Superpaige's Pad

The Trials of a Busy Mom

Category: DIY Projects (Page 5 of 5)

Hey, Chicken!

June 25, 2011 / / 3 Comments

If you are anything like me, you’ve probably been wondering a few things. Questions like: ‘Is Jimmer going to stay and play in Utah, or go somewhere else?’ or ‘What will Katy Perry be wearing in her next music video?’ or ‘What the heck is up with these gas prices, and when are they going to come down?’ Oh, you’ve got questions, allright.

But I’m here to answer the more importantly, the burning question…what’s up with Paige’s chickens?

After the little gal was attacked by a dog and had her near death experience, We realized we had to beef up security around those chicks. Since that’s not really something I can do (without about three trips to the hardware store and 4 hours of frustration that would probably end in injury or swearing), I was ultra thankful that Ryan took over and reinforced the coop.

When I was talking about the dog dangers in the neighborhood, a friend offered up a dog run. Seems they had an extra one in their backyard after having a relative live with them for a year. Cole and Megan went over and dismantled the run, loaded it into the truck and brought it over here (have I mentioned how much I enjoy having a child that can DRIVE and run errands for me Holla!!), and even set it up for me. At first we set the run up around the coop, but that was problematic. The footprint of the run is about a foot wider than the base of the chicken coop. Although that added to the security, it made it hard to open the coop and feed them.

We decided it would be better to have the dog/chicken run next to the coop, so that the little ladies could have a safe outdoor space to wander, scratch the ground, and look for bugs and weeds to eat. Ryan took over the remodel project, and figured out how to make a little sliding door for them. How awesome is that? And all this from the man who supposedly didn’t even want chickens!

I figure these chickens are now about 8-9 weeks old, and they are growing bigger every day! I like to let them out when I am changing their water and getting them food. They especially like to wander through the garden boxes–Don’t eat THOSE plants, chickens, eat the weeds. I am hoping that they will eat squash bugs and slugs, too.

The kids all love the chickens. Almost as much as I love them! It’s actually quite irrational how much I love those chickens. I mean, they are just chickens, but I really do love them! We try to hold and pet them just about every day so they will not get all mean on us. Nobody wants a mean chicken around, especially when they get bigger. This is not the best picture of John, but you get the idea that the kids are having fun with our new little pets.

They have starting eating some fruit and veggie scraps, as well. I never know what they are going to eat and not going to eat, but I give them food just in case. They do like stale bread, so they’ve had some of that for the past couple of days. They will also eat lettuce and some weeds, and cleaned off a corn cob like it was candy. I just took out the strawberry tops, some cabbage, and celery tops that I would have thrown away, but giving them to the chickens is much better than throwing them away, right? (The CIRCLE of LIFE….(sing it with me, now)
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life)

Don’t think I’m talking about THAT circle of life. These little poultry are not going to be put into a casserole anytime soon (or ever), but I am looking forward to getting some eggs from them in the early fall.

Oh, and they aren’t going to be FRIES, either.

Chickens

June 1, 2011 / / 8 Comments

Once there was a girl who wanted chickens. It’s not like she dreamed of having chickens from the time she was little, but as an adult she realized that having a few chickens would be a great experience for her family. They could have animals to take care of, and even fresh eggs.

But the girl’s husband did not share her enthusiasm for the feathered creatures, perhaps because they had so many birds inside the house already. Or perhaps it was the fear that the girl would undoubtedly ask him to BUILD something for the chickens. Because while the girl has plenty of enthusiasm for starting a project, she sometimes lacks the know-how or the right tools to do all the follow through.

Then, in a happy coincidence, the girl found someone offering up a chicken coop on freecycle. And not some far away chicken coop, but a chicken coop in her very own town, not far from her own castle, I mean house. So the girl arranged a pick up time, asked her son and daughter to follow her over in the old beat up truck, and they loaded up the chicken coop and hauled it on home. What could be better?

The children were super enthused about the coop, and they helped the girl paint it a lovely red color.

And a nearby friend even offered up the baby chicks that she had hatched for her preschool kids (Ok, truthfully, she *tried* to hatch some fertilized eggs in time for Easter, but they just didn’t hatch, so she went to IFA and bought some chicks so they would be there by Monday. Her preschool kids were through the roof excited, but now she doesn’t really want to add 3 more chicks to her coops. She already has about 40 chickens. So, as soon as it’s warm enough to keep them outside in this little coop, we’ll adopt them.)

