Another Year Over...

Once again, I have let way too much time pass since my last post. Having a new baby has definitely changed things up a bit over here on Van Dyke! Greg always has a few projects going on though, they just seem to take a little longer to complete these days.

We had this great idea to build our dining room table out of salvaged wood from old bowling alley lanes. Unfortunately, we weren't the only ones who wanted to do this and had a hard time getting a hold of anything affordable. So Greg decided to try and mimic one on his own by gluing up a bunch of maple.

Nice work, G. Just in time for the holidays.

Our laundry room is finally finished too. Greg built cabinets, a folding table and came up with a cool drying rack for the wall. I seem to be spending a lot of time in this room lately, with a baby and all. Makes washing all the dirty clothes and diapers so much better.

In other exciting news, all 3 of our happy chickens are laying eggs now. They love running free in the backyard (we have grass now) and we really have enjoyed sitting on the screened porch watching them.

And finally, we got the top put on the rain barrel. Here's a picture of it all finished and full of water. We even decorated it with Christmas lights.

We probably won't be doing much more around here until after the holidays, so this will most likely be my last post of 2010. It's been a very productive and exciting year for us and I really look forward to all that 2011 has to bring.

Wishing you all a very merry christmas and a Happy New Year!

Let it Rain

One thing we learned during this record breaking hot summer was that we used a lot of water for landscaping. Although we chose many drought resistant plants, our water usage was still pretty high. So, in an effort to conserve water and save money, we decided to put in gutters and collect our rain water.




Greg decided he would build our rain barrel. We bought a 305 gallon plastic water tank from Agri-Supply. Using some rough-sawn treated lumber from his dad's sawmill, he built a wooden surround and conical top. He then used some steel strapping to cinch the cylinder of boards securely together. The tank is equipped with an overflow pipe that is connected to the underground drain pipe, and has a garden hose connection with a valve at the bottom of the tank. Greg's brother Keith, an engineer in Raleigh, designed and sized all the tank plumbing. Keith also computed all the angles necessary to build the cylindrical tank and the conical top. Our friend and metal-worker, Christian Nonino, and crew plumbed the gutter downspout to the tank. All that remains to be done is making a metal "topper" for the tank.







The other day, someone drove by our house on a bicycle and shouted out that the water barrel reminded them of "Petticoat Junction". We had no idea what he meant, but after googling it and watching the intro to the 1960's TV show, we sorta get it. Pretty funny actually.

sum-sum summertime

I am embarrassed by how long it has been since I posted on this blog. This has really been a busy, busy past few months...but the doors are all in, the chicks are lovin' the new fancy coop, Greg's been touring all over the US since CCL's new record was released AND we are expecting a baby in a few days. whew. I had good reason to be so slack.

Here are a few photos I did take this summer around the house. We planted a front yard garden and the watermelons have gone crazy. Luckily, the chickens LOVE them too.




The nursery...


The finished doors...


The lovely ladies...


Penelope

Lulu loves to get on the hammock with G


Still no eggs, but we expect them any day now.

So, there really isn't a whole lot of house stuff left to do around here now. Sure, we need some furniture- and Greg is really looking forward to building that this fall. I found this bedroom set I really love, so Greg is going to try to replicate it for us. We are also going to try to plant grass and landscape out back. Our poor backyard is such a dustbowl. This has been one hot North Carolina summer and I am looking forward to it coming to an end.


And a final shot of the guys playing locally the day the record was released...

The doors!

Although we've been living in our house since last August, we've been doing so without any interior doors. I admit it, it was weird at first, but I've actually gotten used to using curtains as a temporary solution. Our house guests might not feel the same though, so I am excited to say that we will actually have real wood doors in place by the end of this week!

Greg built all 11 from poplar. They are based on the classic 5 panel style of the early 1900's. He primed them and is in the process of fitting and installing the hardware.

The french doors in the music room are also in. Who knew doors could make such a difference???

The Coop!

All this beautiful spring weather inspired us to finally build our backyard chicken coop. We had lots of leftover materials to work with after building the house, so it was nice to find good use for it. I think Greg had fun building it too- not quite as stressful as building our house. Hope our city chicks like it as much as we do. Almost finished...


just getting started




already thinking about clean up




where we will collect eggs

Spring is here!

75 degrees and sunny today! I really hope we have seen the end of this dreary, cold and never-ending winter.

These are tulips that Greg brought back from Holland last year. I planted them way back in November and they just popped up. I hope they last long enough for G to see when he gets home next week.

Our peach tree is blooming too- thanks Kyra and Chandler!

Random stuff

Walk-in closets are finished! We have been living out of boxes since August and since closets were low on our priority list it took until now to finish them up. I think Greg was getting pretty tired of my stuff lying everywhere. So, time to get organized. It's going to actually be fun with all this room. Here's my fancy closet...


With our house contest prize money, we went ahead and ordered blinds for the entire house. We ended up getting the bottom-up/ top-down cellular shades and LOVE them. They let in just enough light too and don't cover up the trim. I'm sure the neighbors will miss watching Greg play the Wii though.

Here are a couple shots of our built-in desk off of the kitchen. We are now on the hunt for the perfect desk chair. Greg's also making some kind of cabinet on casters to hide the printer and cords.

G also built a very Scandinavian-looking cabinet to house all the TV stuff.

As soon as it gets warmer, door building begins. G's making 11 doors and we just got our hardware in. So pretty...

After my last blog post, something pretty cool happened. Someone in Raleigh stumbled across our blog and contacted us about having Greg build a breakfast nook similar to the one he had just done for us. Here is a picture of it all finished. I think they were happy with it and we met some really nice people along the way.