Monster in the Making

I wanted to make sure that the chicken tractor I was building would not fall apart, the frame is pressure treated wood, the bottom part of the frame I used 2"x6"x 12' pieces for the long sides...I originally planned to make it more like a sled so that I could pull it to different areas.  It really ended up being too heavy for that, so we decided to put wheels on it...I ordered some 10" never flat wheels thinking I could make the chicken tractor something like a wheel barrow...using handles to lift and move it, but...my husband built the door on the front in a way that it was not possible.  The chicken tractor is six feet tall at the tallest point, 4 feet wide and 12 feet long.  The coop section is built 2 feet off of the ground and is about 4 feet square with the roof at a slant so water drains off toward the back.  I changed up my plans and modified the design a few times, part at my husbands urging...partly because I had only an outside view drawn and forgot a few things.  Hey, I had never built anything like this before...and sometimes you have to be flexible.

I made the sides first, 2"x4"'s for the main parts of the frame, 2"x2" for the stays to staple the wire mesh for support.

We used what we thought we pressure treated plywood on the coop section, but I think part of it was regular plywood, I have not painted it because I thought it was pressure treated...I will have to do something about it soon.  We used 3/4 inch plywood on the bottom of the coop and I think 1/2 inch plywood on the sides trimmed with cedar we had to because the door was warped and the additional wood straightened it out.  We used vinyl flooring inside of the coop and nest boxes, but I got a plastic tray that I can remove to make it easier to clean.  I believe it is for an extra large dog crate.

When you build a coop or tractor, you have to have plenty of access to all areas.  You need to be able to get to the food and water easily, you need to make it easy to clean out...chickens poop ALOT, chickens like to roost when they sleep...I thought they slept in the nest boxes, nope.  You also need to be able to get to your chickens if they are hurt or sick.  You also need to protect them from harm, they dig...and so do dogs, so it is a good idea to use a sturdy wire mesh instead of chicken wire.  I used 1/4" mesh on the sides of the chicken tractor, because I have dogs...and I didn't want them getting ahold of the chicken by the toe and biting off parts or pulling them out of the holes.  In hind site I wish I had used 1/2" square mesh so grasshoppers could get in the tractor easier and if I wanted to throw mealworms or scratch grains in I could.  We used 2"x4" welded wire fencing on the bottom of the chicken tractor, so nothing can dig up underneath and have a chicken dinner.

In Texas, we have very hot summers.  We wanted to try and give the chickens plenty of shade and didn't want a metal roof on the coop part.  We used something called Ondura, it is a lighter weight roofing material that does not transfer heat...or so it says on the coop roof.  We had some leftover smoke polycarbonate that we used on top of the chicken run to protect them from too much sun and the rain.  I have heard that chickens can drown from standing in the rain...I am not sure about that, but better safe than sorry.  I don't want to contribute to any chickens death because we didn't build something properly.

To Build or Not to Build?

We knew we wanted to raise chickens, but...well...we didn't know a thing about them.  I mean, other than my next door neighbor having a few in her backyard when I was a kid I had not seen chickens except at the stock show.  So we had to do some research and figure out things like a coop, what kind of chickens would be good in the Texas heat and humidity, what to feed them, how many we wanted to try to raise, should we raise them from chicks or just get adults, what about heat lamps and brooders?  How many should we get to start with?  What kind of chickens would be good for egg laying?  We really didn't want them for meat, not yet anyway...we wanted to make sure we could handle a few before we got too envolved in chickens, what if we were bad at taking care of them or the dogs ate them?  We also needed to figure out where in the world to get chickens.

We read a lot about chickens and coops trying to figure out the best coop to build or buy. I read about a variety of chicken breeds trying to find good breeds that could handle the hot weather of a Texas Summer and the cold we have in some of our Winters.  I didn't want chickens to die from heat stroke or freeze to death on my watch.  I looked into getting chickens on line, but it didn't seem like a nice thing to do to them...mailing them in the heat of summer?  I figured we are in the country we should be able to find some chickens close to us for sale.  My husband put me in charge of animals...and their housing.
So I got to work figuring out a plan for a chicken tractor/coop...he did some research and told me that chicken tractors were healthier for the chickens, you can move them to fresh areas so the chickens can forage for food and it cuts back on feed costs.  It also helps improve the soil by fertilizing it naturally and they turn the soil by scratching and eat the grubs and other insects that might otherwise eat crops or flowers.

First I looked on line at chicken tractors and coops to see how much they cost, and how big of a coop would hold 6 chickens?  They are expensive and most of the reviews for the less expensive coops and tractors were not good, they fell apart quickly...I figured if I built my own, it would be sturdy and last longer.  I didn't figure it would be that hard to do, I could use tools...I just needed a plan and to figure out the materials.  I read a lot, height requirements so they could flap their wings, how high a roost needs to be, access doors for cleaning and retrieving eggs, that chickens are pretty stupid...and would stand in the rain and drown sometimes.  What kinds of materials are dangerous for chickens, how to build a ramp to access the coop, nest boxes and how many and the size, and more.

So, I found a picture of a chicken coop that I liked and I modified it a little and tried to come up with a materials list.  I ordered a few things on line and then my husband and I made the drive to Texarkana for wood, roofing and hardware like hinges and galvanized hammer in staples.  Little did we realize how many trips we would make to get more wood...

Some of the materials for the chicken tractor

I started on the chicken tractor and things sort of evolved, so that we could have a bit better access to clean and to keep the floor from rotting.  We wanted to use pressure treated wood but when my husband went to get plywood he came back with other than pressure treated wood and some of it was too thin.  We needed to protect the chickens from coyotes with this coop.

One side with the wire on it, I decided to use 1/4 x 1/4" wage wire instead of chicken wire.

Our To Do or Wish List...

We really would like to build a storm shelter/root cellar, produce at least half of our food from a large garden, have enough solar and or wind energy that if our regular power goes out we can still have electricity, fence our property so that the dogs can run around on it without going on to other people's land, raise enough chickens that we have meat and eggs from them, raise a goat or three for milk to make cheese, build a goat pen and shelter, build a large chicken coop and fence off a free-range area for them.  We would like to plant a multi-fruit orchard and vineyard, have a large herb garden, plant pecan trees or other nut bearing trees and flowers to attract bees.  I want to build a top bar hive and raise bees...of course a lot of this will be way in the future and I will have to learn how to do much of this.

