The $86 Remodel

Five and a half years ago, we bought our house.  It was ugly, neglected, repossessed, and had been empty for almost a year.  The roof leaked.  The bathroom floor was rotted and had to be rebuilt.  The story of Our House is a long story, one for which I am very thankful, but I'll stick to The Cinderella Room.....

Tucked down a hallway off the kitchen is, what we have referred to as, The Study.  AKA 'The Cinderella Room'.  It has been where all of the mismatched, odd furniture has been 'sent'.  You need it but don't really like it, so you have it go sit by the fireplace and be quiet.  :-)  This room has been our school room.  Two of the four walls had cedar paneling.  The kind that was glued on board by board.  Individually.  At one point we thought we would take it down, but arduous paneling removal was a low priority after reroofing, bathroom repair, window and door installation, exterior painting of the Rather Tall House, etc.  The Cinderella Room was a light sucking vortex with the only window being a large north-facing sliding door.  There was no overhead lighting.  The dark, cedar walls literally absorbed the indirect north sunlight and lamp light, even full spectrum lamp light.   El Professor, who believes that anything worth doing on the house should be 'done right', felt that we should sheet rock over the paneling, texture, and paint.  I knew that on the priority list of Necessary Projects,  this meant the light sucking vortex was going to remain as such.  

The summer before last I convinced El Professor, who believes that any work done on a house should be done right, that slathering light paint over the cedar paneling would create a light, barn board effect.  He was skeptical.  Cedar bleeds through paint and takes several coats to successfully cover.  We painted one cedar wall.  Several coats later, the room was lighter.  One wall remained.  

This fall, as my the-day-after-Christmas-birthday approached, I informed El Professor that I would simply LOVE, love, love a gallon of paint to tackle the one remaining, light sucking, very ugly, cedar paneled wall in The Study.  Maybe we could paint the fireplace, too.  I had this idea that the light-sucking-vortex effect could be conquered with  lighter 'barn wood' walls achieved by painting the cedar, and then hanging artful, old windows with glass that would reflect the meager light from the north facing window.  El Professor was open to the idea, and the $86 Remodel began. 

The fireplace was so ugly that I have never bothered to photograph the kids' Christmas stockings, which I lovingly sewed,  hanging up.  The whole thing was awful.  

The beginning of several coats of primer.  It took several coats before the cedar quit bleeding through.  

After the wall was sucessfully painted, El Professor put the awful, cedar beam/mantle back up. Awful.  This is where 'the accidental' part of the remodel began. I had been rallying for a total redo of the fireplace as a part of this wall painting project.  Initially, El Professor had simply set out to repaint the wall and humor me with the window hanging idea.  End of Project.  The cedar beam awfulness, however, convinced him that more needed to be done and he agreed to a fireplace redo as well. As a matter of fact, he decided the whole adventure could become his birthday present as well. ( His birthday is exactly a month after mine.)  We headed to our favorite recycled building materials mecca and began The Hunt for a new mantel.   The fun centered around redoing The Cinderella Room by hunting for fun salvage and keeping the cost to a minimum.

The recycled building materials covered area and lumber yard is a Treasure Trove.  The kids love it there. 

Old windows galore.....on the day I purchased these  they were two for the price of one. 

El Professor found this weathered beam chunk behind a stack of wood.  Cost of the new mantle--$8

I should have photographed the process....He had to bolt a 2"x4" to the wall and then carve/chisel a 2"x4" space in the backside of the mantle, ultimately mounting the mantle to the 2"x4" on the wall.  Impressive.  Even if it's salvage, he likes to do things right.  

Putting it all together....

Oh--the project would have come out for much less than $86 had we not had the CRAZY idea that we should, maybe,  paint the fireplace a color.  WHAT WERE WE THINKING?!  Enter, more paint costs to quickly cover up the evidence of a Very Bad Idea. 

Some good friends gave us a futon they no longer needed/wanted....that was the end of the mismatched furniture that had been sent to The Cinderella Room.  They even delivered  and installed it!  Such a blessing. 

A few months ago I posted that I wasn't sure we'd be able to pull the fireplace remodel 'out of the fire', but I'm pleased with the end result.  The room is light and inviting, and we had fun salvaging our way to an $86 Remodel Double Birthday Present.  

