I adore cooking and baking. I love trying new recipes, creating my own, and preparing tried and true meals. With this comes lots of cooking and baking accoutrements. I also collect lots of antique and vintage china, pottery, and glassware. Add all these items to a small and poorly designed kitchen and it pretty much creates chaos. I freely admit that I am part of the problem too - I am not exactly the most disciplined person when it comes to organization. I need to have a place for everything - and well, I just don't. At least not yet...
We moved into this home about 3 and a half years ago knowing that the kitchen didn't meet our needs. However, expenses including a new roof, HVAC system, a custom built chicken coop, and a handful of unexpected appliance replacements came first. I waited patiently and finally it is time!
We started this project in late April. It is slow going as we are doing the bulk of the work ourselves. Since the husband has a more than full time job and really can only devote time on weekends, it is slow going. I just keep telling myself it will all be worth it. Slow and steady wins the race, right?
My husband and son taking the initial shots demoing the wall between the kitchen and little dining room. My son's face was priceless when we told him he can hammer a hole in the wall and even draw on it with a permanent marker!
Because our home was built by the previous owners with a couple of additions over the years, the original kitchen and dining room were relatively small. They share a wall and have a pocket door between them. The original dining room was so small that I actually used it as a storage room of sorts. We have a second spacious dining room in the addition on the other side of the kitchen. After much consideration, we decided the best way to improve the function of our kitchen without adding another addition, was to take down a wall combining the kitchen and small dining room to make a larger kitchen and walk in pantry.
What a difference removing the wall made!
The dining room side had a wood floor. It was relatively easy to remove with a crowbar. This was my job.
The kitchen floor was tile on cement board. Removing it was very hard work, but my husband muscled through it.
In my next post, I'll tell you more about my design plans and the ongoing progress. As of this writing, I am totally without a kitchen. It isn't fun, but I'm trying to stay positive and keep my eyes on the prize. Cooking and baking are my stress relievers, so not being able to do it, has been especially challenging for me. Assuming everything continues to go on schedule, 14 weeks will be the entire duration. Yes, I said FOURTEEN weeks. Ideally it would have been 4-6 weeks, but when a remodel is mostly DIY (and you basically have 2 days a week to get stuff done) - this is what you get. Regardless of whether you use a contractor or not, no remodel can really go fast enough while living in and through it.
A few months ago, I spotted a sad looking table next to some trash cans on the side of the road waiting for the trash truck to pick it up. I slowed down and looked at it, but was on my way to drop my son off at school, so I couldn't stop. I spent the morning working in his school as a volunteer and was sure it would be gone before I was able to get back to it. However, on my way home, I was pleasantly surprised that it was still there - as the trash truck hadn't been there yet!
When I stopped to check it out, I was ready to see something beyond hope - but it wasn't so bad - it just needed some TLC - so in the back of my SUV it went. Then, into my garage - where it sat for maybe 5 months. Yes, nearly half a year. This is what happens to the misfits I drag home. They wait patiently until I can decide what they need to bring them back to life.
This table is a well made solid wood Duncan Phyfe style drop leaf with one drawer. It was missing one of the brass claw feet caps and the veneers were all separating from tops. When a solid wood piece is losing its veneer, I typically just go ahead and remove all of it - but in this case, the veneer was still in one solid piece, so I decided to re-glue and clamp it all back flat and tight to the table top. All three leaves needed help. Other than that, I needed to hunt for a replacement foot cap. Thanks to Etsy, I found a whole set of 4 vintage foot caps that worked perfectly for me. I kept the original 3, so now when I find a 3 footed table needing caps, I will be set!
I realize now, that I am not too good at remembering to take BEFORE pictures. I really need to work on that. IMO, it wasn't so bad that it deserved to be put in the trash - but, maybe it was meant for me to find it so I could give it a new life!
Here it is after I glued down the veneer and removed all of the foot end caps.
I used a Clark & Kensington color called Laredo Lake, hand distressed, then sealed with several coats of Folk Art Home Decor Wax that I tinted myself to give a more subdued and aged look to the piece. The final color of my table reminds me of a piece of French blue enamelware. Isn't it dreamy? I can just picture this sweet table in a
home with a French country theme - with a pair of white chairs and
beautiful ironstone dishes on top.
This drawer is the perfect spot to stash a few table linens or candles.
A beautiful leg needs a great shoe.
Here she is at my booth at The Morgantown Market waiting for it's new home!
