The Farm House

Garden Checkin 2017

~ ghostfaceknitter ~ Leave a comment

Well all be. It’s summer this week. I haven’t said anything about my garden yet. We’ll I have reason for that, let’s start at the beginning.

It’s January and I cannot wait for planting season, last year I had a HUGE amount of help from Colorado Urban Farm.  They not only set up my beds, filled, them, planted, but with their laminated checklist/references I was able to keep things alive/weed and ultimately enjoy eating from my garden! It was a major success, but I felt like this year I could own the whole thing.  So I came up with a new design – add 2 4ftx8ft beds, and some containers for container corn.

I still planned on practicing square foot gardening. So I had 128 squares to fill and three large felt pots. I got on burpees.com and went ape shit. $100 worth of seeds later I had:

  1. Pickling Cucumbers
  2. Tomatoes (Beefsteak + Big Boy)
  3. Cauliflower
  4. Celery
  5. Spinach
  6. Container Corn
  7. Shasta Daisies
  8. Sunflowers
  9. Green Bell Peppers
  10. Jalapeños
  11. Banana Peppers
  12. Beans
  13. Summer Squash
  14. Zucchini
  15. Radish


Then I started the celery, cauliflower, peppers and tomatoes inside around March 15th. I bought this light from amazon, set up a room where they would be undisturbed and warm and spent a lot of time planting, making sure everything had good light etc. I used this kind of seedling tray from Black Magic – was really unhappy with it.  It said it was peat, but the peat never broke down even after it was soaked. It was more hydroponic style, which in hindsight is Black Magic’s whole ‘thing’.


I lost 50% of my seedlings when I transferred them to soil three weeks later. What remained were some hardy pepper plants, some spunky tomato plants and some super hair-fine celery plants plus one random cauliflower plant. That core group of plants was doing great – I had about 12 total and was feeling great about next steps with them. Then it came time to plant them outdoors. Four days later – IT FUCKING SNOWED IN MAY IN COLORADO.

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But everything survived. It was a miracle! But a short lived one, three weeks after the snow another 50% of the plants were gone. Just POOF gone on 70-80 degree days under their shade/hail tent. I was/am/will always be disappointed.

I ended up just buying new plants at $2 a pop from Home Depot, O’Tooles, Walmart.


All in all, my seedling experiment was a bust. I’m glad I tried it, but I won’t be doing it again.

Cost of indoor seedlings: $50 for seeds, $80 for electricity, 8 hours total working time

Cost of new plants: $32

Also my home made compost that I used to plant my tall pompous grasses totally has veggies growing around it lol

oooo that smell….

~ ghostfaceknitter ~ Leave a comment

It’s been SO long since I’ve posted about the house.  Things have been moving forward, with the help of friends and family we have been able to get the yard cleaned finally!  One major tree has come down that was super out of control.  3 more will be going soon in the front. Saving majorly for the Bathroom downstairs – that’s what Ghostfaceknitter is for ;).

Oh and in the next few days – BRAND NEW WINDOWS. 🙂

But probably the most time/attention has gone towards a smell.  It started in September, it wasn’t chronic.  But it reeked of rotten something. In October, I realized that it was the ejector pump (sniff sniff sniff -COMING FROM HERE).  The wonderful little gadget that literally purees then shoots any waste from the basement up and out into the sewer.  So so amazing – technology is wonderful.

Let’s revisit what this room looks like:

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notice the white marks on the black pipe to the right of the white shut off valve.

The first plumbing company to come was Lakewood Plumbing.  They came in spent about 5 mins in the room and told me it was due to all the cracks and openings in the ejector pump.  If I caulked those all, the smell would go away.  It seemed to right off, so I was super happy. And best part, they didn’t charge me….

Then, the bathroom sink clogged due to calcium/mineral build up. So I called Lakewood again due to their amazing diagnostic skills, the smell was coming back a little this time they told me to put a sealant over it. ‘That wouldn’t hurt anything’ So I got the sealant, similar to roofing sealant and covered the top like a crazy person.

While I’m on the topic of crazy, this smell literally drove me insane. I could walk in and smell it, I could smell it in my craft room – making it impossible to work/sew and do the things I love to do, that bring me comfort and joy.  So imagine me, crazed painting sealant on an ejector pump sniffing everything inch of the basement to make sure the smell was gone.

