potty came in handy for having a bathroom to use while work was being done, but we only had to rely on it completely for about two weeks. The rest of the time, the indoor toilet was operating. The Hubs really did everything possible to make sure I was comfortable during this remodel. He loves me.

The first thing to go was the window. The original window had, at some point since we moved to the Heap, been hit with a rock, breaking a hole into the outer pane. Bugs flew into the hole and couldn't find their way back out, which created this horrifying shadow box of dead bugs. It was disgusting. Now, there's a brand new, clean, window. It is not disgusting.

I would have loved to have been able to put in a separate shower and tub, but try as we might, we just couldn't make that work in the space, without losing a lot of storage. In such a small house, storage is just too precious. So, we kept a tub/shower combo. I really wanted a deeper bathtub, which was surprisingly difficult to find. I also wanted a tile surround, but the Hubs was adamantly against it. In the end, we compromised with a special tub, that is several inches deeper and has a curved edge and a fiberglass surround. It's pretty and clean. I'm happy.

One of our first purchases for the bathroom is one of the things I am most excited about. I never thought I'd get so happy about a toilet, but getting old changes you people. This is an awesome toilet. I knew I wanted a toilet that did not have seat hinges on the back of the toilet- they get grimy and gross about 3 hours after you put the new seat on. I also knew that toilets can be made without those hinges because the toilets in the hospital, and many commercial locations, do not have them. But, I wasn't sure if I'd have to buy a commercial toilet to get what I wanted. I was delighted when we went to Menard's to look for toilets and there it was- the perfect toilet! The hinges are located on the side instead of the back, so no little knobs of dried pee and poo to deal with! Eureka! If nothing else happened in this bathroom, my life has been improved exponentially. I love my toilet!

One of the most delightful parts of this remodel has been watching the Hubs and our son work together. Noah has become more man than boy in the past year and he is able to keep pace with his dad. He has learned so much and will be well equipped to care for his own house and family one day. The two of them did almost all the work on the bathroom with very little help from Jenna or I. I had time to work in the kitchen, taking care of canning and meal prep. This remodel was much less stressful on me as a result. I sure do love my guys. 

I decided to take one of my accent colors from the rest of the house and make it the star in the bathroom. I think it makes the room look bright and cheery, but also crisp and clean. I stuck with my usual minimalist farmhouse tendencies for decorations and ended up with a beautiful, simple bathroom. Noah told me it looks like a hotel bathroom. I'm choosing to believe that he means it is stunningly beautiful and he feels so lucky to get to shower in there. 

So, what now? Well, like a lot of people, we've had plenty of time to reflect on our lives and spend more time than usual at home. We like it. We had really lost focus in the past few years and homesteading had steadily fallen to the back burner. Some things needed to go, but there's a lot we still want to do and providing as much as we can for ourselves is still important to us. Right now the Hubs is working at home. He has time to focus on projects around here that will push our homesteading forward. We don't know how long he will do this, but it's an awesome opportunity right now and I'm excited to see how our homestead comes together. I am working outside the home, at a job I adore, but I have let go of the extras. I no longer teach or lead for AHG. I have more days at home than I have at work. This allows me time to get back to homesteading. I had an amazing garden this year, with plans for an even bigger one next year. Along with gardening comes canning and food preservation that I need time to be able to do. I've also been on an intense health journey and time outside, doing things I love, is a big part of my healing. I hope to get back to blogging with more purpose, but you'll be seeing the blog change a bit. We still have some remodeling to do, but now we're more about settling into a permanent homesteading lifestyle. We've experimented a lot, found out a lot about what we can and can't do. It was all a fun adventure. Now, we have to embrace the things we want and need while letting go of things that are too difficult, too expensive, or just not good for us. I'll be posting more about my health journey, gardening, and homestead life. I hope you'll stick around for this new phase. 

Tonia

The Kitchen Remodel

It's hard to believe we've been at the Heap for nearly six years. The kitchen was one of the biggest adjustments I had to  make when we moved out here. It was so small that I had to get rid of a lot of my specialty cooking items and, as the center, of the home, it was pretty hard to disguise the old and yuck of it all. But, over the years, I've learned how to cope with it and make it work for me. I was actually feeling pretty content with the situation when the Hubs decided it was time to conquer the kitchen remodel. Now, don't get me wrong, I have been dreaming of what my kitchen would some day look like since we moved here. I wasn't opposed to remodeling, exactly, I just wasn't completely in the right frame of mind for it. I had recently started my full-time job with cardiac rehab and I had taken on the job of teaching high school Biology at our home school co-op. Being very busy and chaos don't play well together for this Type A girl and I wasn't sure I could handle it. But, when the Hubs decides to take on a job, you change into work clothes and get ready, so that's what I did. It was a rough go, but the results are pretty fantastic.