Our house actually needs more work too, we painted the whole house, but...it needs a lot of touch up work done.  I would like to replace most of the ceiling fans and light fixtures. We have bare bulb fixtures in the closets that have light, and there are two closets that need lighting.  Some of the light fixtures have one bulb capability for a large room and they need two to three lights, the rooms seem really dark even with the light on.  There are some walls that could use electrical outlets, we have had to run extension cords to plug in lights or a TV, and we need electrical to the sheds.  The kitchen pantry needs to be expanded, I am not sure what they were thinking when they built it, the good news is that  the room next to it has a weird area that we could expand into...it may have been for a desk or bookshelf, but it is behind the door when you walk into the room.  We need more plumbing work done, to what extent I am not sure...I don't know why they used irrigation pipes for the plumbing when they built the house, but I do know you have to run the water for awhile before it tastes decent.  So, we will have to do something about that eventually...right now we filter our water.

We still need to level the cabinets in the kitchen and attach the countertop to them.  We need to level the range after that.  We need to re plumb the dishwasher and patch the wall behind the dishwasher and the kitchen sink.  Get two more toilets bolted down, they tend to move.

We want to redo all three of the bathrooms, we can use them, they are functional...but they all have issues.  We would like to change out the spa tub in the Master Bath and walls to a large walk in shower, it is just so big and doesn't work right anyway...it would be nice if the bathroom was larger too, and two sinks would be nice.  I would love to replace the flooring in the bathrooms, and change the bathtub and shower combination in a guest bath to something a bit nicer, same in the other bathroom...I am not liking the fiberglass or acrylic that is in there, it must have been damaged and they patched it, when I cleaned it, chunks came out of the bottom and I can see cracks.  This is a partial list, but it is things we have discussed...just need the money to do the projects and time.

The big ugly tub/shower combination in the master bathroom...it needs to go!

Preparing For Storms

Multiple people told us that sometimes when it stormed and was windy, a lot of trees would fall and the power may be out for several days at a time.  We have a lot of trees out here in the Piney Woods, we are also in tornado alley.  We were in tornado ally in Dallas too...but, the trees in our yard were small and the power lines were under ground.

We are in the country, in a rural area if anything happened we would be on our own for awhile.  In Dallas we were subject to rolling blackouts during the summer at times, we thought it might be good to get prepared for the possibility of being without electricity for awhile.  We bought a generator so that we could have power for the fridge/freezer and lights.  We also have electric for our heat, but we have hookups for propane heat, so we bought a propane heater in case it goes out in the winter.  Crew also wanted some solar power, we thought we could get in on rebate programs or get in on special deals...those types of things are not available to rural areas like they are in large Metroplexes.  But I will get to that later...the solar project.

When we moved in and started cleaning up the yard, we found a bunch of gutters laying out back almost buried by pine needles and dirt.  We had some pretty bad storms and had discovered that the drainage was not good around the house...we needed to install the gutters.  We had some issues though, we found a bag of brackets but no fasteners to put them up with.We had to figure out what to use.  Normally...with a normal house screws or nails would work, but we have a metal house, so we had to do some research.  We tried calling the number on our building, but the lady that answered could not answer the question, and we left our number but no one ever called us back. Finally my son found some information about using pop rivets.  So now we needed the equipment to attach the gutters.  I order a lot of things on line these days, so I started looking for a pop-riveter and rivets too.  It didn't take but a few days for them to arrive.  Trying to get them attached to the house was another story...they are on, but they are not exactly on straight.  Crew and I worked on them for a few days and we couldn't put one section up because there was no real way to attach it to the house.

The back porch after screening and getting the gutters put up with gravel put down for drainage

We had storms that made the Gazebo lean way over so we had to basically strap it down, it rained so hard a few times that the water gushed over the tops of the gutters and made  deep indentations and holes in the ground around the house.  We have bought a number of bags of gravel to fill in the holes and to help with drainage, but one of these days we may have to put in some French drains to move the water away from the house better.  It is not uncommon to get 4 inches of rain in a day.  We have had up to 8 inches in a 24 hour period.  We have very sandy soil so it washes away easily. 

Fall and Winter are the rainy season in this part of Texas, or so we are told.  We have had a lot of rain.  This Summer our pond lost at least 2/3 of the water if not more...we could walk across the center of it and not get wet, we actually were afraid that the fish might die if we didn't get rain soon.  We didn't have to wait to long after we became concerned though we got the 8 inches of rain, and a few days after we received 4 more inches of rain...the pond filled up and the creek left its banks.  I actually had a river running at the edge of our cleared area that we call the back yard.  We have been fortunate that we have not had to much bad weather, although we have lost power several times the longest outage so far has been 20 minutes.

We really want to build a storm shelter, but our metal house is suppose to be able to withstand 160 mile an hour winds...so for now, we will work on other projects.

Storm clouds rolling in from the South

And Then There Were Two

We had a number of people stop by the house and introduce themselves, invite us to church, invite us to functions, we appreciated their taking time to stop and welcome us, but we had so much we needed to do, we just kept on working.  We had the owners Ex-wife stop by, it was not good...she said it was her house. It happened several times, she wanted to come in and show her boyfriend "her house", we didn't let her in.  The man who dug the pond and did work on the septic system stopped by...we had questions, he didn't remember much about the septic, other than it needed work, they hadn't done it right.

We had the lady who moved out, who we were told rented the house stop by...she told us she did a lot of work on the pond and stocked it.  She was going to buy it, but they gave her 30 days to come up with the money or get out.  She was not happy about that at all, but we didn't know anything about it.  She saw Kensie (Dog#1) and said she had one hanging around her house, that she had been feeding, about the same size and color...could we take it?  She said she couldn't keep it, it was too big and her husband wouldn't let her have a dog that big...she already had two.  We had been thinking about getting a companion for Kensie and this dog was free.  I followed her down to her house...which was actually a small FEMA trailer.  She had bought land about two miles from our house, on the same street with a much bigger pond. She was saving to build a house...but now I knew why she couldn't keep the dog.  She called her "Baby", she was very thin but had lots of energy, almost white, and very friendly.  I scooped her up in my arms, put her in my truck  and took her home.  We decided to call her Bailee, she and Kensie were almost identical in size and age.