I was looking back at some of my posts about hatching chicks and I thought I'd give a little update on my flock. The majority of my current feathered family hatched in early September 2016 - that makes them about 5 1/2 months old. Many of them are beginning to lay now and I am thrilled with the rainbow of eggs I am getting!
Here is a pic of my messy counter over flowing with eggs. (I spy some home made kombucha too!)
I have a total of 23 chickens, a little less than half of them are bantam and the rest are standard size egg laying breeds. Although I hatched (and purchased) a lot more chicks, I ended up selling many of them. Most people have backyard chickens for the sole purpose of getting fresh eggs. I love the eggs, of course, but I also love having a variety of breeds for different colors of eggs as well as for enjoying the simple beauty of my pet chickens. This crew really brings me happiness.
My smallest hen, Tiny, is on the very right of this picture. She is a full grown Serama (and standing next to her rooster counterpart). They are unbelievably adorable - and walk around as if they own the place!
Because mother nature is what it is, I ended up with a total of 6 roosters. 3 are bantam and 3 are standard. It's more than I would like - but they are getting along fine (so far) and are all so very different and handsome, that I honestly don't think I could bear to part with any of them.
Here is Cosmo Kramer, the gorgeous Brabanter rooster.
This big guy is (I believe) a Welbar. I think I'll call him William. He is so handsome.
French Blue Copper Maran Rooster, Jacques.
Here is my tiny Serama rooster, Pee Wee.
One of the Cochin Bantam roos, Red.
This other handsome Bantam Cochin rooster (in the middle) still needs a name.
I think I lucked out with such a beautiful flock. I am still looking for a few dark brown egg laying hens. I had several in the past - but sadly lost them all to predators. Jacques is a Maran - the breed that lays the darkest chocolate colored eggs - and he needs some more company. Besides that, my ratio of hens to roosters is a bit off....and I really need to round out the colors of eggs in my basket, right? (THIS line of reasoning leads to a little thing called CHICKEN MATH.)
Here is one of my three cream crested legbar hens getting up close and personal. She lays beautiful blue shelled eggs.
The weather was unseasonably warm this weekend - so I took advantage of it and made over an old dresser that had definitely seen better days. I am a big fan of Miss Mustard Seed's Milk paint - so this is what I used on my dresser.
For those of you who have never used milk paint, you never really know what the outcome will be until you use it. Sometimes the milk paint dries smooth and other times it gets chippy and crackly. To me, this is the beauty of it. If you prefer a smooth finish with no chipping, you can use a bonding agent. From my experience, if you paint over an already finished item and the old finish is intact, you will likely get a chippy finish. If the item is dried out or has never had a previous finish (bare wood), your paint will likely dry smooth without any chips. If you want only minimal chipping, it may help to sand your item first before applying milk paint.
As I mentioned, it was unseasonably warm for February in Pennsylvania
(around 68 degrees F) and a beautiful sunny day. I worked outside and I
believe that the bright sunshine dried my paint more quickly causing
the chipping to be pretty significant (in addition to the fact that my dresser had a thick coat of crackly varnish). It chipped so much that I actually began to get nervous. I was worried that none of the milk paint would stick and that I had just wasted my time and milk paint! However, I kept telling myself what I know to be true about milk paint - it always looks worse before it gets better - so hang in there!
Before. This dresser has great bones and is very sturdy - but has definitely seen better days!
For this piece, I used a custom mixture of two shades of MMSMP - I didn't measure, but I would guess it was about 2 to 3 parts Kitchen Scale to 1 part Boxwood. I always take a deep breath before slapping on the first brush of paint. I do not take painting a vintage piece of furniture lightly. I love and respect antiques. When I purchased this piece had already had one drawer partially stripped and the top was damaged with lots of scratches and various stains of paint and what I believe was a glittery nail polish. I did sand the top a good bit to remove some of the odd paint colors as well as the scratches. The varnish was very thick and crackly - especially on the top and front of the drawers. Perhaps it sat in direct sunlight for many years.
After. It is VERY chippy. A look that is not for everyone. But I happen to LOVE it.
After the milk paint dried and did it's chippy thing, I lightly sanded with a foam sanding block, dusted off all the excess paint chips with a dust brush, and finally sealed with two coats of Minwax Wipe On Poly in Clear Satin. This sealed in all the chippy goodness and texture that makes this dresser a one of a kind beauty. The sides chipped only a little in comparison to the top and front. This unique piece would not only be great in a bedroom, but also in a dining room to store linens, or even in an entryway. It's simply too cool to hide away.