It's back.....

My iMac has returned and Apple footed the bill!  After a communication hiccup between the Mac Store and Apple in the 'who's paying for this' game, 'Preston The Magnificent' of Apple Computer came through for us and made sure our computer was fixed without our paying a dime.  Thank goodness!  The warranty had expired but the dang computer was spendy and ought not to have broken 17 months out of the chute.  A one inch band of LED was whiting out vertically about a third of the way from the right edge of the screen.  The bummer of an 'all in one' is that when the screen has such a problem you have to take in the whole computer.  Still, I'm very thankful Apple made good on a 'known issue' and took care of the problem.  

I love my Mac.  And now I love the company, too.

Spavings

It's that time of the month--the time of the month when I start the grocery shopping flurry.  El Professor, the kids, and I dropped in at the local Grocery Outlet a few days ago.  I like to check out the perishable section--often you can score good deals on items such as goat cheese.  Every now and then they have packages of sandwich meat that are the nitrite free variety and, if they are approaching pull date, they are a great deal.  I have found other great deals on nonperishables such as organic canned tomotoes and other organic products, chocolate (trying to stay away from that right now) tea, and toiletries.  Sometimes, though, I walk out of the Grocery Outlet with an ominous sense of, why did I buy this stuff?  We have a joke with one good friend about Grocery Outlet 'duds'.  It's one of those 'one liners' that goes something like, "No wonder it was at the Grocery Outlet!" On this trip, though, we scored a few great spaves! 

This tea is excellent!  It can also be chilled for a refreshing iced tea.  I have only seen this a few times at the Grocery Outlet.......

...so I spaved on all they had.   

We are into making 'faux Subway sandwiches' around here, and I like to keep a lot of sliced deli turkey in the freezer so we have it on hand.  There were a few of these in the perishable section, so I asked one of the head honchos if they had anymore in the back......

.....they did!!  OK--we'll be having a lot of 'faux Subway sandwiches' .  

While we're on the subject of things in the freezer....it's about all that rice from spaving in April.  I think I'll go make a cup of tea now and check out some rice recipes.  

Victory Garden

Recently, Nightline ran a great story about an urban farm in Pasadena, California.  Very inspiring!   We have a large garden plot we've reclaimed from part of the huge, 'deadish' lawn that awaited us when we bought this house, and a very productive (and in great need of a MAJOR 'haircut') Royal Anne cherry tree.  On top of that, El Professor has planted four apple trees (three are in stages of espalier), two plum trees, two kiwi vines and a raspberry patch.  I've added a winter lettuce patch in the front yard where the house doesn't cast its winter shade, and five very unhappy looking  blueberry plants (they don't qualify as 'bushes' yet).  Much of this gardening has been a labor of love, transforming this abandoned house (our house had been repossessed and empty for a year) and neglected yard into aesthetic productivity (still working on that).  Still, the farm on Nightline raised the bar of possibilities!

In our tough economy the resurrection of the Victory Garden has been fun to see.  Recently, I stumbled across this blog with a link to victory gardening.  As I've tinkered with vegetable gardening over the years, my dad has made a few suggestions/observations from wisdom he gained as a child.  My dad grew up in Vancouver, Washington during WWII when the population of this major port area grew in leaps and bounds.  Across the alley from his house was an empty lot which became the site of his Victory Garden.   His wisdom to me?  Quit over watering the tomatoes.  

This summer I am planning  another winter gardening area in the front yard.  In the meantime, we are enjoying our own Victory Garden.

One of our favorite signs of the season....roof top cherry harvesting!

 

Incredulous about this......

These two gas stations are among the cheapest I have seen in the area...and, still!  It is an interesting time in our economy.

We bought our current house five years ago.  It was wrapped in dying grass and a lot of red bark-o-mulch.  As excited as I was, I was grieving the lack of anything edible in the yard (save the roses, dandelions and GIGANTIC squirrel corn plant that rose up out of the bark-o-mulch desert).  Before we moved in (the house was an abandoned 'repo') I planted a small lettuce patch.  The following spring we began in earnest to create a vegetable and herb garden like we had enjoyed at our previous house.  Sometimes I get tired of washing muddy lettuce, but I am so thankful that I have so much of it to wash right now.  