Bailee, we found out was not housebroken, but she was a quick learner.  She was hungry and thirsty, she was a bit wild and use to being an outside dog.  It was really hot outside at that time, she became an inside dog pretty quickly and Kensie had someone about the same age to play with while we continued to work on the house and the yard.  We kinda of figured she had never had any shots or been fixed, when I took her to the vet and got her shots they said they couldn't tell if she had been fixed and they thought she was still very young.  We could wait and see if she went into heet and we would know for sure.  Bailee would get into the street, she would wander off and be gone for long periods...we got a training collar to help her learn commands and boundaries.  It has tones for being good, a warning, and different levels of shock for when she was doing something she should not be doing.  She learned very quickly, and we rarely ever had to use the shock feature.  Now, we can put the collar on her and she just behaves, she knows what it is.  We used it on Kensie too...and when they are within hearing distance of each other when we press the warning tone, they both come running.

Bailee our Catahoula  on the left, Kensie our Lab on the right

Bailee, we found out through research, is at least part Chatahoula Cur, possibly a ghost variety.  Bailee has a lot of black spots on her skin and faint black spots on her coat, she has gotten a bit darker since we got her.  Chatahoula's are very muscular hunting dogs that in a pack will take down wild boar, their nickname is "Hog Dog".  This was confirmed at the vet.  So, now we have a pair of dogs, similar in size and color.  Kensie is lighter weight, slender and runs like the wind.  Bailee is muscular, thick boned, strong and smart.

More Projects

Crew wired up the "garage" and because it was so hot outside at the time, he didn't want to crawl around in the attic, so for now we are using the electricity from the back porch to light the building.  He also had built the workbenches and shelving units and had started putting all of the garage stuff from the back porch up in an organized manor so that we could actually find things we needed.

Crew working in the "garage"

When the temperature is 100, and the humidity is high, even with the insulation the "garage" is super hot to try and do anything in.  We tried blocking the attic area with pieces of foam insulation, but with no windows there is no ventilation really.  We hope to put a couple of windows in it one of these days.

One of my projects was to re screen the back porch.  The back porch is 12 feet deep and the screened section is 25 feet long.  First I had to try and power wash the porch, it was framed with pressure treated wood, but there was actually moss growing all over it.  Our cats like to be outside and we wanted to be able to let them out there, and right at that moment there were a lot of holes they could escape out of...and a lot of trash and old building materials.  We had not found a trash service and Crew had been burning some trash, but a lot could not be burned.  

The screened porch before being redone

We had to hire someone to haul all the old flooring and remodeling trash off for us, someone had also dropped off a lot of trash on the back porch.  After all of the Junk was gone I got to work on the porch. We tried to use materials we already had so I ended up screening the front part more than once.  For the bottom section of the porch I used sunshade fabric, I had it hanging on the gazebo at the Dallas house like curtains.  The top section I used regular black screening that I had gotten to cover my plants so that birds would not eat my raspberries and blackberries.  First I had to remove the old screen, the wood lattice and fifty million nails and staples.  I pressure washed the wood, but it looked bad still so I used bleach water and a scrub brush and a lot of elbow grease and cleaned the wood until it was practically white.  Too bad I had to re screen this section again...but I got a lot of practice after Kensie tore holes through the top screen in pretty much every section.  I re screened the top with pet screen the second time...no breakthroughs yet, so the moral to the story is, if you have a dog that jumps...and a screened porch, make the investment for pet screen so you don't have to redo yours a second time!

We need a garage!

One of the bad aspects of moving from the 1500 square foot house in Dallas to the 2400 square foot Country house was that it had no garage.  We really needed a garage.  We used the Tuff shed for all of the stuff from our storage units and the attic.  Well we used it for a lot of stuff, but we ran out of room.  I had a lot of things in the garage in Dallas.  I had my workbench set up for doing stained glass, I had a lot of my crafting items out there too, and tools that I used.  I had purchased quite a few tools to make my life easier when making repairs and building things...and then I built a workbench, I also had rescued a glass top desk I wanted to use as a light table for the stained glass, and I wanted to learn soldering to make jewelry and was in the process for acquiring tools for that too.

We had a storage area that we put my workbench and some of my tools and glass, it was also the storage room that we put the water heater in, and some shelving, and paint, and tools, and camping equipment and wood, and of course the lawn equipment for ease of use.  It is full of different stuff, there is more...just know that it is full, and if you need much out of there you have to pretty much unload it to get to things on the shelves.  Our last load from the U-Haul was also sitting on the back porch.  The back porch is covered and screened in (sort of) but the humidity is high and we needed to have somewhere dry to store things and to work on projects.  We knew the date we were suppose to sign the papers on the other house, so we went shopping for our "garage".

We looked at Home Depot and Lowes in Texarkana at buildings, and we looked at several road side spots that sold different styles and sizes of buildings.  We weren't real happy with the people at Tuff Shed, so we thought we would try someone different.  We ended up getting a pre-constructed wooden building because the metal buildings required a slab to sit on, we didn't have a slab where my husband wanted the building and it was not level either.  The place we ordered the building from said they would level the building when they dropped it off.  I think it was about two weeks later that they brought the building out, and we had room for the garage type items.  But, Crew wanted to put insulation in the building and we needed stairs to get into it...we headed to Lowe's for supplies.

Our Garage/Shop...a work in progress

Crew wanted lights too, and shelving, this was Crew's project...I helped, but I had projects of my own...I had shelves to line, boxes to unpack, hardware to install.  Crew got foam board insulation, it required cutting...it was funny seeing him with all those styrofoam beads stuck to him

Putting the Dallas House on the Market

At the Dallas house we had replaced the complete heating and cooling system, the water heater, a valve in the shower, all of the windows that had lost the seal, all of the sills on those windows, I had already replaced most of the light fixtures, a new kitchen faucet and garbage disposal, the toilets had been replaced with low water usage "right height" will flush a bucket of golf ball toilets, we had put fresh paint throughout the house, painted the gazebo over the back porch, and cleaned up the spa and put new pads on it...plus all of the landscaping I had done.  We had replaced the carpet in the living room with Brazilian Cherry hardwood and the Master bedroom door was replaced with a steel door for security and was insulated so the room was quieter when someone was watching TV.  We had plantation blinds on the windows and room darkening insulated curtains on the tallest of windows (102 inch curtains we didn't need in the country). We had built an 8'x10' shed in the back yard that met the homeowners association specs.  I left my composter and my raised beds full of herbs, and the garden was ready to plant on the side of the house.

