Chapter 108...I Love Our New Wood Stove & Making Nightstands

Off Grid...Chapter 108 Since it is still cold out, Mike and I will be remodeling the inside of the house. We can be scary when we don't have projects going on so we make new ones I don't know if I told you this but Mike and I have never had luck picking paint colors That's why we usually end up with white..it may be boring but it's safe, lol. As you know from the last story we are got rid of the yellow in our bedroom closet. Now it's time to finish the rest of the room It wasn't a good shade of yellow. We are staying neutral but a little dark. Our new color for the bedroom is Moose Mousse. I have become the cut in queen and Mike does all the rolling. Here I am cutting in the ceiling. Mike doing the rolling. Yay...the yellow is almost gone Our bedroom is now very soothing. I bet we will sleep like babies I have been in contact with the manager at Lowe's. I am trying to find out if they will take the stove back since I really think it is a dud. There really is something wrong with it. They have to check into it because we bought it last August and it is beyond their normal return policy. I figured it can't hurt to try...Mike thinks I'm wasting my time. After a few days I got a call back from a different manager and she asked me for the serial # so she could call the manufacturer. She did that and called me back within an hour and said they would take the stove back for a full refund. Wow...I am so happy and impressed. I'm guessing there really was something wrong with the manufacturing of this stove. Lowe's doesn't even carry them anymore. So now Mike and I have to get into high gear. We want to get it back today so there is no trouble. First Mike gets on the roof and cuts off the caulking around our stove pipe. Back inside we loosen the pipe and take it out of the ceiling. After that Mike's covers our hole in the roof with plastic until we can get our new stove and install it. Next we take off the door to lighten it up and put it on the hand truck. We get it onto the patio and Mike brings down the tractor. We load the stove into the bucket and strap it in. Then Mike backs it up our drive and we load it onto the trailer. One hour from the phone call and we are on our way. We get to Lowe's and a nice young man offers to help Mike get it off the trailer I am very happy about that. Woo hoo...another headache gone. Now we just have to wait for our new stove to be delivered. Back at home. I measured out my boxes and put the string up for the grids in my garden.  Now...it's the long wait to plant Another day and another break in the weather. Woo hoo. Mike and I love when we can work outside. While I mow the back lawn, Mike washes our solar panels. They are really clean but Mike does it anyway. After that we decide to do a small job that we have just neglected to do. We have an electric line that runs from our generator to the underground water tank and spicket. We have been "talking" about burying it for some time. Today is the day and thankfully the digging went very well Mike starts out by digging up the grass so we can bury it. Once he gets it open I start to bury the electric wire and cover it. It almost looks like we didn't do anything at all.....and I don't have to move the wire around when I mow We are still waiting for our stove to be delivered. It is sitting in a warehouse about 2 hours from us and they keep delaying the delivery. You all know how Mike and I can't stand waiting for others so I called the warehouse and asked if we could pick it up rather than wait for them for another week. They said sure and gave me directions. Mike and I hooked up the trailer and headed down the mountain. Five hours later we are back home with our new wood stove....and man this one is heavy I am worried about getting it down to the house but you know Mike..."we can do it yes we can" So we unpack it, unload it, take off the door, take out the brick, and slowly get it into the tractor bucket. We strap it in and Mike backs it down the drive and we get it onto the hand truck on the patio.....and then into the house. Woo hoo, it's inside. Tomorrow is another day for getting it hooked up. Time to hook up and test our new stove. Mike goes on the roof and takes off the plastic in our hole. Then he helps me get the stove onto the tile. After that we reinstall the pipe and Mike seals it on the outside on the roof. Our stove is in place. Then Mike makes a bracket and screws it into our trusses. This will hold the wood stove pipe in place. Time to test it out. It is much bigger than our last stove. I hope it doesn't give us any grief. Mike takes his time and gets the fire started. Wow....it is so much better already. You can actually feel the heat coming off the stove...not like the other one Mike is thrilled and I am very happy about that. Another job complete. Here is our new stove with our little eco fan on top. This fan uses no electric and comes on from the heat of the stove. It blows the warm air around. I'm not really sure how great it is but it seems to help a little We are done We have been waiting for this stove so we can take a trip to NY. As you know....we went to NY over Easter and had a great time. Now back to the farm for the last few days of April 4-28 We have been trying to de clutter and clean up the inside of the house. Our bedroom furniture takes up a lot of space so Mike wants to get rid of our bulky nightstands. Luckily he has an idea We have an extra shelf from our armoire. Mike want sot cut it in half and use it for a floating nightstand. Sounds good to me. We picked up brackets while we were in NY. I help Mike attach the brackets and he screws the first table into our wall.  Ahh...much less bulky. We only use it for our lamps and a some water at night so they are perfect Hmm!!! maybe it's time to look for a new bedspread And I finally got a picture of the finished closet with he bead board doors on top. One room is done And our last day of April: Mike and I are back to the rocks We will get them done this year. I really really hate this job but we have a very long ditch line to do. Too bad there isn't a rock fairy who could help, lol. Back to our pile. Mike scoops it up and takes it to the ditch and then dumps it. While he does that, I stay behind and pick up the rock that has rolled off the pile and I throw it back onto the pile. Oh joy It keeps us young right, lol? We did 10 loads today. That's all for April. I hope you enjoyed this week's story. I will write again next week. Have a great week. See ya next time Lisa

