She stretches out her hands to the distaff, And her hands grasp the spindle...: homesteading

   Earlier this month I have been writing down a list of things I want to accomplish each month with my spinning, home and homestead alongside my husband, I was writing so much that I kept using so much paper I would have to go and purchase some more!

   The problem with that is I would often mix papers that were for short term goals, with long term goals, with grocery list, with menu for the week list, and/or with reminders for the day/week. Phew! That is a LOT of writing and papers and lack of organization, plus the fridge would be covered with so many papers it looked rather silly.

I finally had this idea, Why not actually use the fridge as my writing material! I can jot down temporary reminders and easily erase when things that are listed are accomplished. That way i'm not wasting money or papers to the bin and it will look so cool and will be fun to do!

Here is how I did our fridge:

After much research I realized I did NOT need primer and I definitely didn't need magnetic primer. After searching other blogs and doing my own research, I found out that magnetic primer can cause infertility or miscarriage and my husband and I want children so this was a easy "nope" for me! Also, it's apparent in the finished picture, that magnets will easily stick to the fridge over the chalkboard paint.

All I used was:

Medium sand paper - lightly sanding the surface will help paint adhere to the fridge.
Rust-o-leum chalkboard paint - I only used one can and this paint is non toxic
3 inch wide sponge brush (I grabbed 2)

Everything came out less than $15.00

First, I cleaned fridge with a rag with warm water and dish soap and thoroughly cleaned it off and allowed to dry completely.

I did sand right after. I could have done so before cleaning but I wanted to take off all the grime stuck to the surface so that the sanding can really get in there with no spots overlooked. When I sanded the fridge I didn't do so vigorously, I just did enough that the glossy look was almost gone.

Make sure to wipe off fridge after the sanding part and wash again with warm water and soap and allow to completely dry.

Once fridge was completely dry I then began painting...

Do not be alarmed to open the can and see blue paint, that is completely normal!

Stir paint well and with a brush carefully apply your first coat. Be aware that the paint is very thin! After you apply your first coat allow to dry for 4 hours... trust me. You will see that the paint is dry within the hour and will be tempted to to apply another coat right away... DON'T DO IT! I was impatient and waited only 2 hours and reapplied a coat on one corner just to see what would happen.. the first coat began to chip off immediately so I waited after that.

I did 3 coats as I read in other blogs to do so and I wanted to do it right the first time. On the can it says you can use the chalk area after 24 hours, but in every blog I read they say to wait 48 hours... So impatient me I decided to wait only 24 hours and boy... did I regret it.

I began to season the paint (i'll explain what that is later) exactly 24 hours after last coat and immediately there was chipping happening EVERYWHERE! So I had to stop what I was doing and start allllll ovveeerrrrr. Sigh...

I started by sanding and now I realized why I didn't need primer because no matter how hard I sanded the paint would not come off (in the areas I never messed with while I was experimenting).

I then did 4 coats of paint (I wanted to really cover the surface well) and did not touch it for 4 hours each application... After the last coat I waited 48 hours before touching.

Here came the moment of truth, I began to season it and no chipping!

This is what seasoning is:

If you begin writing or drawing on the fridge after the 48 hours without seasoning it you will leave behind a shadow line that will never come off. No matter if you try washing it off it will stay on there.

When you season the fridge first, you will not leave behind shadow lines when you wipe it clean.

With a white chalk, using the side of the chalk, begin drawing vertical the entire fridge:

Then overlap with a horizontal covering (as seen with picture to the left).

    The finished result will look like the picture to the right.
After you are finished then wipe clean with a rag or paper towel. After I wiped clean then I barely damped the rag with warm water and wiped clean again to not have any chalk residue left behind.

   I hope this will inspire any of you reading this to give this a shot! It was extremely easy to do and fun to do it!

BEFORE

AFTER

Thank you for joining us in our adventure like no other!

It has been almost 3 months since my last post concerning knitting or anything fiber related and 6 months since anything about our land we were waiting to move on, so I wonder what kind of post this will be?

We are finally Home!!!!

Do you not know how long we have been waiting for this? We purchased our property back in April but it was bare of any home, electricity, sewage or running water. It was just used to keep cattle on and the last time there was a home on it was maybe back in the late 40's if I remember correctly.

We have been waiting because my parents were also going to move onto the land and their house needed to be built in order for us to move our fifth wheel trailer there to connect certain utilities up to. We purchased our '93 Jayco on Craigslist for $2,000 and we have been living in it for about a month.

husband took off some of the wall in the slideout and replace it

When we first purchased the trailer it was dirty in the inside and some of the siding came off and there was minimal water damage and some old mold here and there. After chatting with Dustin about it I said, "Well, we want to save money and you want to homestead. This could be our first project fixing it up!", after consulting with my dad who (along with my mom) went with us to check it out and found that it was actually very sturdy and sound (just needed some lovin'), we decided to make this Saved By the Bell era trailer our temporary home until we build our permanent dream home!

Let me go back and reminisce all that has happened when we first moved to our Home...


a break after cleaning rented house

Packing up the rental house we stayed in for the past, almost, 2 years was quite easy as we didn't have much anyways but the cleaning... phew! That was a different story. We wanted to be a blessing to our amazing landlord who has shown us so much grace and mercy the very first 2 months moving in...

When we first moved to Tennessee, Dustin worked in his new job merely a month and a half when he was let go to our shock. We were very nervous and somewhat afraid because we barely knew our surroundings, we had zero family in the area and we were just getting to know new people, so we were somewhat alone when this happened. We were afraid we would have to already move out of our home, so Dustin talked to the landlord feeling helpless and embarrassed that we just moved in and now we were about to move out on a year lease.