The house we were leaving was better than new, everything we had done was upgraded from the builders versions.  Oh, and we had replaced the ice maker and the thermostat on the oven which we were leaving for the new owner.  I had also laid a bunch of decking in the attic to get to the fireplace, when Crew was in Afghanistan we had record high temperatures and there had been a lot of very loud popping noises going on up there.  I had gotten the home warranty people out there on that too and made them work on it, we actually had a board poke up through the roof...sort of.  They got tired of me calling and complaining and the guy actually told me to stop calling him, the boards twisting and warping was an act of god and he would not fix anything else.  I went in the attic and made repairs and secured things I thought needed securing with screws...oh and I fixed a bunch of nail pops in the master bedroom ceiling when I painted...they did not even use the right kind of nails to put the Sheetrock up!  I read the home warranty paperwork nail pops were not covered.  I fixed it with sheet rock screws after pulling out all the nails that kept popping through the plaster.

Needless to say, we sunk a lot of money into upgrades and repairs and we knew that we would not get what we put into the house out of it.  I watch a lot of HGTV so I knew what we needed to do to get it sold and we were tired of making payments on both places.

Crew went out by himself and did the floors at the Dallas house, cleaned up the floors in the garage and mopped the tile floors.  We had settled on a listing price with the realtor and given her the key.  We got a call soon after that from our Realty company that our neighbor reported a sprinkler head was shooting water up in the air in the backyard.  One more thing we had to fix...that and the spa!  We still had to replace the parts on the spa.  We got the realtor to go by and turn off the sprinkler system until we could get someone out to repair it.  Crew had to go out and replace the part on the spa and he took his bag of sprinkler parts to see if he could make the repair.  Neither worked.

We had the spa on the listing for the house, so we had to fix it or remove the spa...and I called our lawn company to make the sprinkler repair.  The first day we put the house on the market, we received two offers on it and accepted one of those.  But, we still had to make payments and repairs until the house papers were signed.  The listing remained active until then and there were a number of showings until paperwork was done.  We explained to the buyer that the spa was not working and we would have it removed...thank goodness she just said it was fine to leave it, we really didn't want to pay to have it hauled off.  In the end, we didn't even get what we actually paid for the house...sad, but we could not keep paying two of everything.  If the sale fell through, we had additional buyers interested...but, we were almost done and all we had to do is wait for the closing.

The Third and Last U-Haul

We really needed to get the Dallas House on the Market, all this time we have been making two house payments and paying two sets of utilities...the sooner we can sell the Dallas house the better!  We had a feeling it would sell quickly once we put it on the market, we just needed to get the remaining stuff loaded up for the trip back to the country.  This time we were bringing the 3 cats back with us too.  Once we do that, we won't have anyone to take care of them in the country.

We got another surprise when we got to the house in Dallas...the floor in the laundry room is wet.  The wall is also wet...not good, not good at all.  I called Mark to see if he could come fix it, he would come out as soon as he could.  We had a Realtor coming out to look at the house and discuss getting it on the market for sale, we needed it fixed before she came out. 

Mark ended up having to replace the faucet in the laundry room and had to cut into the wall to do it, it had a leak and all the Sheetrock was squishy.  We wanted the house to be perfect when we put it on the market or at least close to it.  He got the faucet and Sheetrock replaced before the realtor got there, but still needed to texture the wall so I could paint.  We just told her what was going on and it would be ready for her to take pictures for our listing in a few days.  That wasn't the only thing wrong though...Crew went to check the spa and we had some kind of yellow algae growing in it.  He put chemicals in it to clean it, and the spa wouldn't come on!  Mark took a look at that for us too...told us what it could be so we could get the parts...oh and we had already replaced the heater on it too, we had noticed it wasn't working on one of our previous trips.

I dug up the herbs and put them in pots to take to the country house, but Crew thought they would be a selling feature and I ended up replanting them.  We worked on the yard, mowed and weeded, cleaned the floor in the shed and put everything we were taking in the garage to get an idea of the size truck we needed.  I cleaned while Crew moved items to the garage.  We were ready for the realtor, well except the laundry room...I couldn't paint until the texturing was dry.  The Realtor came and was very impressed at the condition of the house, she wanted keys right then but we needed a couple more days and told her we would drop them by the office on our way out of town after we cleaned.  We still needed to clean the carpet and tile floors, but we wanted all the animals out first.  She made a few suggestions having to do with the yard and garden beds.  I actually made labels for all of the plants and flowers with the names of the plants and colors of flowers when they bloomed, we put fresh mulch in a few beds and hired someone to take care of the yard while the house was being shown.  She suggested a list price for the house and we argued with her over it, it was not enough...a matter of fact it pissed us off.  She said she would walk the neighborhood and get comps and see if what we wanted to list it for would be appropriate.  

We stayed another night, I reserved a U-Haul and Crew went and got us something to eat while I painted the wall in the laundry room.  In the morning I got up early, put another coat of paint on the wall in the laundry room and we left to get our last U-Haul truck.  All in all we got 3 U-Hauls, the biggest they had and moved bit by bit along with the pickup bed full every time we drove to the country house.  Since we had everything in the garage packing up the truck was not quite as bad.  At least this time we were getting an earlier start back to the country...and this time we had Kensie and our 3 cats.  Crew had two of the cats in the U-Haul and I had our cat Prada and Kensie with me in the pickup truck.  Prada likes to talk, and she talked almost non-stop the whole trip...I had her carrier on the seat next to me and I finally set it on the floor and she settled down.  We were on our way to our new home in the country with the remainder of our household goods.

My First Country Garden

We decided to stay at the country house for a few days before heading back to Dallas.  We needed to finish getting items out of the yard and make a few decisions on what to take and what to leave.  I had herbs growing in my raised beds in Dallas, onions, strawberries and plants I thought about digging up part of to transplant.