Chapter 107...Building a Bedroom Closet With Hidden Compartments

Off Grid...Chapter 107 Hello everyone. Right now Mike and I are waiting for some spackle to dry so I thought I would post another story I am going to take you back to the end of March to see how we built a closet in our bedroom... Before I do that let me share a picture of one of our new cows. Looks like Mike will have to give her a small pop or two with the BB gun to keep her out of our fence. The only good thing about the cows doing that is it saves on weed eating time....but they do stretch out the fence and we can't have that. OK....time to build a closet. When we built our house, Mike didn't want to build closets. He wanted armories...so we got armoires. They did a great job but we did lose some storage because of the height of our walls. Now that we are trying to make everything just right, we are going to build floor to ceiling closets. We are leaving one armoire in the bedroom and taking the other one for the TV in the living room. It's a good thing all of our furniture matches We took as much out of the bedroom as we could. Instead of finishing the inside walls of the closet we are going to make shelves for more storage. The first boards for the closet. We are doing 2x6 construction. Next we have to measure the sides to make the shelves all the same distance apart. Mike left that to me Yeah...I tried doing the measuring "on center" but that didn't work out. Then I tried measuring the whole board into sections and that didn't come out even Yup...I was definitely having a big duh moment in measuring. Mike had to come to the rescue and we did it together, lol. We measured and screwed the first "ladder". Then we used that ladder to measure the second one. Both ladders are almost done. Next step. Mike starts to take off the floor trim in the bedroom. After that, we brought both the built "ladders" into the bedroom and stood them up. Ooh...it was a close fit to the ceiling. Then Mike installed the cross section for the closet doors. Woo hoo...we are going to have a real closet. The next day we built the side wall and put that up. Mike installing the side wall. Now that all of the wood is up it's time to start the finish work. Mike is installing the sheetrock. Almost done with the sheetrock. I tried to get a picture to show you the interior shelves. Anyone can do this in between the studs inside your walls Next is the corner bead on the edges. Looking good Now it's time for the spackling. And the sanding. While Mike did the work and made the mess, I cleaned up after him. It's the least I could do We are almost ready for paint. Yes we are changing the bedroom color. We didn't like the yellow from last year. One of these times we will get a good color I hope Mike is inside the closet painting with our new color "Moose Mousse" New rack and built in shelves. The trim going back down. I painted the closet shelves. First bottom door is installed. Both bottom doors Top shelves are up. Now we just have to buy the boards for the top of the closet doors. BTW, today is the first day of April 2011 and this is what we have Mike, Niki and I hibernated. This is why Mike and I are doing projects inside, lol. I feel sorry for the poor cows. They are all huddled together for the heat. A few days later we were able to get back outside. Mike is filling our crack in the pavement with an asphalt filler in a tube. And spreading it out. We had another crazy night weather wise. Man it has been a crazy year. April 5 Snow is still on the mountain tops. We are still not happy with our wood stove which is a Pleasant Hearth from Lowe's. I have been doing some research and have heard rave reviews on the "Englander 2200". I found it for half price and we ordered one. It was $649.00 instead of $1199.00 plus free shipping I am also going to call Lowe's to see if anything can be done about the old stove which I think is a dud. On a good note, we got a Camfro Ecofan for the wood stove. It is a fan that blows the hot air around without using any electric. That's all for now. I hope you enjoyed our closet story Next time Mike and I will finish up our bedroom. I'll post again soon Lisa