Demo took about a week and created an epic mess. Pretty much everything had to go- the walls, the cabinets, the appliances, the old and gnarly insulation in the walls. We decided to just cover over the ceiling rather than ripping it down, but everything else was removed and carted out. The Hubs wanted to get rid of the arch between the kitchen and dining room while we were at. This gives us a  bigger opening for getting things in and out of the house.

The dining room became the makeshift kitchen and everything from the dining room and kitchen that wasn't imperative was stored in the living room. For the entirety of the remodel we had no table to eat at, no couch to sit on, and no area to hang out together as a family. In addition to chaos and extreme mess, I had to deal with a rather disjointed and disconnected family. It was hard. Really, really hard.

This remodel was different because, unlike previous jobs, we did not do most of the work together. My other commitments kept me out of the house a lot of the time or frantically trying to put together lesson plans, while the Hubs and Boo worked. Then, as we neared the finish line, Bug and I spend time painting and decorating while the menfolk worked outside or rested. Everyone got used to being in separate areas, doing different things, and we are still recovering from the shift in dynamic.

Cooking wasn't impossible, but it was very inconvenient. Cleaning up was even more difficult. In the end, we ate a lot of junk and tolerated a lot more mess than usual. 

The Hubs did an amazing job of thinking of everything. I approached the remodel with no expectations. I did not think the kitchen would change much as far as layout or usefulness, it would simply be prettier. The Hubs really saw the opportunities and made changes that have ended up being invaluable. One of those things was an attic entrance. Previously, there was an attic fan in the kitchen. Because of significant seasonal allergies, we were never able to use it, so replacing it wasn't on the agenda. The Hubs decided to widen the opening a bit and put a new attic ladder in it rather than just letting it go to waste or be covered up. Now, we have an attic ladder in the house already, but it is located in our bedroom, directly over our bed. Anytime anyone needed to go into the attic (which is way more often than you might think)  we had to move our king size bed out of the way. And, of course, there was always a mess from the work being done too- right on my bedroom rug. Now, we have a way into the attic that requires no moving of anything and an easy location for cleaning up the mess. I am very happy with that.

The ceiling was a design feature I requested. Throughout the rest of the house we have paneling, which we have opted to paint rather than try to completely remove. This gives a nice texture to the walls and makes the house feel sort of cottage like, I think. But, in the kitchen we had to remove walls and put up drywall, so there was no texture. This gave me the chance to put texture somewhere else and I chose a plank ceiling. At first, the Hubs wasn't a fan, but once it was done we both agree it looks really, really good. I love it and I think it keeps the general feel of the house intact, which is important to me. I want it all to feel cohesive and as though it was all done together.

 It felt like forever before we were really ready to start putting things back together. There was a lot of electrical work that had to happen and each step always took longer than I thought it was going to. Hanging a light fixture might take all day if it involves rerouting lines and going into the attic to put new junction boxes. Almost every outlet had to be moved and rewired in some way. Exterior walls had to have new insulation put up before drywall could go up. New water lines and gas lines had to be run. In between the necessities, I would get teasers- going to order cabinets or appliances. I tried to take joy where I could and wait patiently, but some days I was pretty sure it was never getting done.

 Once we had walls, doors, and flooring it was time to bring in the cabinets. Once again, the Hubs thought bigger than me. I had planned on having cabinets in the same configuration as before, but the Hubs suggested we move the refrigerator to the opposite wall and flank it with cabinets. This would allow us to have cabinets go all the way down the wall and around to the door, which would leave us room for a dishwasher and a lot more cabinet and counter space. I had resigned myself to several things- never having enough cabinet or counter space, never having a dishwasher, and never having enough room in my refrigerator. With one wave of his hammer, the Hubs fixed all those problems and several more. I now have a dishwasher and a beverage refrigerator and all the counter space. He's a smart guy, my Hubs.