We took the rain barrels from the Dallas house and all the cinder blocks they were sitting on...I decided to use them for a raised bed garden at our country house.  We needed to make a trip to the store for some garden soil and veggie plants.  It was kind of late to be starting a garden, but we did it anyway.  Crew went and got some things for one of his house projects and I asked him to get a few more cinder blocks and garden soil.  After I got the bed dug up and the soil amended I was ready for plants.  We went to Texarkana to  visit Home Depot and Lowes.  We got a variety of tomatoes, some melons, cucumbers, and peppers.  I had brought my Blackberries, Raspberries and a few other potted plants with us already.

Our dog Kensie tried to help me plant the veggies, she kept digging in the garden so I knew a fence around the garden would be required.  We didn't get any fencing at Home Depot so I used what I had laying around that we had brought from the house in Dallas.  I had picked a level spot in the back of spot where the gazebo sat.  There may have been a garden back there before, I am not sure...the soil was pretty black and looked pretty good when I dug the grass out for my raised bed.  There was a faucet close by so that I could water when I needed to and room to expand the garden when I had more time.  In Texas, you also want some shade during the day in the summer when it is hot...or the plants will burn up.  I was surprised at how quickly everything grew.

My first garden at our new homestead in the country

This picture was taken a few weeks later, the plants grew very fast and I was shocked...I was going to need a bigger garden!

More Work Needed

We stayed pretty busy the next few days.  We got the truck unloaded of course, but we still had a lot of projects to do while we had the help.  My son Jeremy wanted to learn a bit about repairs while he was here, we had already done a lot of them and I think he was a little disappointed.  There was a lot of work going on during the days, but we would relax at night and got to visit.  I am not sure who all did what at that time.  We had to go pick up the last section of the butcherblock countertop for the kitchen from Lumber Liquidators, Mark wanted to finish up more of the plumbing issues, we wanted to run network wires to the room that we wanted to use as an office, we had a gazebo we really wanted put up...and so much more that we still are not finished with everything today.

The boys really had a hard time drilling into the cement to attach the posts for the gazebo, and went through a ton of bits trying to get it done. There were many trips made to the hardware store trying to find enough of the right kind of bit to get it done.  We love sitting outside when it is nice outside and Crew and I knew it would be hard for the two of us to erect the gazebo by ourselves.  There was also a break in the fence by the cement pad and we needed to fix it so that Kensie could go out and not have to worry about all the dogs that were running free out here.

The boys putting up the gazebo on the 20'x20' cement pad behind the house

Our gazebo is pretty big, but one of these days we know it will need to be replaced...we would like to have a barbecue island out here on the pad and a solid structure to sit under to keep the rain off.  We have lived through a Summer out here now, the Mosquitos are terrible so it will need to be screened in if we want to stop wearing so much bug spray.  We had some black iron fencing that we used as a temporary fix to get out to the gazebo, it just sticks in the ground with stakes, but we had it around the gazebo at the Dallas house to keep the dogs off the porch...this was to keep Kensie in...and hopefully other dogs out.

The gazebo after it was completed and the fence was up...and we took care of the grass.

The Gangs all Here!

One more time, we drove from Dallas to Bivins...Crew drove the big truck, I drove our truck and everyone else would be coming to the house in the morning to unload.  We got a later start than we wanted to, we didn't get on the road until almost eight at night which meant that we wouldn't get to Bivins until around 11:00pm.  I was not looking forward to driving that late at night, but I was really not looking forward to how dark the roads would be when we got off of the highway and onto the Farm to Market Roads.  There are a lot of deer on country roads and I was afraid I might hit one.

I followed Crew in the U-Haul for the first hour of driving towards Bivins, I was tired and just wanted to make it to the house.  He had told me he was going to stop for gas and where, I had filled up the pickup truck when we went to pick up the U-Haul and decided to go on ahead of him.  He was not able to drive as fast in the fully loaded truck, so he fell behind.  I picked up speed and a while later he called me and asked where I was.  I wasn't too far ahead of him at that point.  We talked a couple more times during the drive, just to see where each other were and to make sure everything was going OK.  The further East we got, I started noticing foggy patches and it got more and more dense as I got closer to Bivins.  I slowed down to a crawl, then I called Crew to warn him about the heavy fog...thank goodness for Siri and hands free calls!  I finally got to use my "smart phone" to it's full capability on that trip.

I made it to the house about 15 minutes before Crew, I got Kensie out of the truck and went into the dark house.  It was scary entering the house without Crew, I was glad I had Kensie with me.  I felt better after I turned on lights in several rooms.  I went back out and started unloading the pickup.  Crew pulled up shortly after that and we just finished unloading the pickup, we would unload the U-Haul when the kids got there in the morning.

Mark was the first one to show up in Bivins, I think Crew and I were drinking coffee and eating cereal.  He actually got there earlier than I thought he would.  We tried to get the U-Haul in position, in front of the front door...and ended up running over a tree.  We ended up cutting the tree down because it was caught under the truck.  Mitch, Megan and Jeremy showed up soon after the truck was in position.  Once everyone got a bit settled, the fun of unloading the truck began.  I mostly directed where things went.  We had to get things in the house and the beds had to be set up so that everyone would have a place to sleep.  I think Mark had a little more to do to get the water heater on line too.

We had already moved a lot of boxes and I had unpacked a lot of stuff for the kitchen, so we could cook and had sheets and towels enough for everyone to get cleaned up.  It was good to have my kids in one place again.  It was nice seeing their smiling faces in my house, it had been a very long time since we were all together...I was going to have them for a few days at least.

Sun rise in the Piney Woods

Getting Moved to the Country

Crew had an interview and he was going back to Afghanistan to work.  I told him he couldn't leave until we got moved and all the electronics were hooked up.  But, his going back to work in Afghanistan would allow us to do the renovations we wanted to do.

We went and got another truck from U-Haul, Mark and a couple of his buddies came to help us load the truck, My son Jeremy was coming to help us from California and my son Mitch was picking him up at the airport and coming out to the country to stay awhile. We still had the garage and the shed in the backyard to pack up.  We had been boxing up things and taking them to the country house and bringing the boxes back to fill up again.  When you reuse boxes so many times and cross out what was in the box before it can be a little confusing as to what is really in the box if someone just turns it over without marking through the previous contents.  Mark's wife, Mindie, and Mitch's wife Megan helped pack too.  All of them were driving out to the country house and helping unload and help with whatever they could to whip the house into shape.