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okay i get it this was overboard but they told me this would be totally fine!

It ‘worked’ for about a week.  You see the sealant smell cancelled out the poop smell a bit and things seemed okay.  Then the smell came back. I was hysterical. It smelled like sulfur at this point (again I was driven mad). So having the well that sulfates in it – ‘welp that’s sulfur!’ So I cleaned out my entire water softener.  If you have ever done that.  1) you have to use cups, shovels, cat litter scoops (it was clean 😉 ) to pretty much get all the salt out.  So I did that, cleaned it with bleach (we don’t drink unfiltered water from the sink we have a reverse osmosis system that is 1 million times cleaner than other water sources).  Anyways, the smell went away for a few hours then came back.  I lost my mind and covered the entire softener in garbage bags.

So at this point it was a water issue. The well company wouldn’t help me…. So I called a water softener company, because it was totally my sulfur water. They were awesome. They came out immediately looked at the way the water softener was drained into the ejector pump and said – the smell is coming from there and into the softener it’s not your water.

But alas, he tested my water and guess what?  Extremely hard water is a 10 my water was a 35. That’s right, the water softener I have was only cutting it to the high teens.  That still meant that all of my new appliances and pipes were getting corroded. So I went ahead and bought the water softener that could handle the job. $3k later that was solved.

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our hard waster on the right, the newly treated filtered on the left. JESUS. 

BUT STILL THE SMELL WAS THERE.

I was a broken person when I googled ‘ejector pump specialist’.   Nate from Time plumbing came out and in a matter of minutes (he also popped the ejector pump top no one else did) and saw the smell was not coming from ejector, but noticed some drip build up on a pipe nearby.  He also could not believe that someone would tell me to put that on an ejector pump. He then realized that our main sewer did not have a vent and thus the smell was all coming from that tiny crack!

My tangent about Home Inspectors – they suck.  Hire a trusted, bonded professional in the area you want inspected. If I had had a real plumber out (not just general inspector and sewer dude), they might have caught it and I wouldn’t have been plagued with 3 months of this smell. Same goes for electrical. I think I could have a career in Home Inspection based on my experiences here.

Anyways Nate came and fixed it today.  We have a vent on our main sewer and now the smell is gone. SNIFFS IN WITH MY BRAND NEW NOSE HOLES.

Anyways Denver Metro plumbing recommendation Time Plumbing – ask for Nate. He is great.

And thus the smell saga is over.

 

 

 

Bathroom Before & After

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So this is A LONG TIME COMING I’m pretty sure I’ve been promising the before and after here for months…. well it’s FINALLY HERE!

Boy oh Boy was this bathroom a project. When I first started this ‘mini-refresh’ I thought it would be new paint and a shower curtain………

Here’s what I really ended up doing:

  1. Removed shower stall
  2. Re-did all caulking
  3. Restored Window
  4. Restored Medicine Cabinet
  5. Painted walls
  6. Painted vanity
  7. painted heating vent
  8. Replaced toilet
  9. Deep Cleaned
  10. Changed cabinet hardware
  11. Replaced broken soap dish tile
  12. Repaired vanity drawers
  13. Lined vanity drawers

It took ~30 full hours to restore all these items over the course of 4 weeks.  I had to sand and strip almost every surface to remove rust, paint, caulking, and calcium build up from the untreated well. Well enough chit chat – PICTURES!

BEFORE:

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just grimy – shower stall covered in calcium – toilet filled with rust and calcium

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mmm moldy calcuim

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rusted out window in the shower

Please feel free to go shower now after you’ve looked at all of those grimy/nasty pictures.

and now…. drum roll please!

AFTER

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I made the shower curtain from IKEA fabric.

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I chose a light mint green and I love it. 
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this cabinet is one of my favorite things. 
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I worked so hard on this damn rusted window – just need to fix the cracked sill. 

Garden Update!

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Well, I’m officially keeping the garden alive and things are starting to sprout and grow!  I can’t tell you how much pride I have in this garden.  My neighbor is a garden-pro and encourages me/offers advice not to mention helps me fix my irrigation system 😉

Seeds that have sprouted/are above soil:

  • Micro Greens
  • Arugula
  • Radishes
  • Kale
  • Pole beans
  • Beets

Still waiting on:

  • Carrots
  • Nasturtium (edible flowers!)

