Jul 21, 2008 Posted by Tiffany

Build Your Own Tortilla Press

So I was thinking about various gadgets that are great to have in your kitchen and came down the list to the tortilla press. I know for many this would be an absolute waste, but we eat a lot of flour tortillas here (almost weekly taco nights) and at about 25 cents a tortilla (I did just find some on sale for 16 cents – the big ones of course), I have to think that there must be a cheaper way! There... read more

Sep 6, 2007 Posted by Tiffany

Our terrazzo entry hall

I actually started this post months ago, thinking one of the times we talked to our Italian tile guy, we’d remember to ask him if he knows someone who does terrazzo. But we didn’t and he didn’t notice the floor so this post just sat dormant… But, when “the local” came by recently, he saw the floor and told us that he used to do floors like that AND we could get the... read more

Aug 10, 2007 Posted by Tiffany

Outdoor fires are so hot right now

I saw this extremely cool tutorial on how to build your own outdoor fire pit and I’m wondering where we could set one of these up without needing to move it…which of course would be impossible the way this thing is constructed. But I suppose it could work if it was built in the garden somewhere…which isn’t a terrible idea in my opinion…but of course our first focus for that... read more

Jun 27, 2007 Posted by Tiffany

Bring me a container so I can lay some bricks

Since we are planning to start at least a partial start on the horse stall build out next week while Stefan is on vacation, we will be getting another trash container. There is still bird housing in the horse stalls that needs to be thrown out and a feed trough in the other part of the stables. And with a container here, we will be able to trash some more stuff from the barn. We figure we should try to... read more

Jun 25, 2007 Posted by Tiffany

From horses to house guests

For the past week or so we have been thinking hard and putting some of our ideas for the horse stall transformation down on paper. Unfortunately we haven’t had much luck drawing everything out in Google SketchUp. As much potential as that program has, it really isn’t all that easy for a novice to use. So we may have to break down one of these days and buy a home design software. But for the... read more

Apr 27, 2007 Posted by Tiffany

More window frosting

I actually did this little project a few weeks ago but I just kept forgetting to post anything about it. Much like the windows in our downstairs bathroom, we used Amorf Frost frosting foil from IKEA to cover these windows. It’s a simple enough process: Scrape the edges of the window with a flat razor blade to remove any paint Clean window and edges with Windex to get all the dirt off so you get a... read more

Apr 22, 2007 Posted by Tiffany

Setting up a woodworking workshop

The previous owner of our little farm was a woodworker and he had two workshops here on this farm. One of them had to go when we did the build out of the kitchen, but the other one at the back of the barn remains., Since there is a lot of furniture we still need and some older stuff we want to replace, we have been playing with the idea of starting to do some wood work. We have gotten basic knowledge of... read more

Apr 12, 2007 Posted by Tiffany

Painting kitchen cabinets

We have a bunch of kitchen cabinets from the old kitchen sitting in the barn, in what will one day become the climbing hall. We’ve talked about using part of them in the pig stalls area, which you pass through to get to the climbing hall. Perhaps using the small fridge so we can always have cold drinks on hand while climbing…and maybe a sink running off the pump water with a bit of counter... read more

Mar 27, 2007 Posted by Tiffany

Spring Home Maintenance Tips

For quite some time now, I’ve been getting Backwoods Home monthly newsletter. They usually have a few interesting recipes in there, some cute jokes and even some really great woodworking plans from time to time. In this month’s newsletter, they have some spring maintenance tips which they got from State Farm’s website…so I headed on over there to get a better look. Turns out that... read more

Feb 5, 2007 Posted by Tiffany

Building a climbing wall in the barn

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might have learned that we love to go rock climbing. It’s a “hobby” we picked up about a year and a half ago and we haven’t really had all that much time to do it since we got a dog in April 2006 and now of course with the farm. But one of the things we found perfect about the barn is one of the rooms which has 12-15 meter... read more