At this time, our three cats were still at the house in Dallas.  We had Sara taking care of them and we would get them on our next trip.  We had set up the air mattress to use at the Dallas house and left some bathroom items and kitchen items to use while we finished painting and cleaning, getting ready to put that house on the market to sell. 

Basically the setup we had at the country house was being moved to the Dallas house to be used to complete everything there.  We weren't leaving a TV at the Dallas house, we figured we could live without it for a few days of cleaning and paint touch up.  We used boxes instead of the table too.  It was almost like camping out.

Our lawn chair set up at the country house after we had the flooring and the new rug came in.

Plumbing issues

My surrogate son Mark was able to come out to the country house and help us for a week, that is when we learned of more plumbing issues than just the water heater being to small.  The master bath has a huge whirlpool tub in it, the surround for it is that fake tile particle board paneling stuff.  It is old and crumbling, we had been using a different bathroom that just has a standup shower in it, but after we had carpet we tried to use the master bath.  We had to make some repairs, so we could use it.  I scraped all of the old caulking off and there was a very large gap that ran the length of the long side of the tub.  This tub is four feet wide and six feet long!  Anyway, it took me two days to clean that bathroom, remove all the old caulk and reapply the caulk.  I had to put caulking on the shower walls too.  I figured it would be a temporary fix, but at least there would be more room.

Crew and Mark were working on installing the new water heater.  Because we live in a metal house with a low pitch roof and the water heater is in the attic...it had to fit in the attic space.  The water heater we purchased did not.  The solution was to put it in a room in the house or in the storage area off the back porch.  We ended up having Mark put it into the storage area, which was going to be my stained glass studio.  Well, I guess it could still be, but there isn't enough electricity out there.  Anyway, adding the water heater to the existing system required additional supplies, Crew and Mark made a trip to Texarkana to get all that was needed to re plumb everything and electrical things to hook it up. We have a True Value Hardware within 10 miles and a TriCo not too much further, but they couldn't get everything needed there.  Because of the size of the house, adding the 55 gallon water heater in with the 25 gallon water heater made since.  With the idea that if we had the family out all at once, there would be enough hot water for showers, laundry and washing dishes all at once.  Mark also put in a recirculating system so It wouldn't take as long to get hot water to the bathrooms and kitchen.

Mark also discovered that we had no shutoff valves, that none of the toilets are bolted down, that the kitchen sink and dish washer are tied into the same drain for the sink and shower in the bathroom next to it and that runs up hill...no wonder the shower fills with water sometimes when you run a lot of water in the kitchen sink, the dishwasher area is not plumbed correctly, the washing machine area was not plumbed properly besides the faucet being rusted...and that we have some irrigation pipes used instead of what should have been used.  Mark got the most important parts completed, so we could use things safely and take showers.  Crew hooked up the new dishwasher, but we mostly just hand wash the dishes.  Mark got one of the toilets attached right, the other two work fine, you just have to be careful sitting down on them and trying to do anything in the bathroom or they will move.  One of these days we will update the bathrooms, we have three...they work, and I did replace the faucet on one so far...I looked at True Value for a replacement for it and discovered that whomever built the house put the cheapest faucets they had at True Value in our house...most of it is chrome colored plastic, and I saw them for less than twenty dollars eight years after they were installed.  I decided on a better brass model with nickel plating and washer free...and the neck long enough that you can wash your hands without hitting your knuckles on the faucet to get to the water.

We decided we want to eventually put in a large standup shower in the Master bath, but in the mean time we will live with what we have, even if it is hideous.

The very large Master Bath Tub

Cleaning Out Storage

We had the Tuff Shed, we had the flooring in, we had a lot packed up, we had been making repairs on both houses.  We cancelled the movers, now we had to figure out how to move everything from Dallas to Bivins.

We had gotten a lot of boxes from U-Haul, we decided to use a U-Haul truck and take it one-way to the house in the country.  We started with the Storage Units, we needed to empty them, I had already given notice but it took awhile to get the Tuff Shed built, we only had a few days left to vacate.  One nice thing was all of my storage unit was still packed up, yep it had been that way for 8 years now, with only furniture items being taken out.  We decided to hire guys to load the truck, we had the truck...but the first set of guys did not show up!  I called and got ahold of more, but they wanted to load up at 9:00 at night!  We had a long drive so that was a no go.  I got a hold of another set of movers, they had a job already but agreed to come help us for a few hours if we could meet them within half an hour at the storage units after I told them what we needed.  

Theses guys were pretty good, they emptied the larger of the two storage sheds in about an hour and forty five minutes.  It was jam packed and had a lot of large items in it.  We needed them to get the large items out of the second unit before they left and they called their next job and told them they would be a little late so they could get the other unit emptied.  They gave us their card and agreed to give us a bid on moving the house, we set up a date for them to come by for a bid...they told us they had a large truck and would charge us half of what the other movers bid.

After the truck was loaded, we went back to the Dallas house and loaded up the back of the pickup truck too, and stuck some of the boxes in the moving truck where we could.  Then we drove to the Country house!  You talk about tired, we unloaded the truck ourselves, we backed it up to the Tuff Shed after the three hour drive and started unloading boxes.  Crew had gotten a piano dolly and somehow we were able to get the huge things out of the truck and into the shed by ourselves.  His shoulder was hurting, my knees were killing me.  He sent me in the house to fix something to eat...we had to get the U-Haul to Texarkana by 8:00am the next morning.  We had to finish unpacking the truck and get it cleaned up by 8:00am or get charged extra.  I think I was going too slow for him, I couldn't go up the stairs very fast because of my knees so I would load up the dolly and move things to the end of the ramp and he would run up and down the stairs.

Crew and I were tired, we talked about the remodeling repairs that night and he thought he would try and get a job in Afghanistan again.  At least that way we would have the money to pay for getting the repairs made, maybe for a tractor and to help pay down if not pay off the mortgage on the country house.  He would be gone for another year, I would be alone in the country...no family or friends around.  I figured this was our dream, I could do it for another year...it would be scary, but...well if he could go back to that hell hole, I could be alone in the country working on the house by myself.

Now for Appliances

My husband and I both cook and we like watching the cooking channel.  We knew that we wanted a big kitchen when we looked at houses.  We wanted a gas stove and a large refridgerator.  We spent time looking for exactly what we wanted, we went to a lot of places and looked at the higher end appliances.  We figured these would have to last a long time and wanted commercial grade, we did not realize how much they actually cost! One of the reasons our budget was low to find a house, is because we looked for a fixer upper.  We wanted a big house with good sized rooms...good bones, and older houses seem to be better made.  