But then the friend un-offered her baby chicks because her husband wanted to keep them (What?) so the girl had to find her own chickens. CLASSIFIEDS!

So the girl found an ad on KSL.com, asked about them, and went over and got some.
We got two California White Leghorns, and two Rhode Island Browns.

When they grow up, they should look like this

(I think.)

They certainly didn’t look so comfortable in the box we brought them home in.

We really don’t know much about them except I got some food, a food dish, a water dish and some bedding, and we’ll see how they do. This week it should really warm up so I won’t need to worry so much about them being cold, which is good.

We put them into their little coop and they seemed a little bit lonely and overwhelmed, and aren’t sure what to do. But they are chickens, after all. They don’t need to do all that much.

The kids are so excited about them. We’re going to have to pick out names, even. When they were all huddled together in the bottom of the pen, I had John crawl in there and get chickens and hand them to me so I could put them up in the nesting box for the night, so they would be warmer. I don’t think they know how to navigate the “ladder”. This morning we all had to run out there and make sure they were still ok, and it looks like they survived the night. Everyone wanted to pet them and say hello.

Ryan tells me I had better be completely happy for the next 6 months. What? I guess I will, then. The girl finally got her chickens. The girl (and her kids) is happy to embark on this chicken raising adventure.

We CAN do it

May 27, 2011 / / 3 Comments

Our school is doing a new fundraiser for the summer. And, since I’m the fundraiser chairperson this year, even though I’m not in charge of this particular event, you can say I’ve been heavily involved.

We made up #10 cans for each family in our school. We had to close the cans and put the labels on. My friend MaryAnne (who is heading up this campaign) had her son make ALL the slots in ALL the lids.

Then we put all the labels on them.

And loaded them up into cars to transport to the school.

On to distribution. It took a WHOLE lot of preparation and lists to make sure that every family receives one and only one can. At our school, the youngest child is the family rep, so that meant that every Kindergartener and a lot of the first graders get to take the cans home. We went to each classroom with a big box of cans and explained how we want the kids (and parents) to put all their loose change in the can and bring it back when school starts in the fall. I gave my little speech to one of the kindergarten classes right before they left for the day. Shortly after, my the PTA president elect reads a text on her phone and starts to laugh. She reads it out loud for us, “Tell Paige her motivational speech was just a bit TOO good. My kindergartener came home and immediately put her $60 of birthday money into the can.” We were all just busting up. These cans only have the one slot for money to go in. Good luck getting that $60 out of the can.

John got to bring our can home, and it’s now perched proudly in our home, inviting all to dump their spare change from pockets, purses and wallets.

Let’s hope it’s a successful fund raiser. To find out how successful, you’ll have to tune in in September, when we get to open all those cans and count all the money–Hooray.

What’s Happenin?

May 10, 2011 / / 1 Comment

Some of the goings on around here this week.

**Oldest child took the AP Calculus Test

**Then he took the AP Physics Test

**Painted a dresser purple. It could have turned out better. But it looks better than it did.

**Acquired a chicken coop (no chickens yet, but I’m hoping to get some as soon as I get the coop fixed up and painted! Happy Dance!)

**Daughter throwing up

**Youngest son got hits EVERY time he was up to bat! And he can run those bases like nobody’s business!

**Tried to win a car. Did Not.

**Tried out for a play. Not my best audition in the world, but definitely not my worst. I went during the kids audition time because I couldn’t go later when it was my own time slot. It’s a lot less scary that way, too. I’m not competing with a bunch of talented men and women, but a bunch of scared kids. And I think the dance they teach the kids is easier than the adult dance. But I didn’t even make the call back list. In four years of auditioning for this particular community theater, I’ve ALWAYS made the call back list, even when I didn’t get a big part. So I either totally sucked at my audition, or I rocked it and they’ve already cast me in a part. Who knows?

**Tried to win a room makeover

**Got mulched

**Tried the new yogurt place in Highland, the Orange Leaf. Yum. Although I can’t help calling it the “Orange Orange” in my head. (only fans of the show Chuck will get that reference)

**And I’ve been cleaning carpets with the carpet cleaner borrowed from the lovely Julene. It’s gross, yet satisfying to dump out the disgusting dirty water.

So, that’s a glimpse into what’s going on. Want more info? Stay tuned, and have a wonderful day.

