Spoiled Baby Goats

I didn't expect to be writing another blog post so soon, but my husband is always surprising me. We were supposed to get road rock delivered to our house today but the rock company's truck broke down and they had to reschedule... so James was left with idol hands. I came home from work this evening and he was building this contraption...

A new play set for the goats, made from a lot of random scraps that he had lying around the shop. There are a few pallet pieces in there and a chunk of the counter top that we ripped out!
I had the idea for some "scratcher" pieces for the goats to rub up on since they love scratching along the fences so much...

Texas, helping...

Lastly, we added some strips of roofing material/shingles for grip and to help keep the goats hooves trimmer, longer...

We hauled the thing down to the goat pen on the back of the quad and right after we brought it in, Willow and Sage were on it immediately!

They absolutely loved it and they were scraping their hooves all over the shingles, jumping off of the top and going up and down the slide...
 

Thanks Da-a-a-a-d!

Takin' It Back... Splash!

This week our big project was our kitchen back splash. We had never done any tile work so I'm not going to lie, I was a little skeptical. I was definitely worried that our amateur skills might show through! But with our house remodel budget finally starting to run out, DIY (or as my husband says, "DYI") was our only option. So after we ordered our tile and bought all of our supplies, I watched a few quick YouTube videos and we really had no other choice than to just go for it. 

A few before shots...

So we started slathering on the thinset. I may have been the tiniest bit better at this than James, but he was better at lining up the tile than I, so those were the jobs that we each took on. It was a messy task and I think that the amount of thinset that ended up on the ground behind our oven was the part of the job that made me feel the least professional. Other than that though, I feel like we did a pretty good job putting the tile up. 

We went with a mosaic subway tile for the back splash. The individual tiles were about 2.5" x 4" but they were on 12"x12" backing, which made the whole process easier. The big pieces quickened our pace, but more importantly, made it easier to line everything up. I would say that the most difficult part of this portion of the job was getting the thinset the right thickness and cutting the tiles. 

We had bought a large tile cutter that had a glider with a scorer on it and that thing worked great at breaking the tile in half where needed. It was the cheapest cutter that Home Depot had but it did the job and cut the tiles very cleanly. But we did have trouble where we had to use the tile "nippers". Some of the tile had to be cut into small strips (the large cutter wouldn't work for that) and we probably would have been better off spending a little more money on some nippers that also had a scorer attached. So some of our smaller pieces didn't turn out with super smooth edges, but overall, they are barely noticeable and not that big of a deal.

 

Had to add a picture of the huge mess on our counter.

 After we had set all of the tile, we had to wait a day to grout. James winged it on the grout color but it turned out perfect. I had originally wanted a darker gray grout and if I had gone to the store and picked it out, I don't think that I would have been as happy with the final results. The shade of gray that he went with looked very light to me in the tub, but the contrast against the white tile is just enough to make it look dark but not too dark.

Grouting was a tedious task... I'm going to be honest, it took us 3 minutes of trying to apply the grout with the rubber float before we resorted to applying the grout with our hands. Yes, super unprofessional, but it felt more efficient to us. It just wasn't easy leaning over the counter and using that thing, we were dropping grout everywhere. We ended up barely using the float, except to scrape off the excess grout. Although, I do think that we may use is someday... after this tile project, we are considering tiling the spare room in the shop and I think that it's probably easier grouting tile with a float on a floor than on a wall! Grouting was definitely the longest part of the whole process but still didn't take long at all, I would say it took us 2 and a half hours at the most. As James finished up on one side, I began to clean off the extra grout and do the fine details of the trim. After that, we just had to wait for everything to dry before a final wipe off!

James and I obviously have different application styles

Today we wiped everything down and cleaned it all up and overall, we both think it looks really good. For having never tiled before, I give us an A! There a few areas that could have been improved upon, but it was our best effort and we are proud of it. If I had hired someone to do the job, I can't say I would be disappointed and this back splash has really helped to tie everything in the kitchen together. I am so so excited to get our shelving built and for the projects in this kitchen to be finished so that I can do a little decorating! Here is the final product (sans electrical outlet covers)...

Closets and Chili

This week was a mad rush to get our house guest-ready for our annual chili cook-off! We had been so busy with goat prepping that the inside of our house was neglected for a while and for weeks we've had a ton of boxes in our living room, waiting to be unpacked. The contents of those boxes are now in our "hall" closet, on neat, organized shelves, next to the new water heater! We had been waiting to install the shelves in the closet until the water heater was delivered to Home Depot and once it was, we were eager to get everything done! 

My dad came up to help James get the water heater installed and after the guys took the old one out, they realized that the cold and hot water connections were flip flopped... most likely the main reason why we couldn't get much hot water for an extended amount of time. Although the first water heater wasn't huge, it was 40 gallons and brand new, and we couldn't figure out why it didn't produce hot water for that long... who would've thought! (Not surprising though, since our house was bank owned) Regardless, my bathtub is still 65 gallons and I'm sure the new, bigger, water heater is going to be a much better fit for us! (Also, I tested it out that first night and was able to take a full steamy hot bath!

 We were also able to recycle the pedestal that the old heater was on... it is now a goat pedestal!

The next day James and I got to work installing the shelving in the rest of the closet. We went with the same prefabbed shelves that we used in our bedroom closet since they were so easy the first time around. We got them finished pretty quickly and then I took over the task of unpacking all of those boxes and filling the shelves. I wish I would've taken a picture of everything scattered everywhere as I attempted to fit basically ALL OF OUR THINGS into this closet in an orderly fashion. I learned that I have entirely too many cake stands for somebody who doesn't bake and even more scented lotions for someone who doesn't use lotion. In the end, I was barely able to fit everything that I wanted to into the closet, but I did it! We finally have storage for: all of our linens, the small kitchen appliances, all of the cake stands and random appetizer server ware I've collected, all of my miscellaneous mason jars and hand me down vases, my makeup, toiletries, medicines, paper goods, mops and brooms, the dog food and a fire extinguisher! I also left the lower shelf open for dirty boots and such (my husband is currently using it as a beer pantry).

"Hall" closet BEFORE...

...during...

...and AFTER

 

We were planning on eventually hanging some doors, but in the mean time, we hung some curtains. I actually kind of like the curtains as is, so we may hold off on the doors for a while...

With a clean living room (with no more boxes all over the place), it was time for our annual chili cook off... I thought I'd post a few shots since it was the first big get together at our place... this was during the judging...

The night was a success and though our house may be small, it can still hold a TON of friends! So that's it for this week, we still have quit a few big projects to finish inside the house and we will most likely be tackling the kitchen tile back splash next! But until then, here is some completely unnecessary but totally presh baby goat spam... lucky you!