Our house in Sachse was in a "Planned Community", it was a new subdivision when Crew bought the house.  He had the house when I met him.  We watched them build houses all around us, we saw what the construction workers did, the shoddy work, the second rate materials they used for the framing.  When they built the house behind us, we saw the pieced together materials with holes that they covered up with the siding, we saw the top floor collapse one night, because of the poor workmanship.  It was listed for over $300,000 dollars!  Even our house had issues, we had a problem with the air conditioner, it didn't work right, it never did.  I think after the first few years, we had the same exact thing happen 3 years in a row...it went out in the hottest time of Summer.  One time I kept hearing an electrical arcing sound coming from the outside unit, the wires to the fan had fallen and the fan had cut the plastic coating on the wires.  I turned it off and wrapped the wire with electrical tape and zip tied it out of the way.  I wondered if the repairmen did it on purpose, they tried to talk us into a new unit the last time they had come out.  I did not call them again.  

We also had a problem with a huge window at the front of the house, it leaked, the front room was freezing.  I called the home warranty people on a really regular basis for awhile.  The windows were covered, several had lost the seal and they replaced them.  Funny thing was, the front window kept leaking...I kept calling.  They sent a higher up out to work on the window.  They insulated the divider bars thinking it was leaking from condensation, he sprayed the window to check for leaks and water gushed in.  I pulled the blinds up and out of the way and noticed there was a gap at the top and the window looked like it was leaning out!  They had to completely reseat the window, it quit leaking.        That thing they did insulating the middle bar, they did that on all of the double windows...it is something they should have done when they installed the windows.  Do you know that they normally use particle board when they create window sills?  Because of the condensation, I had already ripped out the window sills on each of the double windows and replaced them with primed and painted real wood.  I had the wood for that one too and made them use it.

Oh back to appliances.  We couldn't afford the commercial gourmet appliances we picked out, so I went to Sears and got Kenmore Elite stainless steel.  We have liquid propane, so we had to have the range modified.  At least Sears has a Hometown store in the nearest town and we can get repairs if needed down the line.  We went for a vent a-hood instead of an over the stove microwave.  We would have had to rip out the cabinet above the stove.  We found out there was no venting, we ended up having to run it outside through the wall...that too was a major project.  We got a dishwasher too, I will explain more later on that, it is a whole other story.

Country or Modern?

My husband and I are alike in many ways, while we were working on the house we had to make a lot of decisions.  I thought since the house was in the country, our choices when replacing items and painting should reflect the country style.  Since we had to pay so much in taxes, we had to economize on a lot of our choices, one thing we decided to do was keep the existing cabinets instead of replacing them.  We really wanted to tear the whole kitchen out and start from scratch, but we couldn't afford that now.  We settled on adding to the existing cabinets, finding exact matching put-together-yourself cabinets was not possible.  We found some that were close to the same color and style though.  So we based everything we chose on the cabinet color...well, kind of.

The pot drawers we added and the last section of Walnut Butcherblock

I had found the sink on Overstock.com, we wanted to get one that would last a very long time and decided on this modern style that is 16 gauge stainless steel...not your run of the mill Home Depot sink.

I make soap and planned on canning veggies we grow, I use big pans and one problem with divided sinks is not being able to wash big items with ease.  We also decided not to have a garbage disposal and to start composting more.

Because we had so many wood tones, and the kitchen looked kind of dark, we needed more overhead lighting and task lighting too.  This house apparently was built on a shoestring budget, pretty much everything that is/was in it was the least expensive materials or seconds.  It will take us awhile to replace everything that needs to be replaced, we mainly have done what we felt we had to do so far.

The track light replaced a single light fixture and the under cabinet lights brighten the room for additional task lighting.

Preparation and Flooring!

The day had finally arrived, the flooring installation guys were coming!  We had been at the house in Dallas packing like crazy, Crew really wanted to use a moving company still...I thought the cost was to high, we were packing everything anyway.  Because the installers were coming from Dallas too, we just left early to get to the country house.  We always took a load of boxes and tools with us, and Kensie was older and jumped up into the truck on her own now.  The installers called us while we were driving and gave us an ETA, we had time to stop for lunch at sonic...we always shared with Kensie, she loves tater tots!

We were both in a good mood, we had rested well.  We were ready, Crew had vacuumed the floors real well to make sure it was done before they arrived, we had moved everything into the bedrooms to have the floor clear so they could start right away.  We had moved all the flooring into the office/workout room so they could start in the living room.

What was bad was the unevenness of the floor, the living room was not as bad as the kitchen/dining room, and the office/workout room and craft room, the bedroom at the rear of the house that got laminate and the hallway leading to it was really bad...they started grinding the cement, dust was going everywhere...I went into the master bedroom to work on the window and touch up paint. It was a nice day to have the windows open.  Home Depot only included two bags of leveling cement, they used those and two that I had...they needed more...but out here, it is not something you just go buy...Home Depot is 30+ miles away.  They were able to get the living room and kitchen done and would be back in the morning with more supplies to level the rest, I needed to know a price for the additional work...we wanted the floors level, but we were counting pennies.  I called Home Depot, they promised no more than 1,300 extra dollars.  We charged it, like everything else at this point, but we were running out of credit.  I told her we asked for the military discount and I told I would come in to show my ID, but it was not reflected on the bill.  She said she would have to call me back, she couldn't make any promises.

It took the guys more time than planned to get the work done because of the leveling compound, we got heaters and fans to try and dry it faster.  They asked if they could work on Saturday and we told them yes, we would stay...they ended up coming back for a few hours on Sunday too.  But, after all that...we had floors!  We could move furniture now.  But how?  We couldn't afford to go with the movers any more!  We needed the furniture out of the Dallas house as soon as possible, so that we could get it on the market.

Dusty but we have a floor in the living room!

The kitchen has floor! This was before the countertops, sink or appliances.  We put the Island together ourselves so we could have a place to eat.