In this interesting economy, I am not saving any space in the garden for 'drying flowers'.  I have fiddled in the past few years with larkspur, globe amaranth and straw flowers to dry with all of the lavender we have.   This year, I am thinking 'victory garden' and 'localvore'.

Hopeful about this....

  

Our Free Cat Update.....

I must admit, after about three days of administering a dropper and a half of infant bubblegum flavored antibiotics twice daily to Our Free Cat, I neglected my duties.  Once he was out of his kitty pain killer induced 'high', he seemed to be doing fine. "He's a cat--he'll be fine," I told myself.  

As we prepared to leave town for the weekend for Ten's birthday, Ten notified me that Our Free Cat's staples/wound area were red and bloody.  I called the vet.  The vet was able to squeeze us in where I was informed that Our Free Cat had developed an infection and needed a little clean up job and another course of antibiotics on top of those I still needed to give him.  He also recommended that the cat be kept in for three days (we were leaving town), possibly with a lampshade thingie to keep him from attempting more staple removal.  I let the vet know the best I could do was to hire the neighbor kids and hope for the best.  

By the time we left for Ten's birthday I had Our Free Cat's wound cared for (I think that was 'on the house' since we have to go back to get the staples removed), more antibiotics (ka-ching$$$), ear mite rinse (ka-ching$$$ complete with much kitty distress), distemper shot (ka-ching$$$) and flea treatments (mega ka-ching$$$ as I 'spaved' and purchased the seven month packet which costs $5 less per treatment than smaller quantities).  I also hired  the wonderful, wonderful homeschool high school neighbor to feed and to attempt to catch/administer the infant bubblegum flavored antibiotics to the cat four times during our absence.  (He succeeded at 3 out of 4!!!)  

The cat is doing much better.  

Our Free Cat

We have been a refuge for free pets.  Many of our pets have been free.  There were those 'pure bred' bunnies we bought for the kids (OK, I got one too--they were very cute).  Those we paid for.  El Profesor, who grew up on a ranch, found the offer of our bunnies' papers being copied for us (no, not the kind of papers you line the cage with)  to be amusing.  Other than those bunnies, our pets have been free. (We never did pursue getting those papers.)

'Posie' the cat (she was preowned and prenamed) came from one of El Profesor's co-workers who was moving to Iowa.  She (the cat, that is) moved in with our elderly neighbor when our kids joined the family. (It was much quieter over there and the neighbor actually did regular vet check ups, shots, etc.  I think Posie was planning for her own feline elder care--good choice!)  When we purchased our current house there was the stray tomcat, 'Tiger', living under the house,  who became ours for awhile. He was extremely tame and our daughter, Ten, would pack him around the neighborhood.  Then came 'Thumper' (you guessed it--a rabbit).  Our sweet Japanese neighbor came jogging over one morning to let me know that our bunny (the only one left of the original three) was loose.  When he described the color/size, I let him know that 'Hoppy' was safe and well in her hutch. Still,  I caught the loose bunny with the fishing net (the only things I have ever caught with that net have been bunnies on the lamb) and Thumper moved into separate quarters in our bunny condo.  Surely, we had enough free pets.  Then, on one especially stormy, blustery November day (2006), we acquired what I like to refer to as 'Our Free Cat'. 

The week Our Free Cat turned up the local news had been reporting that the local cat shelters were at capacity and that people needed to keep any kittens/cats they had if at all possible.   The day Our Free Cat turned up was very stormy and Ten had ventured out to the rabbit hutch to check on Thumper (all of the other bunnies had now aged out and had taken up residence in shoe boxes six inches under the rhodies) when she heard a kitten crying.  Ten hurried to tell me about the distressed kitten and so I got the ladder (and not the fishing net).  The forlorn little thing was up in our cherry tree and, despite a momentary thought of teeth and claws, I climbed up and got him.  He was socialized, tame, and clung to me. He was a 'catten', not quite a cat, no longer a kitten.  Ten bundled him into her sweatshirt and we canvassed the neighborhood in the pouring rain, to no avail.  One lady informed us she already had four cats.  No one had seen 'the catten' before.  