Here are the chicks the day after they all were hatched - nice and warm and dry in the brooder.
I'm happy to announce the arrival of 16 healthy happy chicks! The one bantam cochin egg hatched a day early (which is not unusual for bantams) so s/he was all alone for a while. Of course the first born needed a name - and "Primo" (or "Prima") was the first thing that occurred to me (you'll understand this if you speak Italian or have ever seen the movie Big Night - which, if you haven't, you simply must). However, this little one soon earned another name: Sarge - because for the next day and a half after hatching, s/he was busy running from egg to egg cheeping loudly and even pecking on the egg shells of the others telling them to hurry up and get out here!
It was a wonderful experience for both my 5 year old son and me. All day long, I kept walking back and forth to the incubator and looking in the window and snapping photos and videos. Here is a video of Sarge just after s/he was born. Please excuse my nerdy commentary.
14 chicks hatched on the predicted day (day 21 of the incubation period).
Day 21 was when most of the action happened. Here one of the cream crested legbars is hatching out of the pretty blue egg shell. Sarge is surveying the recruits right in the center.
When I woke up on the 26th day of incubation, 15 eggs had hatched and my only viable Maran egg had pipped. It took this little guy (or girl) a while - but s/he did it! It was exhausting to watch - and I can only imagine how the chick felt after fighting that shell!
Here is the last chick to hatch. S/he is a Maran - and after s/he dried off and fluffed up, was a pretty light charcoal color with a lighter underbelly. This breed of chicken produces dark shelled eggs like the one s/he just hatched from. So gorgeous!
So, my final count is 1 bantam Cochin, 1 Maran, 2 Brabanters, 9-10 (?) crested cream Legbars, and 2-3 (?) Welbars. (the question marks are there because somehow, despite trying to keep accurate records, things just didn't add up - and apparently the Legbars and Welbars are somewhat similar looking as chicks - so I'll have to wait and see who grows into which breed!
Surprisingly, the crested cream Legbars had best hatch rate - I started 14 of those eggs because they came from my flock - and some were almost 2 weeks old!
The Brabanters had the lowest hatch rate. 5 of these eggs didn't develop at all - so I suspect that they weren't fertile. Of the 7 that showed signs of development, only 2 hatched. It was certainly a disappointment, but if the odds are with me, I will have one pullet and one cockerel - so someday I can hatch more from my own flock. These were also the most expensive of the hatching eggs I purchased at $20/dozen.
I purchased the 6 Welbar and 2 Maran hatching eggs from another breeder and he told me that he typically only achieves a 50% hatch rate - so I wasn't too surprised by my outcome of 2 (or 3?) Welbars and 1 Maran hatching.
Overall, this was a fun and rewarding experience. I would definitely do it again - but would probably invest in an automatic egg turner.
Here are my little ones in there big brooder (which will have a netting top as soon as they are able to jump/fly out).
You may have noticed that there are more than 16 chicks in the brooder picture above... lets just refer to this as chicken math - and the fact that a mail order breeder of bantam Cochins had a big sale on one of my favorite breeds...
When I started this incubation process 17 days ago, I was feeling pretty uneasy and nervous about the very real possibility of making novice mistakes and losing chicks. The first week was pretty intense - constantly watching the temperature and being sure to turn the eggs on schedule. After I made it past that point, something changed and I started to feel more confident. I don't know if it was just getting into the groove or actually seeing the baby chicks develop each time I candled - but something clicked. The last 10 days have flown by - and tomorrow is lock down day already.
Before the actual lock down, I will go through the following steps:
Carefully remove all of the eggs to a safe spot lined with a soft fluffy towel.
Add water to the chambers to bring the humidity level up (ideally to 65-70%)
Line the wire floor with non-slip shelf liner.
Candle the eggs one more time to remove any that are clearly not developing.
Put all the good eggs back in and close the incubator.
Because my incubator is in a very bright room, I will candle the eggs tonight after dark - so I can more easily see what is going on inside. After this, I can just keep an eye on my temperature and humidity levels AND watch for signs of pipping through the incubator windows. (I am so excited for these little babies to arrive!) I will also be busy getting my brooder ready for them to move to 24-48 hours after hatch.
I carefully removed the eggs to a safe area. On the right side of this picture, you can just barely see my pitcher of very warm water, it should be at least 100 degrees so that the temperature in the incubator doesn't drop too much.
Under the wire floor, is the plastic humidity chambers. I filled these with very warm water.
The non-slip shelf liner waiting to be installed.