 

 

Another design element I was very insistent on was my sink. I wanted a farmhouse sink, no matter what. The thing about these beauties, though, is that they are crazy heavy and they don't just go into a regular cabinet. Because we went with the, ahem, frugal option of cabinets, the option to buy a sink cabinet designed for farmhouse sinks did not exist, so it had to be modified. I think my marriage hung in the balance for a few days there, but the Hubs did a wonderful job and got my sink in. I love, love, love it. I'm really glad I did not compromise on it because I think it is absolutely perfect, but it was a pretty serious source of tension for a while. Not that I blame him really, it was a total pain in the rear to put in, but seriously, it's so beautiful!

The flooring is the same tile we have throughout the house. It's perfect for a farmhouse. It hides spills and track throughs pretty well and it's not too fancy or perfect. As with a lot of things in this house, it's not quite what I would have picked, but I really love it.

After five months, it came together. We were able to move into the kitchen and get our living room and dining room back on Christmas Eve, which was a combination of answered prayers and perseverance from the Hubs. Over several more weeks we finished little jobs and I put all the little touches I wanted in place. I think it's beautiful and I love it. In all honesty, it is not the kitchen of my dreams. If I had more money or more space I would do things differently. I don't like having all the stuff on the counter tops and I would never have picked white cabinets if I had any other suitable choice. But, it is perfect for the Heap. It is a small farmhouse kitchen, just what should be in a small farmhouse. I love cooking in it. I even love cleaning it up. I am beyond grateful that we were able to get this large project done on budget, with not one cent of debt. The Heap is really becoming a home and home is really where my heart is.

 Tonia

Holding On Loosely

It's hard to believe it's been nearly a year since I last posted anything. I never meant for it to be so long. It's been a year full of high points and hard days. Life doesn't look like what we had pictured when we moved to the Heap four years ago and there is still a certain amount of struggle as we try to figure out our priorities, but the rewards are worth it.

We spent the year learning how to be beekeepers. Although the scholarship was awarded specifically to Bug, we have all attended classes and meetings and helped to check the hive and harvest honey. It has truly been an incredible experience. Bees are way cooler than you realize. We were able to harvest about 5 gallons of honey, which Bug was able to sell. She won ribbons at three different fairs as well. The plan for 2017 is to split the hive into two, hopefully doubling the honey harvest. You can find Heapstead Honey on Facebook and follow her progress there. She so appreciates your support. I'm hoping to have her do a guest post here sometime soon. 

We raised and butchered our heritage hogs. It worked quite well to have them on pasture and we were pleased with how well they grew. The pasture has a few places that need new seed, but overall they didn't do tremendous damage so that seems to work well for us. I feel like the resulting meat is a little bit off, though, so we will have to evaluate a few things before we raise more hogs. Because we raised a heritage breed and left the animals intact, rather than castrating them, it is hard to know exactly where the difference lies. 

We have two grown sheep now-  a (hopefully) breeding pair. Dodge and Annie are pretty low maintenance and are quite happy on the pasture, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of romance happening out there. We have no idea if this means they don't like each other or they just prefer the privacy of the barn at night. We're praying for lambs this spring. 

A new freeloader joined the family this year. Nalla came to us from my mom, who couldn't care for her anymore. She's a sweet girl even if she doesn't contribute to a job here at the Heap. She's so cute I can't help but forgive her for the extra work she creates

Most of last year was spent working hard to make a special family vacation happen. We decided to funnel our funds and resources into a trip to Disney World rather than work on things at the Heap. Even though we did not make any progress on the house or homestead, it was so worth it. The time spent as a family was so absolutely perfect and wonderful memories were made. 

This year, we plan to turn our focus to the house remodel. Homesteading is going to take a back burner for awhile so that we can use our time and money to make a comfortable home for our family. We will maintain our laying flock and the sheep, but we won't be bringing in any other babies this year and we'll take a break from butchering and intense gardening. It has been necessary for me, in particular, to really stop and evaluate priorities. Between working and being in school, I don't have much more to give and homesteading was beginning to stress me out way too much, so we are going to take some time off. In the meantime, expect to see exciting things happening inside- I cannot wait to make this house pretty!

Time marches on. It's hard to believe we've been here almost four years. So much has changed, but there is still so much to do. I think I'm starting to realize there always will be and that's okay. We'll take each moment as it comes. 

