Them good old days

Throw back to the 70's

Legacy continues.

Me and my sister

My two boys

S.A.F.E

So I have been kinda a mild environmentalist my whole life. Long before becoming "green" was cool or the in thing to do. I was a member of S.A.F.E. (Students Acting For the Environment) Back in the 90's in high school. Up-cycling, recycling and repurposing has been a long time way of life for the poor folks way before today. I know, I have memories of my dad tossing me into dumpsters to get stuff to use, cans to sell or occasionally food to eat. We converted buses into loving living spaces. When we needed more room in the bus we simply mounted a V.W. micro-bus on top of our bus, drove down the road like that. If you have ever lived in California or Oregon in the late '70s early '80s you might have seen our blue and white bus with a a van on top. so it is perfectly natural for me to find second uses for old found objects. Being an aspiring school teacher I have a lot of ideas and the internet helps too. I have a few things outside now ready for "repurposing". Project one is a money saving idea that involves an upright freezer, water tank and shower door. Project two is just a regular style refrigerator with strategically placed holes rock,dirt, and worms. Project three is hopefully a huge money saving idea involving a few different sized propane tanks, low power high volume electric fans and a few automotive radiators. Project three will also integrate into project four. I will start working on project one soon as I think that I have all the materials to hopefully take my hot water heater off electric. Oh and in case you didn't know I am not overly fond of the way my electric company does business but that may be another post. If I could find a cheap way to get completely off grid I would, not because I am a Doomsday Prepper but because I despise my electric company. And it is not all their fault I am to blame too but they did nothing to help. Any way that is another post altogether.

Blog changes

I started this particular blog to cronolog the changes in my house. I had an other more anonymous blog for all the weird stuff that goes on in my life. Well today I decided to merge the two, not that there was much to merge because I had stopped blogging a while ago. So today I think I will post my musings and such all on here.

Jameys first school picture

Wanna smack me around? I am the star of this game!

Lack of update

This past couple of months have been really hectic. With multiple travels to Kentucky and school full time. Then someone decided it would be fun to plow down about 50 ft of our fence with their car, hit and run while I was gone. My lawn mower broke down, I am glad it is almost winter. I will have to get the camera out soon. It seems as if our home is regressing to its former self (it's not really). Anyway things have been stalled for so long because of lack of funds.

fl counties

We live in Putnam county the NE side of the state.


Map Courtesy of Digital-Topo-Maps.com

Places I've been to or through to get to other places.

Some of the my favorite places that I have spent some time in.

1. Saint Augustine, FL, USA


2. Tampa, FL, USA


3. Interlachen, FL, USA


4. Coarsegold, CA, USA


5. Paris, TX, USA


6. Coos Bay, OR, USA


7. Phoenix, AZ, USA

• Create your own travel map or travel blog

New Counter and Cabinet

Before

After (little at a time as money allows.)

Some wild color in the laundry room, It is almost done.

We liked how the trim around the light turned out. the ceiling still needs to be finished and painted. Some wild colors huh!!

Jessica's laundry folding area.

We still have more work to go. It still needs a second coat and touch up on the trim and final punch-out work.

The door to the kitchen. The room looks like a different color in this lighting. The paint is Ooops paint from the hardware store at $5.00 a gallon. We can live with the color, I kinda like it.

Before and after!!

After

Before

Old refrigerator is gone.

Our refrigerator has been replaced. Our old fridge slowly died on us this weekend so we had to replace it with this one from a scratch and dent place.. It is much bigger than our old one too. The old one was 18 sq ft if we were lucky but I think it was closer to 14 sq ft. It was also the old style not the side by side. Our new on on thother hand is 25 sq ft and with its purchas they threw in a 5 sq ft deep freezer. (It is in the previous post.)

So... more work done today.

More trim and mud work compleated.

We added trim around the light fixture and are in the process of texturing the ceiling.

We trimmed the windows, click and zoom to the odd detail on the corners. Talk about saving money!!! I saved a lot by hand making my simple molding. All the molding was hand made in my yard with $0.77 ferring strips 1x2's & $1.89 1x4's using a router.
Jessica has a table to fold clothes on and still has room for hampers under the table. I have a rack to hang clothes on but had to take it down to put up some molding. She also has a deep freezer now.

It has been a while

Well it has been a while since I posted but holidays, finances and college will tend to slow things down. We put in laminate flooring in the main living areas. We are focusing on the laundry room for a few reasons. One it is where the front door is located so it is the first room you see when you walk in. Second it is a small room to practice on and learn with. And third after all the little bit of work we did to the rest of the house it was the worst looking room in the house at the time.

The new laundry room

I have been doing some work to my house and right now I am focusing on the laundry room.
I gutted the whole room down to the studs and put up new sheet-rock and repaired a bunch of stuff. I repaired a bunch of electrical outlets, moved cupboards, put up molding, folding table and hanging rack (Jessica is doing laundry in these pictures.) I also trimmed the light fixture and put a cover over the bulbs.
This angle is similar to one I posted earlier, the one with Joe in the picture. I also put in new laminate flooring throughout the main living areas. We are planning on painting it next weekend.

Winter vacation

I took my kids to see Greatgrandparents in Kentucky just before Christmas and little Josh helped plot the route.
He wanted to drive but due to physical limitations I could not allow it.
I drove over 2000 miles on that trip. it went like this; Interlachen Fl (home) to Largo Fl (drop little sister Nikki at airport) back to Interlachen (to load the van for the trip) then to Corbin Ky (visit Great Papaw) to Louisville Ky (Visit aunt Kay Kay great mama and Jessica's best friend Virginia) back to Corbin then off to Florence SC (to visit my sister the cop) then back to Interlachen (reload van for Christmas in Largo) down to Largo for Christmas then finally back home to Interlachen where I began remodel on the laundry room.
Smokey mountains (Click on image for larger view)
I don't know, it didn't look like much of a truck stop/motel to me but it made an awesome scene with the snowy Smokies in the background.

Turkey Rod Run Break

One of my favorites, I want a truck like this ;-)
Cool bus, I am just glad it isn't one of the ones we lived in. (Look close it is an old prison bus)
My friend Andy and his younger cousin Cory.
Jamey thinks he owns this one. (We don't know the other guys in the picture)
Jamey, Andy and Cory. We took thanksgiving weekend to enjoy Daytona's Turkey Rod Run and seen hundreds of cars of all types and had an absolute blast.

I found the Back Yard!

Update #1 First lawn cut.

The back yard after a rough mow.
Side of house.
The front of the house after about 5 loads and a rough mow job!