Having already  acquired one stray tomcat and one stray bunny, El Profesor (remember, he grew up on a ranch), responded to 'the catten' dilemma with, "Take him out and throw rocks at him to scare him off".  (Remember, the cat shelters were full).  He then modified the rock plan to scaring 'the catten' off himself after Ten and Thirteen went to choir practice.  He did agree, reluctantly, that if 'the catten' was still around after choir, we could feed him.   Remarkably, 'the catten' seemed to sense a foothold.  He stuck to the premises dispite the showers of gravel delivered in his direction.  He was still around after choir practice (much to the delight of Ten and Thirteen, who were then Eight and Eleven) and he became 'Skipper' the cat (we had been watching old Gilligan's Island movies from Netflix that week).  

Skipper the cat on the day he was found. 

Skipper the cat spent much of the rest of his 'cattenhood' swaddled in dolly blankets, dressed in dolly clothes and adorned in dolly bonnets.  He seemed to eat up the attention.  He slept in a white, lacey dolly bassinet in the garage and went for rides in the dolly baby buggy.  He was the favorite play thing of  Eight.  One of Eight's writing assignments in a homeschool writing class was to write the directions for how to do something, step by step.  Eight wrote a paper called 'How To Dress A Kitten'.  As Skipper settled in, Tiger the tomcat moved on, and Skipper became our cat.  Our Free Cat.  He was a keeper.  He was completely tame, playful and was growing into a pretty, buff tabby with a white bib. 

Now, about the free part? Remember Posie the cat?  I always balked at the idea of seeking extensive (or regular)  medical care for a pet.  Oh brother, I thought.  Then, Skipper got sick.  Very sick.  We were going to have him 'fixed' and the vet noticed at his pre-op appointment that he had a fever.  I had noticed a bit of lethargy once I thought about it.  He was given some antibiotics (ka-ching$$$) and 'the fixing' appointment was delayed for a few weeks.  Skipper tanked a few days later.  He became so lethargic I had to give him water with a syringe.  (Maybe a coincidence, maybe not, but we had just opened a new bag of Iams cat food and this was at the precise time some pets were sickened by tainted food.) El Profesor (who grew up on a ranch) lovingly took Skipper to the emergency vet where Our Free Cat was given steroids to stimulate his appetite (he was wasting away) and blood tests (ka-ching$$$$).  Our Free Cat survived, and once he was recovered we had him 'fixed'  (ka-ching$$$).  

We have really loved Our Free Cat.  El Profesor (the one who caused the gravel rain on that blustery November day) gently cradles Skipper when he retrieves him off Ten's bed late at night.  He holds and pets Skipper and asks me to get him flea stuff (ka-ching$$$).  Then, there was last night.  (Remember the part about balking at extensive vet care?)  We were out for a walk when Thirteen found Skipper limping and bleeding.  His back leg had what looked like a bite wound.   (I was kicking myself for not getting around to vaccinating the cat--I keep meaning to get him a rabies shot, and that cat-leukemia-whatchma-call-it shot.)  We loaded up a quilt, a box and Our Free Cat and headed for the emergency animal hospital.  The wound turned out to be an impalement injury (thank goodness--no rabies threat) from jumping or falling onto something sharp and Our Free Cat had two staples, two bottles of antibiotics and a bottle of kitty pain killer (ka-ching$$$).   In a few weeks, I have to take Our Free Cat to our regular vet to get the staples removed (ka-ching$$$).  Then, we plan to get those vaccines done (ka-ching$$$) and some flea treatments (ka-ching$$$).  

The only really frugal thing about Our Free Cat is that he LOVES the cheap Friskies in the gigant-o bags from Costco (remember that expensive Iams I was feeding him??) and Friskies was on the list of pet foods that didn't have to be recalled in the tainting scare when Our Free Cat first became a little spendy.  As for his name, Skipper, with all of his crazy antics and silly behavior, maybe we should have called him 'Gilligan'. 

