Make lemonade…..
Remember back in 2009, when we lost the beautiful 40 year old Locust from a nasty lightning strike? Well, we cut the tree down ourselves later that fall and stacked it next to our house to let it age for a year. That bonus pile of wood inspired us to retrofit our drafty fireplace with a wood-burning insert the next year. Since we had all this free wood now, might as well burn it. The wood burning stove was one of the best investments we’ve made with the house. What a difference it has made on our heating bills. The beautiful Locust kept us nice and toasty warm last winter and provided us with beautiful fires. The last two logs of the tree we decided to do something different….. If all goes well, we’ll have lots...
Read MoreKitchen cabinet redo
Am working on the sanding and staining the recycled kitchen cabinets which were the infamous honey oak color from the 90s. These cabinets, reclaimed from a remodeling job, will be in our downstairs kitchen. The sanding was easy-peazy because the original stain was so light. Now I’m onto the color portion of this project. I’m going for a darkish brown color on the oak wood. The middle panel has one coat of my mix, while the bottom one has two. I mixed two parts glaze to one part paint and the two coats seem to do the trick with a finishing rub of walnut Watco Oil. I am looking for the warmth of a rich color while still showing some wood grain. Working with the glaze/paint method gives me more color choices than just...
Read MoreRemodeling project updates
The granite counters were just installed yesterday for our on-going DIY project downstairs. We’ve been slowing building out a second kitchen area to use for parties and summer outings in our backyard and pool. We started the project about two years ago, with salvaged cupboards, and a gently-used dishwasher and refridgerator. Now all we have to do is finish the drywall, hook up the water and heat vent, install the wall tiles, paint the walls and FINALLY we’ll be pretty much good to...
Read MoreBeatons August 2011
Agreed. Not much has happened at Beatons this summer. Todd and I decided to focus on Madison projects as well as taking a bit of a break from work, family and life. However, we did head up this weekend for the annual Beatons Lake Riparian Association Meeting. To make a long story short, we should have set out on Thursday night, but didn’t leave Mad-Town until 10am on Friday…. So, We packed three people and two dogs in a station wagon with a few inches to spare. Good sport, Ryann, held the back seat with the pups. On Saturday, I stained Cedar wood shingles for a little bit, but the bigger part of the day was spent at the annual picnic of lake property owners – known as the Beatons...
Read MoreFinal push at Beatons
Amazing what a bunch of people can build over two years. In August of 2008, we started building the Sauna Haus with just Todd, my dad and I putting the foundation posts and beams into place by hand. Many weekends later, we have a closed-in building. Yay! The first weekend of October, with another work crew consisting of Todd, Eric, Paul, Peter and me, we completed the cedar siding. All that is left on the outside is the cedar shake in the gables. Here’s a good photos of the Streicher boys nailing in the cedar siding. This summer we also got the windows installed, rock wall completed, the well dug, water to the building, insulated inside. With the sauna stove installed and the firewood cut, we can actually...
Read MoreWorking weekend
Lost a great tree last summer due to a lightning strike. We took the tree down ourselves, and “aged” it for the past year. This weekend, we rented a hydraulic wood splitter and chopped the tree up for fire wood. So our investment of a wood burning furnace last fall made a lot of sense. And what a difference it makes on the gas heating bill. This totally efficient stove really warms our downstairs basement/living area (in total about 1400 sq. ft) By heating the basement level, the first floor benefits from the heat as well. But in order to use the wood burning stove, we need wood. We can order it locally, haul it back from the UP or take advantage of a lightning strike. So...
Read MoreMost recent thoughts
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