Building Compost Bins

For a while I've been asking Cam about building a place for me to start some making compost. When we first moved in I was throwing our kitchen scraps etc. in a heap in the woods. It didn't work out to well because it spread out naturally and just blended with the existing soil.

We are pretty much always working on a budget so my number on priority was that it be functional and cheap. I had this in mind.

                                          

Image from here

It would have worked just fine. But I also kind of wanted something where I had several spots for the compost. One for fresh stuff, one for cooking compost, and one for finished compost. There are lots of available plans online but they require a ton of wood. We estimated the cost of one of them and it would have been $150 just for the untreated wood! Regular untreated pine around here rots in about 3 years. It wouldn't have been worth it. 

Cameron said he had a plan and it turned out awesome. Total cost was $50 and it's made completely of cedar that will match our current fence and last so much longer. 

Cameron made this little drawing on the driveway for me so I could get an idea of the scale. 

Here is the start of the bins. 

 The finished product! We used extra scrap cattle fencing and chicken wire from leftover from building the garden fence. Cam saved money by just hammering the wire right into the ground rather than using extra wood as many plans required.

More landscaping

I mentioned in last weeks post Cam does stuff at super fast. It's definitely a good thing. But here I have some landscaping updates and no "before" pictures really.

Next to the propane tank, the previous owners planted forsythia bushes. They were literally 10 feet tall and 6 feet wide. It was difficult to walk around that corner of the house without hitting them. After a failed attempted to pull one out with the rope and the truck, Cam chopped them with the chainsaw.

As you can tell in the picture, the dirt area is how much space they covered. We gained back a ton of lawn. Unfortunately, the propane tank happens to be a huge eyesore. It looks worse than when we started so maybe it's good I have no before picture :)

We toyed around with the idea of a better looking fence around the propane tank. But we nixed that idea because we already have so many structures in the backyard. So for now I'm thinking a smaller plant to cover it would be good. Or at least something functional. I was hoping to plant some blueberry bushes here but it may not get enough sun. If that doesn't work I think we'll do some sort of ornamental grass maybe.

Update #2 is another chopped tree and more lawn space.

After the stump gets chopped down the rest of the way we will level out the last 10ish feet of lawn behind the shed as best we can.

#3 is more of a garden update. I've been looking for a natural way to preserve the cedar fence without it putting a bunch of chemicals in the soil and consequently our food. From web searches it seems linseed oil is the best thing. You can buy boiled linseed oil from your local hardware store but it has turpentine in it to help it dry faster. So not any more healthy than a staining your fence. I ordered this linseed oil from here.

 Here is a before. The fence is naturally graying and I don't think the oil will help too much with that but it does preserve the wood for longer.

Here is the after. I finished the outside but still need to work on the inside. You have to work around the weather as this stuff takes 4 days to dry!

Another Day, Another Tree

A certain corner of my garden was getting to much shade, old news right? I guess that's what you get when you live in a forest :) or something like it. Seriously though, Cameron loves getting out the chainsaw and all I have to do is say the word and he's out there chopping something it down. Sometimes so fast I don't even get to take a "before" picture.

We have this massive oak tree adjacent to the garden. Cameron thinks he could chop the whole thing down but I'm a bit worried about *ahem* the house. So we agreed to limb it up a bit instead. There was one branch in particular causing all the trouble. The only problem was it was about 35ish feet high. Yeah, no problem for crazy Cameron. He just grabbed his latter, then a rope, and tied it over. He tied knots in it (like in gym class) then climbed the rest of the way up to the branch. Oh and I forgot to mention, without a harness. I about fainted watching him. I'm sure we saved like a couple hundred dollars doing it ourselves but if there was a hospital trip involved it wouldn't have been worth it haha :) I can laugh now {spoiler} he made it out alive.

I took a video too. I was watching to make sure Dax didn't run over to next to the tree so its really shaky. Just watch up to like 40 seconds. You can hear Dax say "wow" :)

Garden- July update

 Hornworms are here, which means careful checking and hand picking everyday. Yuck!

 Tomatillos

 Tomatoes. No red ones yet. Sigh... But they are close.

 Squash. So far I love this variety. Not a squash bug or egg in sight!

 Peppers. The leaves have been yellowing on the bottom of my plants a little bit. I think it's because we've had a ton of rain.

 Green Beans

 An overall look

The fence is working great! I've seen deer out there at least once a week. I'm so glad I don't have to worry about them eating all our food.

Filling a big empty wall on a budget

Update: Check out my new site Shapingthenest.com for an updated version of this post. I added lots of info on how to make your wall budget friendly!


One of my favorite things to do till fill an empty wall is to do a gallery wall of pictures. As I mentioned last week I had plans to do that behind our sofa.

Here are the results:

Obviously, I have a few more frames to fill with prints but I'm happy with the arrangement. And I got the new lamps I needed too. I love them so far. They on sale for much cheaper in the store but I got them here.

And a close up. You may see that something on my mirror. Yes, those are Army men. Cruz added his own little touch and I couldn't take them down yet.

Normally, my method for gallery walls is to cut out several scrap pieces of paper the same size of the frames. Then I arrange them on the wall using tape. It's very forgiving because you can arrange a bunch and there are no holes in the wall. After you like the design, hang your frames right over the paper. It's easy!

This time around though, my frames are way bigger and it would have taken a ton of paper to use the method above.  So I hung as I went. It was difficult. There are lots of different ways to hang a gallery wall. But, I do have a few tips that have worked for me on making it look put together. These are for if you do the random frame method like me.

#1 Hang your biggest frames toward the center of your arrangement. Smaller ones on the outside.
#2 Balance. It's hard to describe exactly how to do that as a lot time you just have to use your own intuition.
#3 Find an inspiration picture.
#4 Space your frames somewhat evenly.
#5 Go for a theme.

Obviously, none of those are hard fast rules but it's a good starting point to work from. 

Here's another arrangement I did at our old house.

And some of my favorite inspiration.

 
 The inspiration for the arrangement in our first house. Source


A formal arrangement. Source

 

A great way to disguise a TV a bit. Source

Decorating the living room- and my take on decorating in general.

We still have another ceiling in the den to remove popcorn in and paint walls before we move on to new wood floors in the living, dining, and den area. I'm super excited. Even though the living room isn't finished, I plan on decorating in there a little bit. It will be so nice to have one room semi put together while we tackle other projects.

Decorating is the fun part for me.  Decorating is interesting because it is totally personal and what one person loves another person will hate. There are so many styles.

When it comes to decorating, I naturally would love to have really nice stuff. BUT we have a budget and most important of all we have boys. Ours are very active and it would be totally ridiculous to go out and buy an expensive couch or chair . So I'm still having fun decorating but everything I buy has to be cheap, washable (at least somewhat), and hard to break.

So on to the living room. Here's the plans so far now that all the furniture is settled back in.

First step, is to put up a gallery wall full of pictures perhaps? I also bought this sweet set of antlers months ago on a flash sale site. They are going to be incorporated somehow too.

Also, you may have noticed from the pictures this room has no overhead lighting. Because of that lamps are a must have! I've been on the hunt for a pair that are not glass or ceramic because as mentioned above, I don't want to worry about them breaking.

Lastly, I'm hoping to add window treatments. I'm thinking shades for the bay window, and a curtain/ shade mix for the dining room window.

Living and dining area is all painted!

We are breathing a huge sigh of relief, mixed with excitement. Another project is done!!! We painted the walls Benjamin Moore Horizon. The room looks and feels so much better now.

A before picture

After

Much brighter and happier! I'm still working on getting furniture moved back in. More on that and decorating soon!