Getting Worn Out

You never realize how much goes into remodeling a house or buying a house that needs repairs until you actually do it.  We were driving back and forth too, from Dallas County from our house in Sachse to the country house in Bivins is about a three hour drive if you don't stop for any reason, somewhere around 150 to 160 miles or so.  We had been driving back and forth working on both houses too.  Painting at both houses, packing up one and unpacking at the other and making repairs.  

I was working on the windows at the country house, all of them needed to have the caulking removed and reapplied before we painted them.  I was tired and sore, it was probably not a good time to use anything sharp, but I grabbed a curved knife to cut the old caulking out.  Crew went to town to get something's we needed and he saw what I was doing and told me to be careful before he left.  I was switching between a putty knife and the curved blade and trying to be careful when I hit a nail with the curved knife and it twisted out of my hand and cut my index finger almost to the bone.  I just grabbed paper towels and wrapped it up and ran to the bathroom to inspect the damage.  It was deep, it had cut from the inside tip of my finger over into about a third of my nail and was bleeding pretty good.  I called Crew and asked him to get some butterfly bandages, gauze and tape...I am not sure what was going through his mind, I told him I hit a nail and it twisted out of my hand, I probably needed a stitch or two, but a butterfly bandage would work.  I took a break after that.  I probably got on line and tried to find cabinet knobs or something.  I waited to get back to work until after Crew came back and we bandaged up my finger, he even got finger cots so I could keep it clean or wash my hands without getting it wet.

I switched over to painting baseboards, I could not tell you everything Crew was doing, we worked in different rooms a lot of the time.  We finally got a date for installation of the laminate flooring.  It had to sit a few days before they could install it, it was a lot of boxes of laminate...something like 53 if I remember right.  They were stacked in the living room because I was in what we called the office/workout room with a countertop on top of sawhorses and surrounded by all the baseboards that needed painting.  Crew had been putting decking in the attic so he could run wiring for the computers, speakers and TV stuff...that much I do remember.  He spent quite awhile up there and measuring trying to figure out where the walls could be drilled to run wires.  After the laminate arrived, we decided to go spend a few days at the Dallas house while they were acclimating.  My finger needed to heal up some too.

I had climbed up and down ladders so much the past couple of months my knees would not operate properly, I even had to get a steroid injection in one knee because it hurt so bad.  I had taken to putting a heating pad on my back and both of us rubbed deep heat ointment on all of our aching body parts.  Some nights my hands would not straighten out fully from holding a paintbrush for so long.  Crew and I both started our day with a couple of Aleve for quite awhile too. 

We finally got the call, laminate installation date!

We salvaged all of the baseboards to reuse to save money and only had to totally replace a few.   4 coats of paint with primer later, they looked decent, but I didn't get done with them until the laminate was installed.

The Tuff Shed

When we bought the country house we knew that we were going to have to build or have a building built for storage, a shop and possibly a business.  We tried to get bids on steel buildings similar to our house, but they wanted to do a site survey and at that time we hadn't found our place yet.  We looked at one property in Arkansas that had a really nice shop building, we really liked the land too...the house was a wreck though.  We were trying to find a house with 5 acres and a shop and keep it around the $65,000 range. We didn't really want a mobile home/trailer house.  This was a very old trailer house on a solid foundation that had been added onto.  It had been on the market about a year. We actually liked parts of it, but it needed a lot of work structurally so we passed on it. But we really wanted a shop the size of the shop on this property.

We actually made offers on a few places, but the offers were lower than what the owners were willing to accept.  We found one place in Oklahoma that we really considered, it had multiple out buildings, a large shop with a bathroom and a separate storage area.  We couldn't get into one building because the realtor had no key for it.  We learned that that is a bad thing.  The house was a metal building, we believe that the owner must have done a lot of the work themselves.  There were wires running through the kitchen cabinets, someone had stolen the outside AC unit, the master bathroom was very large, but it had issues...the plumbing was visible, I mean the pipes were on the outside of the walls...and the bathtub and shower were off the floor by at least a foot.  It was like everything was done after the building was erected and they did a really bad job.  We offered half of what they were asking on that one...it would have taken a lot of money to get the plumbing fixed.

Anyway, when we bought this house there were two 20'x20' concrete slabs already poured.  So we figured we could build a shop on one of those.  Even after we bought the country house we couldn't get an estimate on a metal building being site built without a site survey.  But we finally got an idea of the cost of a metal building that we could put together ourselves.  We had so much work to do on the house we started looking at the buildings at the home improvement stores and decided on a Tuff Shed.  We just had them place it on one of the slabs.

You can order a Tuff Shed on line, you can pick out everything windows doors, paint colors, one or two stories...so we did.  They could build it in a couple of days they said...but it was rainy season.  We had problems with this too.  We got a call from the installers a week later, they are on there way...no problem we said, we will be at the house waiting.  They didn't show up on time, actually they had a breakdown and they called and wanted us to come help them or call for a tow or something like that. Heck we didn't know anybody to call...after several conversations and a call to Tuff Shed, they got some help.  At almost dark a truck pulls up and someone starts throwing building parts on the ground and leaves.  It rained that night, we went out and looked at what was there, windows laying in the grass, shingles, some siding.  We called Tuff Shed, everything is wet and scattered all over, we weren't happy...we are worried that the decking may fall apart.

We got a call from the installers, they had to get their truck repaired and then they would be out, they came out and had to unload more wood and siding.  They did get a lot of the frame built, but because they didn't get there until later it was not done.  It rained hard the next day, it was cold..they worked in the rain.  My husband and I were flabbergasted when they started painting in the rain, it just kept washing off and all over the ground, the slab, the driveway.  We called Tuff Shed and complained.  The next day the weather was better.  It took them a week to build the Tuff Shed, they came back out to repaint some areas after we complained.  Crew looked at it when they finished, but after they left and everything dried out we noticed problems with it, they never have fixed them all.  It is two storied, it has stairs, some of the wood is cracked on the stairs, the railing is not attached well, there was a hole in the wall and there are nails that missed the mark in a lot of places, wood that was miss cut and looks too short for it's intended purpose.  But those are my opinions and I am very critical with an eye for details.  I have learned since living out here in the country, you live with bugs, that when you have sandy soil and no grass in spots...dirt and mud will get in the house, and there is nothing you can do about it, there is nothing perfect, and you have to live with functional for a purpose...even if it is ugly...and I am not talking about the Tuff Shed.  I think it looks pretty good.

The Tuff Shed