Now my chicks will have a safe, non-slip floor to walk on. Without this, the wire floor would be quite difficult for the newborn chicks to walk around on - making them more susceptible to splay leg.
All my eggs are back in ready for lock down. The four eggs below the wooden chopstick are my the ones I am most unsure of in terms of development/viability. I will candle tonight, and if still unsure, will try another process called water candling.
It should be noted, that my incubator does not have an automatic egg turner - and I have been hand turning the eggs at least 3 and up to 5 times daily. If my incubator had an automatic egg turner, I would remove it for lock down.
I'll do my best to keep you posted on the progress of my peeps. Thus far this has been a great experience and I hope to add some more members to my feathered family very soon. Wish me luck!
I'm now up to day 8 of the (approximately) 21 days incubating my chicken eggs. So far it's been a little bit of a worrisome experience for me. Because these are (potentially) living beings, I take it very seriously. I don't want to make any dumb mistakes.
I started with 37 eggs and expectations of about a 50% hatch rate (if I'm lucky). Last evening (after dark) I candled all of the eggs at the last turning of the day before going to bed. I tried to take some photos to show what I saw and I think they came out fairly good considering they were taken with my smart phone.
I turn the eggs 3-5 times per day to keep the developing embryos from becoming attached to the outer membranes and the eggshell. This process needs to be done quickly and delicately so as to not allow the temperature to drop too low for too long and to not accidentally crack or break any eggs. The developing eggs need to be turned regularly for the first 18 days
Because I am trying to spend as little money as possible on this whole process, I did not invest the extra $45-50 on an automatic egg turner. This means that there is a lot more hands on time involved for me (every few hours). If I am successful with this little venture and decide to breed more chickens in the future, I will most likely make the investment. And speaking of hands on, I am always sure to wash and dry my hands before handling the eggs to remove any oil and bacteria that could contaminate the eggs and cause hatching problems. It's also nice to have warm hands when handling the warm eggs.
Here is one of the colored eggs being candled. It's a good one! I could see the the blood vessels and the dark spot which is the eye of the chick! As I am a novice, I can not discern the tiny beginnings of a beak, limb buds and tiny digits on the wings and feet that will make toes and wing sections - but according to all my research, by the end of day 7, they are there!
This white egg (a Brabanter) is much easier to see inside of via candling. Another good one - developing on schedule. This is truly amazing to see so up close and personal. My mother in law was here with me and as a retired RN, she was almost as excited as me. A new life (of any species) is a miracle.
Since I candled the eggs to check on development, I expected to find some eggs that were not fertile (and thus were not developing) and/or some that died after beginning to develop - and I did.
Here is a Brabanter egg that is not fertile. All I could see was the yolk and no developing blood vessels.
Here is a bantam Cochin egg that, sadly, died early on in development. The blood ring makes it very clear.
All in all, I had 9 out of 37 eggs that were either infertile or died quite early during development. Candling is recommended to pick out these eggs so they don't go bad and explode in the incubator. So, now I am down to 28 eggs. If by some miracle, all of these eggs survive to become chicks, my hatch rate will be 75%. That's pretty good. Since I am new to this, I don't know if, like in humans, once you make it through the first trimester, healthy birth (or in this case, hatching) is more likely. Obviously I have more to learn.
According to the gentleman from whom I purchased the Welbar and Maran eggs, he averages a 50% hatch rate. I am doing better than that so far. (Although seeing through those dark egg shells was quite challenging - so when in doubt, I kept it in the incubator). I did lose 5 of the 12 Brabanters - and that breeder warned me that those eggs are extremely difficult to hatch in an incubator - so I am not terribly surprised - but I am a little disappointed.
The big surprise to me is that all of the 14 cream crested Leg bar eggs appear to be developing right on schedule. Those were the eggs from my hens - that were anywhere from a few days to up to 2 weeks old. These eggs are also the descendants of the rooster that I lost to a fox more than 2 weeks ago. It's good to know that I can (hopefully) continue to keep this beautiful breed. I may even be able to get a Kareem Abdul Leg bar, Jr. ;)
Well here are the final stats as of the end of day 7:
28 developing eggs (started with 37)
7 cream and/or gold Brabanters (started with 12)
4 silver and/or gold Welbars (started with 6)
2 copper Marans (started with 2)
1 bantam Cochin (started with 2)
14 cream crested leg bars (started with 14)
I plan to candle again on day 12 or 14. I'll report back after I do.
Until then, keep looking for the everyday miracles all around you.
