Staying Home & Making a Vanity

After Steve's tiring week at work (3 days in the city, installing cabinetry) we decided to stay home this weekend. We still haven't made a vanity for the farm bath, so that is what we are doing today. We are starting with rough sawn hickory, leftover from a job we had a couple years ago. The people had it cut down so Steve could make a piece of furniture for them. They didn't want the extra wood so now we get to make something from it. It will be a mission-style vanity with a laminate (left over from another job)top. We purchased a sink for $5 at a re-use it shop in Elgin. I did order a new faucet though. We couldn't find one that we liked used. Here is the hickory.

Steve is cutting it as I write. I will help him sand it & apply the laminate later.

It will be so nice to have a working sink in the bathroom. We use the basement utility sink for all of our washing right now.

This week I emailed & talked to Center Stove & Fireplace out of Richland, WI about getting the wood stoves moved before winter. We bought a used soapstove stove last fall. We have a soapstone one in the area we live in right now & want to use that one in our new living area. The used one will go in it's place. We will be building a base for the stove after we get the electric run in that area & should be ready for the wood stove then. We will probably wait for spring to put stone on the walls behind it.

The windows we ordered came in this week. We now have enough to do the whole barn. We were going to wait but there was a great sale so we went ahead with the order for all of them. Maybe by winter, we'll have the front ot the barn done. It will look so nice!

We have also been discussing what to do about heat when we aren't there. Right now we have 2 hot water solar panels that take care of the needs for the house. We would like to have radiant floor heat too but don't want to spent the extra money right now for 2 more solar panels. We are talking about using the existing panels for the floor heat in the winter & switching it back to the water heating in the summer. We have a hot water heater so that shouldn't be a problem. We'll have to talk to Johnny Murphy from Greenhome Solar .
He put in the other panels.

Tomorrow we hang out with family at my brother's house for my niece & nephew's birthday.

I'll post more pics when we get the vanity done.

Have a great wekend!

The Old & the New

This is a solar lantern which was our only light source

(besides candles) when we first bought the farm.

It works really well & for quite a long time.

The Amish coming home.

We had another great sunset last night.

It's another beautiful morning. Two degrees but there isn't much wind. Finishing up setting posts in the new living area & doing a good cleaning in our "cabin" room.

When we leave today, we'll stop at the food co-op & stock up on bulk items like flour & rice, get a few snacks for the drive and head out. Stopping at an antique/junk store in a town on the way home is in our plans. Going to look for a straight edge razor for Steve. Chris W. from A One Acre Homestead in Ohio blog suggested this as away to save money & have less to recycle. It's been a good weekend here but too short as always.

Afternoon at the Farm

Went down to get the mail. Just taking off my mitten for a few seconds to take a picture, my hand started hurting from the cold. Eli came over for a visit around noon. It's good to catch up with him on how the family is doing. Some of the things we talked about were buying & saving seed, the root cellar & their new puppy. We also talked about an Amish widow down the street who died last week. People came from all over to attend the funeral. Ohio, Minnesota, Canada. This is done by bus or train. The only time they all get together is for funerals or weddings. They write letters to communicate with friends & relatives the rest of the time. Can't just pick up the phone to call.

The sun is beating down on the solar panels. I just checked the temperature of the tank and it is 121 degrees.

I haven't got a lot of motivation today. It's it's so warm sitting here by the fire & Steve doesn't need any help on the stairs yet. I guess it's time to get out the knitting. I am determined to learn to make hats by next winter. Knit, purl, knit, purl.....

Solar Hot Water

One of the major things we've done at the farm is to have solar hot water installed. This is Johhny Murphy from GreenHome Solar & his helper finishing up the install of the panels in September. He is a great guy to work with. He even came back on a Sunday to finish up inside because he knew we would only be there for the weekend.

I can't tell you how great it is to look at the thermostat on the side of the water storage tank & see how much the sun has heated it. Being in Wisconsin, we also opted to put in a regular water heater for backup for those cloudy days on end that you can get in the winter months. There are levers that open up the lines to let the hot water flow from the storage tank & bypass the water heater. The power of the sun. What a concept.We hope to add a couple more panels for radiant floor heat in the future. We really need a backup heat source for when we aren't there. We'll get there someday!