Tonia

Marathons

One of the babies died yesterday.

It was the last straw. I sat out on the brick pile and looked out over the pasture and sobbed. Not sniffled, people. Ugly cried. .......and said naughty words in my head while thinking how much I hate everything. Everything.

The Hubs came out to me eventually and said, "This is the suckiest part about having animals, huh?" He's right, of course. Watching animals, especially babies, suffer and not knowing what to do to fix it is definitely the worst part of raising animals, but my breakdown was coming long before poor little Taz developed bloat.

I. am. tired.

I really, really love my job, but going back to nursing has definitely complicated an already full life. I'm not even close to having some sort of balance figured out. After a good cry and a long nap, though, I'm thinking I'll keep trying.....I don't actually hate everything. I might even kind of love some of it.

I love knowing we're raising high quality poultry for ourselves. The meat chicks are fully feathered now and have been moved out to the tractors. Last year we raised the typical conventional meat breed, Cornish cross, and decided they are gross and definitely not normal or healthy birds. This year we're raising Freedom Rangers and we're super excited about them. They are growing faster than the laying birds, but not in a freakish kind of way.

I love having fresh eggs from happy chickens. The new layer chicks are growing well and the turkeys are too. We realized this winter that we need to be a little more aggressive with culling the flock. Most of the winter we only got 1 egg a day, which isn't enough, and it's because our layers are too old. So, we will replace about half the flock each year. We are going to keep to just a couple of specific breeds each year as well so it's easy to know which ones are the ones that need to go. This year our chicks are Buff Orpingtons and Americanas.

I love watching babies grow. Annie, our bottle lamb, is so sweet and cute. She adores Bug, since she's usually the one feeding her and follows her around bleating. She's lonely without Taz, though, so I'm hoping we'll get another one to keep her company.

We got a new puppy this spring, too. Codi, is a border collie/lab mix and she's growing like crazy. She's very sweet too. She's been sleeping in the chicken coop so she learns chickens are part of her pack. It seems to be working quite well so far. Sophie loves having a playmate, which is the biggest reason we got her.

I love cooking up a dinner made with pork we raised. I love watching animals live good, clean, happy lives and knowing that they will provide us with healthy meat.

Our first pig went to butcher a month ago and provided us with about 170 pounds of meat that has my freezer well stocked. For our first go we just bought a conventional breed and raised him in the corral and barn. He was never on the pasture, mostly because the Hubs was still working on the fencing. It wasn't our ideal, but it was a good first experience.

The new pigs are a heritage breed called Red Wattle. We chose this breed because they are supposed to be pretty good foragers and because we found someone who had them within driving distance. You'd be surprised how difficult it can sometimes be to find heritage breed animals! B&LT are growing like champs. They went on the pasture this week and after a couple of days of nervously pacing by the barn they've really settled in. They love digging around for roots and will come running to the fence when called, in hopes of getting a treat. They follow us into the barn at night easily, when they get fed a ration of grain. We're still waiting to see how much they tear up the pasture, but so far it seems to be going really well. Yes, they root, but no, they don't destroy. We're hoping it will continue to be a positive move.

I love learning new skills and watching my kids do the same. 

Bug won a beekeeping scholarship this year and in April the bees came to the Heap. It's been super exciting to watch and everything is going fantastically so far. She checks the hive at least once a week, looking for eggs and larva, which show that the queen is still in the hive and doing her job and that the other bees are doing their jobs, raising more bees. God willing, we'll be able to harvest some honey this fall.  We've all had a great time going to the bee keeping association's meetings and learning all about this new venture. 

I love watching the Hubs work on a project. He is seriously the best. He's so diligent and careful and everything he takes on ends up being more than we hoped for. Right now he's working on a tree house for the kids. It's a project he really felt needed to happen now, before they get any older and won't enjoy it anymore. They're helping him build it and they are so excited. 

I love knowing tomorrow's a new day and I can just keep trying to get it all figured out. I'm realizing that this whole homesteading thing is a marathon, not a sprint, and I'm going to have to pace myself. I'm reassessing some of the ideals we came out here with and working out which ones are truly non-negotiable and which ones can be discarded. I can't do everything. I can't even do 1/2 of everything, so I'm going to have to choose what really matters. That's hard for me, but heaven knows I'm strong enough to do it, so I will.......after another nap.

Tonia