My hottie loading a uhaul truck

Our landlord was very compassionate and empathetic with what we were going through he said, "I will lower the rent $100 until you get back on your feet. Just let me know when you have a permanent job and we can raise it back to what was agreed upon." The relief was so stupendous I broke down crying in deep gratitude.

When Dustin found a better job than he did when we first moved here (he is still there today and they are so good to him!) we immediately told our landlord and before we even called we were so excited to raise our rent back to the original price!

We were so happy we couldn't wait to raise the rent on ourselves. HeeHee!

Another blessing to have such a wonderful landlord was when my parents decided to leave California and make Tennessee home they were wondering where they would live. We asked our landlord if they may stay until we found a permanent home and he, AGAIN, was so understanding he agreed.

When we cleaned that house we didn't just clean... we SCRUBBED and made it glisten and so clean you can drag your tongue across the floor of that house without getting a lick of dirt! We also had Sadie Girl (our large labrador) and you wouldn't even know we had a dog in that house.... Another blessing was when we first looked at the house we didn't know he didn't want pets, so when he met with us the very first time we had sadie in the car. He was a little hesitant but after meeting Sadie girl for the first time, he fell head over heels in love with her (that pup knows how to make any person love her) and immediately took the "NO PETS" off the lease and there was no fee for her!

Stayed in a hotel for 3 days until my parents home was ready

When we moved our furniture we (meaning Dustin and I) had to do it all ourselves (except unloading, we had a friend help us do that). Let me say something about my man... he is a genius.

He loaded the whole house so quickly (I helped with small items) with large furniture he was not just the hulk but he was also the Brain using ingenuity to move very heavy items from the house to the truck and played some "tetris" with every item packing everything snug to make room for more if needed.

My Viking man fixing bottom of trailer

We moved a 3 bedroom/2 bath home into a 5x10 storage unit and into a 32' trailer. We really purged what was not needed and what could easily be replaced.

I love living small. I love our tiny kitchen, tiny living area and small bedroom (our Queen mattress fits perfectly). I love the simplicity of our lives now. Don't get me wrong, I do want a nice size home (i'm still not sure if farmhouse or cabin style yet) but it's nice to remind ourselves that big doesn't always mean better. I feel more peace living in our tiny home than I did when we rented a large home! Crazy, isn't it?

Before moving in, my husband has been working fortifying the trailer, sealing leaks, ripping out some of the interior walls to kill any small mold issues and adding insulation and re-paneling... When I moved in I cleaned whatever needed to be cleaned, and began putting items away playing my own kind of tetris, such as, where to put my spinning wheel and fiber goodies, ALL our clothing, and many other needed and desired items (i'm still in shock how much room this trailer has!), Dustin told me after we moved in, "Wow, what a woman's touch can do to a place. When I came everyday it was so dull and lonely in here. It just felt like I was coming to fix something that wasn't mine yet. It was cold and lifeless. Then you moved in and made your presence known with the way you fixed everything up and the way you decorated and just you here brought this trailer to life... It's no longer just a trailer, it's a home. And a home I can't wait to come back too after work." That absolutely made me teary and happy!

First breakfast in our little home!

We had our first Thanksgiving on our land there. My parents were on the road so it was just Dustin and Sadie girl and myself. But I wasn't going to let that small area and very tiny oven stop me from making that Thanksgiving a memorable one...

A man and his dog on his land

We went to Costco and got a 12 pound turkey ( perfect size to fit in the oven and fridge), I purchased stuffing package and all the trimmings to add into the stuffing, turkey and to make gravy from scratch. I also purchased what I needed to make pumpkin and apple bread.

Night before Thanksgiving I cooked for over 3 hours prepping and dicing and cutting and stuffing and glazing. After I prepped the turkey I looked out our kitchen window and saw 16 wild turkeys pecking away near a large water bucket we put out there for the wild animals as our pond dried completely up as East Tennessee has had a horrible drought. For a second I thought, "Sorry about your couins, turkeys." He was delicious. Ha Ha!

For about a month I just could not STAND the design of the interior walls. It looked like Saved by the Bell had a party in there and the 90's stayed plastered on the walls. I needed a solid cottage color. after a week of contemplating what kind of color I wanted I researched the best kind of primer for the walls (Gripper brand just in case anyone was wondering) and went to home depot and purchased a Cottage color from Behr. I started my project, Dustin liked what I was doing, grabbed the brush from my hand and decided to complete it.

Hey! I'm not going to argue, if he wants to paint, by all means go ahead! Heehee!

Choosing a color for the walls

Anyways, fast forward to now...

It's December which means it is the most wonderful time of the year... Christmas!

Each year I love going to get a tree from an amazing family-oriented Christmas tree place called Bluebird Christmas Tree Farm that we enjoy going to now every year to either cut our own tree or pick up one already cut. But this year I thought there would be no way we could pick a full size tree and place it inside our home. I was really sad because we don't know when we will build our dream home so that meant for a few Christmas's we wouldn't be able to put a tree in our tiny home.

I was thinking of getting a table top tree but after some eyeing a certain area of the living area and measuring I thought, "I will make this happen... we will have a tree no matter what!"

Perfect size tree, perfect color for walls!

We made sure to get a tree that was not taller than my husband and perfect height would be my height (i'm about 5'4) and skinny as possible.

We went to the tree farm and guess what? We found the perfect tree! We decorated it with Christmas Jazz on the background and Sadie girl watching curiously as Dustin did the lights first (that is HIS job and I love that he is so uncompromising on that and that he delights in the simple things like Christmas time... our children will cherish that in a father.) and I made french toast with bacon and coffee in santa cups with marshmallows!

Our dreams is starting to become a reality but also we realized what we thought were big dreams are nothing but that the simple things we are working toward and we are living in now are what dreams are made of! We are blessed, we are safe, we are secure, we are full of joy, full of thanks and full of hope!