It’s VOTING time!

April 30, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Friends, I posted about my entry to win a room makeover from the fabulous Mandi Here. Well, the time is now come to go wild and vote! You just need to go to Mandi’s blog HERE and cast your vote for #40. That’s my post about my boring, colorless bedroom. And then after you have voted, you can post a link to the contest on facebook and ask your friends to vote for me, you can post on your blog and ask your readers to vote for me, and you can call your mom and ask HER to vote for me (that’s what I’ll be doing, at least). You don’t have to have a blog to vote (at least I don’t think so) and you don’t have to have a facebook account to vote, you just need an email address. And I could REALLY use your votes, cause I totally would love to have a bedroom makeover!!!
Voting runs from midnight tonight (April 30) until May 2nd.

Thanks!!

Marvelous Makeover by Mandi!

April 22, 2011 / / 8 Comments
bamboo wood floors; french doors; muted colors; vaulted ceiling traditional bedroom

Let’s talk about the bedroom, shall we? The bedroom is supposed to be “the sanctuary”, the “oasis of calm”, “where the magic happens” and all that. Right.

Wakefield Residence modern bedroom

When we got married, we used my husband’s old WATERBED that he had used for about 10 years. A waterbed? Really? You know how much fun it is to be pregnant and try to get out of a waterbed? Yeah. Real fun. So when we moved into our current house almost 10 years ago, we did not bring the waterbed with us. It felt like totally luxury to be sleeping in a REAL bed, on a REAL mattress. Not the highest quality furniture, I assure you. We were moving into a bigger house with a bigger mortgage, and at the time of our closing and move, my husband was unemployed. That’s right. Unemployed. As in, we really had no way to PAY for the nice new house, and were living on faith that he would soon find a job.

He DID eventually find a job, and we were always able to pay our mortgage. And as the family has grown and changed, I’ve had fun painting the kids’ bedrooms, and even painted our family room and living room. But NOT the bedroom. Funny, I just thought of the Sandra Boynton Book, But Not the Hippopotamus right there. You know, how all the cats and rats in their new running hats….
book

I LOVE that book, don’t you? Well, that’s how our bedroom has felt. Every other room gets some kind of paint job or work done on it, but the bedroom is left out.

It’s not like I haven’t TRIED. I’ve moved the bed around the room, trying to find the ‘right’ place for it. I’ve even made curtains. I’ve brought in a bookcase, taken out that bookcase when I needed it for the girls’ room, brought in a cute little rocking chair that I inherited from my grandma (but it just seems to be a place to hang clothes on it, let’s be honest). I’ve tried. But I can’t seem to commit to anything. I haven’t figured out what I WANT that room to look like. I’m not complaining about my room. We have a bed and dressers and a tv. It’s functional, just not fabulous.

bed

But there’s no STYLE. There’s no PERSONALITY. There’s no COLOR.

Nate Berkus would tell me to paint the walls a nice soft blue or green and then go with neutral or white bedding, right? But would he tell me how to position my bed with the windows that aren’t symmetrical, or what to do with the shelf on the wall, or how to make the room really SPECIAL?
Yes, I’m sure he would. But sadly, Nate has not volunteered to come out and do a bedroom makeover.

BUT– We have the next best thing! Mandi at Vintage Revival has been called the MacGyver of DIYers. I discovered Mandi when she made this teapot lamp on Studio 5.

I think she can make anything look pretty, and she doesn’t seem to be afraid to tackle ANY kind of project.

She could probably make a quilt out of gum wrappers, make a sofa out of old tires and patio furniture, and I’m sure she could do WONDERS with my bedroom.
Because talented Mandi is holding a CONTEST! A contest, wherein the winner of said contest (hopefully ME) gets to have the lovely Mandi come to their home, and makeover a chosen room. I could have MANDI in my bedroom! Wait, that didn’t exactly come out right. Mandi could help ME decorate our bedroom!

We’d be all painting together and doing some kind of fun glazing technique on the dresser, making window treatments, and I would feed her brownies and run and get a Cafe Rio chicken salad for her while she’s working hard designing and making something MARVELOUS out of my bland bedroom. We could chat about our mutual love for Nate (while I have attended Nate’s show, she has actually been a GUEST on his show! How cool is that?!), and be BFFs forever! And you know, if she saw other boring areas in my house that were crying out for some kind of cool clock or fireplace mantel or….something…I sure wouldn’t stop her from taking over my entire house, because I’m sure she could do wonders with it!