Defrosting...spaving....and, Aaah

The trickle of the freezer snowpack

This morning the sun came out and I was ready to take on some much needed homemaking tasks.  After a week of cold, gray and my general sense of 'blah', I shortened our school day, rolled up the garage door and set about defrosting the deep freezer and cleaning out the car.  The real estate in the deep freezer has been shrinking from the ice encroachment while the space in the car has undergone major junk encroachment.  With the car cleaned out and the freezer snowpack melting in the ever-warming garage, I was ready to move on to some serious 'spaving'.  

Spaving.  My hilarious twin imparted that term to me recently.  Spend to save--'spaving'.  I am definately a spaver.  My mom was a frugal grocery shopper.  She would take us shopping in a  grocery warehouse (I think a Waremart-Winco ancestor) where you pulled a pallet shopping cart around and wrote the prices on the can lids with a black grease pencil.  Then, there's the autumn attic  in Little House In The Big Woods 'fairly bursting' with drying herbs, pumpkins and other stores of food that always incites my romantic inner pioneer.  Some spavings of the day included #10 cans of refried beans (a serious quantity--I make ahead piles of burritos and freeze them for quick grab lunches or just freeze the beans in smaller quanitities) and a big bag of Bob's Red Mill whole wheat flour (I freeze that, too--Pantry moths!!  Have yet to solve that problem.  What are they in???)

A fascinating observance in my spaving today is the recent run on rice.  The rice shelves at Cash and Carry (United Grocers bulk place) were empty.  The rice shelves and bulk bins at Winco, empty.  Grains of rice remained on the shelves like the spillings of a feeding frenzy.  I like to keep some bags rice on hand in the freezer (pesky moths have driven them from the pantry).  Just out of curiousity, we checked Albertson's--they had a lot of rice--no one spaves at Albertson's.  :-)

Back to the weather....as I cleaned and tasked about the driveway I noticed the buzzing.  The cherry tree, still awash in snow white blossoms despite a week of pelting hail, was audible with the chorus of hundreds of bees busying themselves in the long-needed sunshine.  

Ah-h. Come June there'll be cherries.  

Can you see the pollen baskets on the bees?

$21

One of the challenges for me, homeschool mom/homemaker/cook/maid/etc., is keeping the food budget (we really SHOULD have one) reasonable.  This 'challenge' stems partially from the fact that neither my husband or myself are super dedicated organizer/bookkeeper types and groceries/supplies are consumables that somehow seem to eat money differently than, say, a new lamp would.   What I mean by the lamp plays out something like this....when Miss Almost 10 was potty training years ago I took her to the store to buy some 'big girl underwear'.  As I stood in the undies aisle agonizing over prices, an awareness of my ridiculous thinking came to light.   I knew where to find the best value on my preferred brand of diapers, and two packages would equal the cost of a 12 pack of undies I was considering.  The ridiculous part was that I wouldn't bat an eye over spending that much on the diapers I was going to throw away--the diapers weren't a thing.  Yet here, on the cusp of buying a thing (mind you, this thing would replace the money draining diapers) I was agonizing over cost.  Somehow, in my thinking, the cost of food/household consumables gets some kind of pardon as these don't register on my thing radar.  I am not buying something I am going to own.  With an awareness of this thinking, I am trying to manage our spending on consumables.

A few weeks ago on The Today Show two household spending specialists were featured in a contest.  They were given a specific amount of money to spend on groceries and their hauls were compared side by side on tables.   The second contestant did a fabulous, although labor intensive, job as she is a coupon clipper/printer/user.  What I appreciated about her purchases were she purchased healthy items, including much fresh produce.  The first contestant on the other hand, purchased several items at the Dollar Store, hotdogs, etc. Several of his purchases registered on the front of what we, in our household, consider to be 'things that aren't really food'.  Things like instant Mac 'n Cheese (not sure if he had any of those) may fill your belly for awhile without really feeding you.  

We have a large, deep freezer in our garage which is a helpful tool in my quest to manage our consumable spending.  One of the consumables I store up is bread from our local bakery outlet.  I lose my enthusiasm for baking our bread in the mix of a busy homeschool life and I have found a few good varieties of bread at the outlet.  I spent some time there one day reading labels and I have my favorites--there is one brand that forgoes the popular use of high fructose corn syrup.  On a recent trip this was my $21 haul....(and for every $5  you get to choose a free item!)