Plants progress:

  • Tomatoes
  • Summer Squash
  • Jalapeno peppers
  • Sarano peppers
  • Bell peppers
  • French Thyme
  • Rosemary
  • Basil
  • Chives
  • Dill

Now just to start thinking of all the amazing recipes/meals that I can use these in!

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Weekend Wrap Up

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It was a productive weekend here at the Farm House. Last Thursday, I had sinus surgery and well… it knocked me on my ass. Between the anesthesia and the trauma – I was not myself for a better part of a week.  In fact, I think I slept all last weekend 😉

However, this weekend – I got shit done. Here’s some photos of some things that happened.

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the $7 table i got at habitat – painted coral and added some fun fabric i’ve had in my stash for a few years under the glass.
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the garden was planted! read more about it here!
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the soffits and the gutters are done!
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peaches sunbathes
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last weekend with my ‘nurse’ and bandage – NOT productive lol

 

 

The Garden is a go!

~ ghostfaceknitter

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I’m gardening! I’m gardening!  Well sort of… now I’m watering and waiting, but that’s probably 80% of what gardening is.

I’m sure I have a few gardener friends that I could have heavily relied on to help put this garden together, but I chose to circumvent the years of trial and error that plague some novices and just hire a great company to help me get started.  Obviously, it’s in my hands now, but the folks at Urban Farm Colorado really gave me a huge head start and lots of advice.  They came out with the materials and set up the beds with their nutrient rich soil and provided me with either starter plants or seeds. All in all, the cost was great!  I actually price compared several times to see if I could do it cheaper and I couldn’t. Plus, they are available to help me if something is weird or if I have questions. Which is a great comfort since I have a nice little investment out there and have already planned on not shopping for produce this summer 😉

I decided to go with 2 4×8 beds.  It wasn’t until I was planning the layout that I realized that 2 beds is going to yield A LOT of produce.

Here is what is in my garden:

  • Micro Greens
  • Kale
  • Cherry Tomatoes
  • Tomatoes
  • Carrots
  • Thyme
  • Oregano
  • Dill
  • Fennel
  • Parsley
  • chives
  • Basil
  • Jalapenos
  • Serrano Peppers
  • Bell peppers
  • Squashes
  • Beets
  • Plus some more things I can’t remember 😉

Here’s all the pics!

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urban farm builds the beds, while I mowed my lawn.
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We set a grid on the bed first to figure out where everything would go.
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the irrigation system is on! drink plants drink!!
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the ‘herbe’ section
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2 beds, irrigation systems, sun/hail protection netting on both
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i put vladimir’s ‘memory totem’ here also.

 

 

Redoing the Hardwoods Part 2

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It has been a LONG week since I first updated about our hardwood redo.  After spending 30 combined hours sanding, I came by the house on Tuesday and realized in the daylight – we had missed some spots under the dust/dark lighting. I wasn’t super bummed, but it was just hard to think through what the next steps would be.  Would we redo the whole floor with the drum sander? That would be okay, but it would mean re-renting all the tools again – $$$$$$.  After asking a flooring friend, we decided the edger was the way to go.

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You can see the varnish still on the corners/sides of the boards. BLAST.

I spent 6ish hours on Thursday edging out any left over varnish that was on the floors.  It was primarily in corners of boards since the boards had been worn to different heights over the 61 years they had been in that house. The edger is a b*tch of a tool to use also because you have to bend over and move your arms back and forth – basically imagine the most awkward position ever and add a high power sanding tool.

The next step was the screen buff. Now I’ll admit, anytime I’ve seen someone running a buffer it looked pretty damn easy. Like just lightly moving it back and forth – no effort. Well, actually using a floor buffer for the first time is pretty much like having a heavy tool jump out of your hands and twirl around like some sort of giant angry cat that is trying to escape your cuddle….. Thankfully, my dad came by just to see if there was anything he could help with – he had to not only run the buff for more than 70% of the time, but he taught me how to run the buffer with control.

I seriously can’t believe how hard it was to control a buffer. Totally surprised.

Anyways after the screen buff (which took much longer than also thought due to the wood filler that I was too liberal with) I had to clean and mop the floors.  Again, Lois swooped in and helped so much to get the final push done.  We had to dust the walls, the door knobs, everything had dust on it. Then we mopped with special ‘pre-oil’ wood cleaner.  It was a long day at the house, but it set me up for success in the next step.

