Junk Market Style

This fun book is full of outdoor ideas for using your 'junk' to decorate with and create cozy outdoor spaces. I've been pouring over its pages and pictures for ideas to liven up my outdoor spaces and create new ones. There are several ideas for outbuildings and I am pleased to say I am ahead of the game on many of the suggestions. One of course is the chicken coop I highlighted in a previous entry.

This is the outbuilding I pegged for a guest cabin right from the start. The Man hung the vintage window over the metal frame 'trailer' window and it looks so much better. Now I just need to work on that pesky door so it will hang right and close properly.

The Guest Quarters. My oldest daughter has spent some time habitating the place so it's not in its tip top form, and it is still a work in progress. Still, it is such fun to have a rustic place for those fair weather visits!

The reading nook! Not sure much reading gets done here, though!

Mother Hen

We have been in this house for just over a year, and one of the things that attracted me to it were all the outbuildings in the back yard. Outbuildings! Oh, the possibilities! I eyeballed turning one of them into a chicken coop, and The Man didn't object because we had two other outbuildings plus a garage. (I have since taken over the three outbuildings and half of the garage. Sorry Man!) Look what I found! Just as we were working on our backyard chicken coop I ran across this magazine which is all things about chicken keeping!

This is the lovely chicken coop in progress. We are annexing one of our backyard outbuildings. Gotta love those out buildings!

The Man working on the door for the coop. I found this pink door on a junk heap in Baker City about seven years ago and have been hauling it around ever since, through at least three moves. At last, the perfect use for it!

Yesterday I salavaged some corrugated metal for the roof, from some long neglected railroad buildings that I have been driving by for years and coveting the metal. Finally I went and picked up some pieces that had flown into the ditch near the buildings. I'm helping clean up, right? Truly, though, I would have asked someone, but knew not who that person might be or where they might be found. There was no nearby farm house or other such fixture that I could assume the buildings belonged to, and for sure whoever is responsible for the buildings has long given up care taking. I don't advocate salvaging without asking first when at all possible. Just ask my kids!

Anyway, stay tuned for the finished product!

A Fling With Spring

I had a bit of a fling with spring today. It was just warm enough to give a hint of things to come. So naturally I broke out my handy dandy gallon of white paint and went to work on the table and chairs I put out on the back deck.

You can see my sweet sister trailer in the background of this photo, and my sister bike in the background of the two chairs photo.

When I have completed painting and setting up the back deck, I'll post some photos of the finished product! If only I could splash some paint on the drab deck and house! Some day, definately, I will have to do that!

At this very table on this very deck is where the first board meeting for the Center for Parenting Matters will be held!