So all I’ve got to do is win this contest! Easy, right? Not so easy. This is where YOU come in. This post is linked up to the Vintage Revivals Contest page and then, once the voting is open, from April 30 to May 4th, we all vote for me! Perhaps through our collective charm and charisma, we can get all our friends to vote for me, and our friend’s moms to vote for me, and that one creepy friend who stalks your blog to vote for me. If you feel inclined to post this on your blog and ask your readers to vote for me–all the better!

Let’s get Mandi here to put some pizzaz in that bedroom! (Again–sounds a little weird, but you know what I mean.)

New life for an old piece of furniture

April 21, 2011 / / 10 Comments

I have had this dresser for about forever. Seriously. I remember it from when I was a kid. And, when we had a couple kids and needed more and more dressers, I inherited this one back from my parents. I do not know how old it it, but it’s got a couple of coats of paint on it.

I do know that unlike a lot of our furniture, it’s made of wood. Not just particle board with a little bit of wood on the front. There’s a tag on the back, but I can’t read a date or anything, but let’s just say it’s old.

A few days ago, a received a REALLY COOL sample in the mail. I had signed up with Valspar Paint for a sample, and this is what they sent me. A little jar of my chosen color, also a mini roller, and a $5 coupon for valspar paint. I had chosen a light blue, “beach sparkle,” I think it was called. I didn’t want to paint a wall, though, I had ordered it with this dresser in mind.

I started with a Mr. Clean Magic eraser and scrubbed the heck out of the piece. Yes, I know–real painters use sandpaper. But I am not a professional or anything, so I just cleaned it, not sanded it. I started with only the top, because I didn’t know if I would have enough of the sample paint to do the whole dresser. There was also some tape and labels that had to be peeled off. You can tell I was really careful with this dresser in the past, since I had put labels that said “shirts”, “underwear and socks” and “pants and skirts” on the drawers. Peeling those off took off some paint, but hey, I don’t care so much.

I went to town.

There I was, in my pajamas, (what? You don’t paint in your pajamas? For some reason I do my best painting in my pajamas. Once the kids are gone and I’m figuring out what to do with my day, that’s when I get the inspiration to paint. And I don’t want to paint after I’ve had a shower, so I end up just painting in my pajamas. Ok, so I’m weird that way), blasting some Foo Fighters and Glee, and painting. I found a screw driver and took off the handles (different color underneath, but I’m not sure if it was from fading, corrosion from the handles, or if the last painter just went around the handles), and painted the drawers. I had JUST enough paint to do a whole second coat!

I love that spring blue color, don’t you?

I wasn’t sure what to do with the handles. It would be fun to put on fun new handles, but that would mean a trip to Home Depot or Lowes or something, and then what if I didn’t get the right size? So, I thought I would just paint the handles and put them back on. And, lookie there, I have some black spray paint. So, it’s a done deal.

I spray painted the handles black, then gave them a coat of gloss, put a coat of polyurethane on the dresser, and BAM!

Now, if I were to do another dresser this way, I would make sure to take it to the garage or basement to paint it, not leave it there smelling the kids’ rooms up with the smell of polyurethane. When I came home from rehearsal, I could smell the smell as soon as I walked in the house, and I couldn’t believe the kids were sleeping in the same room as the smelly dresser. So we moved the whole thing into the laundry room and shut the door, so it could continue drying for the rest of the night, and stop stinking up the bedroom. But by morning, the smell was mostly gone, and it was ready to be assembled.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE how it turned out! I love it so much, in fact, that I’d like to steal it for somewhere else in the house, not waste it on a kid who doesn’t even put his clothes away. I think it would look really cute in the entryway or in the kitchen with tablecloths in it.

But for now I’m just happy with how it turned out. It’s not perfect, and there are some poly globs on the top. If I were a professional (and remember, I am NOT), I would sand that top layer and then put another layer of poly on the whole thing just to make it more smooth, shiny, and durable. The best part? Free. The paint was free, the dresser was free, the handles were free. I didn’t even have to go to the store ONCE for this project! And it gives me hope and inspiration. I could paint EVERYBODY’S old garage sale/hand me down dressers and make them ALL pretty and cute! I said I could. Could. Not that I have to.

Newer posts »

Recent Comments

Categories

Archives

© 2025 Superpaige's Pad

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