Finally, I get to put oil on my damn floors. I used a paint roller to apply the oil, which had to sit and absorb into the floors for 15-30 minutes. Then I used my good old friend the buffer to first buff the oil into the floors with a red pad.  The final step was using terry cloths on the bottom of the buffer to clean any left over oil.  The results were AMAZING.

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Contrast of bare wood vs. oiled wood.

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I had one of those moments when I was done and could see the oil where I felt like crying, because I was so fucking happy I did this even though for the entire past week I have felt 100% insane. I still have three bedrooms to do, and then apply some white paste as the final ‘coat’ of oil.  It will probably result in a little more ‘milky’ and I’m really excited to see how it comes out in the end.

 

Re-doing the Hardwoods Part 1.

~ ghostfaceknitter ~ 2 Comments

So obviously, if you didn’t know – we are in the midst of what has morphed into a full blown renovation.  During the whole month we’ve owned this house, we have replaced major systems, redone the bathroom, demo-ed two gross bathrooms, painted and generally prepared the house for us. All during this time there has been a little birdie on both the dude’s and I’s shoulder saying ‘you should just redo the floors’.  And by little bird I mean multiple influential people we know.

So, we got super stupid and decided to dive in on the floors. At first, I was totally against it. I was like ‘no that’s insane we can’t afford it’.  We did end up getting a price quote that rang in at $5,000 NOT including fixing the major work that needed to be done in the bedroom where the bathroom was.  So that was depressing. Then the dude started watching too much This Old House and YouTube videos about it. Pretty much we decided if these yokels could do it, we probably could too.

Me, the dude, and my pops all did a bunch of research about what we should do.  It seemed like polyeurathane was really difficult – had the most chance for a eff up.  We stumbled upon ‘oil treating’ hardwoods and the results are really cool looking – without having to do a complex stain and clear coat. Plus, oil for the floors is no-VOC (aka no harmful toxic chemicals).

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notice the subtle sheen – no clear coat 

So once we decided we were going to try to polish our turd floors into some pretty ones – it was game on.   It was REALLY hard to find the oil for the floors. One, in part due to the fact that most stain is oil-based – finding oil vs. oil-based stain is hard and stain can creep into your shopping cart really easily.  I finally found a hardwood company’s website that had a short list of oil manufacturers (mostly European).

I called the hardwood company’s contact and the owner of the business didn’t even know he had that listed on his site…. it also would take him 3 weeks to order/get the oils for us.  I actually called 3 different local flooring stores and none of them sold materials to redo existing floors they all were primarily in the business of new floors.  I found that interesting. Also, didn’t this random owner guy know that we are on a really tight deadline? Oh sorry, my narcissist ‘my house is the center of everyone’s world’ thing flared up again 😉   Anyways, I started looking for how to buy this euro-oil and found a great website www.1877floorguy.com.  It totally sounds like a fake website where I just got $500 of my money stolen from, but it was Google Verified and we just got the supplies so I can attest this site is legit and has great customer service.

I did end up going with WOCA because they had really easy to find/understand/buy items.  I bought the floor prep, the oil, some buffing paste, and the everyday care cleaner.  1877floorguy.com had $30 3-day shipping so it was good!

We did choose to do the grey-oil and then I got some white buffing paste to make it a little ‘lighter.’

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Okay now the fun part – the sanding! So I can probably speak for both of us (since the dude got MAJOR cold feed about doing this the day before we sanded) that it’s terrifying to start sanding your floors. The tools are insane, the idea of ruining your floors can be kind of scary, and honestly it was like ‘what the f*ck are we getting ourselves into?’

We rented a Drum Sander, Square Buff Sander, and an edger from the Home Depot. The sanding paper was somewhat pricey $5-$8 per paper and each one of those would do ~100 sqft.  Our project is ~1,000 sqft so we did end up spending $180 in sandpaper for all the tools. The rentals themselves were between $50-$80 per day. So $420 in total.

The dude was brave enough to start the drum sander first.  I managed the cord and helped to make sure nothing was going wrong while we got used to the giant drum sander. Eventually, we didn’t need to manage the cord anymore so I got to do the 2 other bedrooms while the dude figured out how to perfectly sand with the edger.

 

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before, major wear patterns, and lots of tlc needed.
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after sanding before vacuuming 

The fearless leader starts in the bedroom

Here’s a time lapse of me in the ‘blue bedroom’

Removing the ‘lay-z-boy’ marks from ma and pa hillbilly

Pic of the difference:

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Now we will clean the floors and let them dry – THEN OILING!

 

 

How to Restore a Metal Medicine Cabinet – Before and After

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It’s Friday! Woot! (Well technically I’m writing this on a Thursday, but still the excitement is there!)

Today, I figured I would share another little piece of the bathroom before it’s huge debut.  One of the the things I loved about the bathroom was that it had an original steel medicine cabinet.  However, like EVERYTHING else at my house it had been severely neglected and thus was in pretty poor/gross looking shape.  It was rusted out and just looked like you would not want to put your toiletries anywhere near this thing.

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GROSS

So most things can be saved if they are rusted, unless it’s rusted through – then you’re S.O.L. and have to think about replacing.

Step One – Deciding if your rusted metal can be saved:

One good way to see how extensive your rust damage is, is to get a coarse grit sand paper and gently (at first) start to sand out the rust.  If you see the metal starting to shin through, no clumps of rust deteriorating and no holes, then you should be able to turn a rust situation around.

NOW PUT ON YOUR SAFETY VENTILATION MASK AND GLOVES!

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Step Two – Sanding

Depending on the current finish and extent of the rust damage, you will need to determine how the best way to sand your metal will be. For the cabinet, I hand sanded the entire thing (yes, your arms will be exhausted).  Since the cabinet was pretty delicate I did not want to use power sanders and dremel tools on it. I started with a coarse 60 grit sanding block (easier to grip and get in weird spaces) and sanded the entire cabinet – rusted or not.  I did focus heavily on the rusted areas, buffing out any rust that remained.  Then I used a 100 grit paper to smooth out any transitions from the original paint.

 

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Step Three – Prep Cleaning

This is the MOST important step. You will want to ensure the entire surface of your project is 100% clean.  The best way to do this is to use a dry rag or vacuum to get the larger dust/paint particles out. Once you have done that, get a clean rag very very wet with Denatured Alcohol and wipe the cabinet down until it is so clean you could virtually perform some sort of surgery on there – NO PARTICLES, NO DIRT, NO UNEVEN/WEIRD SURFACES.  If you get to this step and find there is a significant uneven lip or not a smooth transition from paint to metal then you need to go back to Step Two.  Believe me, I know you will be tired and I know you will want to just keep moving forward, but if you don’t ensure your base is smooth and clean you will end up with something you HATE and regret not doing it right.

 

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go ahead and buy the gallon you’re gonna love this shit for all your cleaning needs. 

Step Four – Painting

Now the moment of truth!  You’ll want to tape and cover any surface you don’t want paint on.  That takes the most time.  Then you’ll want to make sure you have a spray paint that is meant to protect and will last.  I would HIGHLY recommend Kilz as a primer (if necessary) and then Rust-oleum for the actual color followed by a clear coat. This process will ensure that with proper cleaning and care, your metal will not start rusting again.  Now thankfully the dude has taught me how to spray paint like a professional in the past- this part can be hard.  The only two things to keep in mind are stay at least 12 inches away and keep moving with long smooth sprays.  Also remember, it doesn’t need to be full coverage the first time – in fact the slower you go and more coats you do the better the end result will be. Just remember to let each coat dry fully.

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first coat – notice it’s not fully covered. 
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getting there! still some uneven color but one/two more coats should do it!

Paint process in general:

  1. apply Kilz or other high quality primer
  2. apply desired Rusto color
  3. apply Rusto clear coat

Are you ready for the official before and after?!

Before!

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After!

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Seriously, can you believe that is the same cabinet?! I’m so excited to start using it.  Also keep in mind you NEED to keep your protective mask on the whole time otherwise you will get high on paint fumes – which is not safe or cute. I bought my ventilation mask from Harbor Freight – it cost $17 and I use it for everything paint related at my house since there IS lead paint in my home. Seriously HUGE DISCLAIMER!! If you have a home older that 1980 you should err on the side of caution and assume there will be lead paint in your house.  People saved/loved that nasty scary shit and it WILL HURT YOU. So don’t be dumb – buy some protective gear and wear it.