A Real Kitchen

Once the floors got in the garage and mudroom, and all the subs came back to work their magic, things got really exciting.

With the help of some fantastic family, we got moved into the basement and garage. Thank God for family!

Summer Kitchen?

Summer kitchen sounds so much nicer than garage kitchen.  And as I’ve been told that old farmhouses often had exterior kitchens that they used in the dog days of summer, I keep trying to call it a summer kitchen. Whatever we end up calling it, it will be the only kitchen we have for the next two years, while we live in the new addition and renovate the old farmhouse.  That beautiful beast of a sink I refinished needed something to sit on.  BJR and Uncle Joe were just the fellas up for the task.

Because the old sink weighs over 100 pounds, it needed to be sturdy.  I will eventually make a little skirt to go around the stand, so it didn’t matter to me that it was made out of 2 by 4s (mental note: add kitchen sink skirt to the to-do list).

Husband, I promise I don’t purposely find things that are difficult.  I just really like repurposing. So please know, I appreciate it when you think outside the box and go with me on my little visions.  BJR and Uncle Joe built the sink a new perch.

Those two are the bomb.  Diggities.

And I went to work on getting new bits and pieces for the faucet.  Then proceeded to sift through as many youTube videos as I could possibly find on repurposing an antique faucet, which were challenging to find (mental note: start a youTube channel for projects like these.)  I have zero mechanical abilities.  So while a few new washers and whatchamacallits may not seem like a big deal, it was quite the accomplishment for my right-sided-brain self.

And of course, even after I got it semi-functional, I had to polish it up and make it pretty.

The plumbers loved the challenge of installing an old faucet from the early 1900s (written with a bit of sarcasm).  But atleast I had it all ready and waiting for them. 

Good thing this sink has lots of character and is charming in its own right.  I have to admit it is not very practical.  The basin is super shallow for today’s ‘super-size-me’ cooking containers.  (Mental note: make sure the next old sink I find for the ‘forever’ kitchen has deeper basins.)

Then we got the long awaited email that our cabinets were in at Menards.  Whoop whoop.  After Plan A for the cabinets fell through, we went with Plan B which meant cheap economical cabinets from Menards.  Economical is important because every bit spent on the garage kitchen means less to spend on the forever kitchen.

That pesky concept of budgeting.

Menards just came out with a line of cabinets to rival Ikea cabinets.  However, as Menards is new to the DIY-cabinet scene and the cabinets are a comparable quality to Ikea, the directions and ease of installation were horrible.  They might as well have been written in spanish. And no habla espanol.

We may have needed to resort to adult beverages to ease the pain of installation.

Thankfully Maggie and Donnie were up for some installation fun.  Thank you both for helping us try to sort through the Klearvue fiasco! xoxo

After some progress, we abandoned that frustrating project, but our spanish was muy bien.  (Hey, just keeping it real.)

BJR took a fresh stab at it with Uncle Joe a few days later.

We just did one wall of traditional lower cabinets, and planned on putting open shelving above that, but were too excited to not start filling the lowers.

For the half wall of the garage kitchen, I had found a really neat old workbench, thanks to some new local friends/junkers, Chickie & Ron Morris.  Chickie knows I like primitive.  She called me when she found this beauty of a workbench. Swoon.

It had my name written all over it.

And it allowed me to have a little fun with the whole, ‘we live in a garage’ thing.  Because you know, every respectable garage has a workbench.  Thank you Chickie!

I removed a great deal of the paint splatters but intentionally left some on as well.

We ended up removing the top boards and BJR cut a huge piece of OSB, which Uncle Joe took to an amish fella who covered it with galvanized tin for me.  Those top boards would soon come in handy for my open shelving too.  Double score.  Love it when that happens.  (Mental note: having a cement floor comes in handy when in the middle of a DIY project.)

BJR and Uncle Joe tacked the tin into place, and fit the new top on the bench, before sliding it into place.

It is exactly what I had envisioned. And while it’s important that it was really cheap affordable, it has lots of character and lots of personality.

After a quick scrubbing with Briwax, and putting on some new drawer pulls, she was ready to be put to work.  (Don’t mind that painter’s tape on the wall.  Still a work in progress you know.)

She has a great work surface and lots of storage for all of our big kitchen items…pots and pans, roasters, etc.  I couldn’t be happier with how the workbench turned out!

Then yesterday, my tired, spent, put a fork in me self, and equally spent husband, mustered the energy to tackle putting up the boards off the top of the workbench, above the new Klearvue cabinets.  We measured, leveled and tweaked those beautiful wonky boards.

I love all their paint splatters and imperfections.  Because the lower cabinets are filled to the gills, the uppers provide a place to put our much pared-down dishes.

 

That friends, is how you do a summer garage kitchen on a shoestring budget. Whoop whoop at DRF.

It’s Official

So while we kept working on putting the finishing touches on the new addition, painting the last of the trim, and trying to unpack boxes, we got some wonderful, fabulous news.  We got our occupancy permit last Friday!  We are officially done with this stage of the building process.  THAT is super exciting!

Once we find the energy to raise our glasses, it will be perfect.

Of course, that’s an exaggeration — but we are exhausted.  And, I am still flaring, and well, speaking frankly, that makes even the simplest of tasks a challenge. But, I count my lucky stars every time I use my beastly impractical kitchen sink, with its quirky faucet.

My heart jumps for joy when I get to stand in a new, clean shower.

The wool balls thumping around in the dryer are music to my ears.

My feet are so happy to have carpet again!

And BJR and I get to live at our DRF, always.  Life is so good. This is the view out my mudroom window today.

We are still figuring out where to put things and how to arrange the double car garage space that we will call home for the next two years…and is it ever fun!

We are ever so grateful to everyone who has helped us get here along the way! 

Thank you thank you thank you!  

A special thanks to our GC, Doug Hopkins.  We always knew you had our backs and understood our vision for this DRF of ours.  We can’t wait for you to come back next summer and help us with stage two!  (Actually, on second thought, while that will be super exciting, we are going to enjoy doing some serious hibernating before then.)

Another special thanks to those of you who who have been with us on this journey via this little ol’ blog — we have loved the good juju you have sent us during these last five months.  I just checked the “Visitor” count and can’t believe that this blog has had over 22,000 hits.  (Yikes and wow — I don’t have any idea who 21,500 of you are, but hey, thanks for reading!)  Of course, I will still post when we are up to something here at the farm, but I suspect the posts will be fewer and further between until the spring.

Come see us at DRF any old time you are in our neck of the woods…we would absolutely love to have you (that is, the 500 of you that I may know!).  The welcome mat is always out for you.  😉

Love from our DRF…

Dear Lord,
Thank you for our Dirt Road Farm.  Thank you for this special place that we get to call home. 
Thank you for the beautiful, hardworking man I get to travel through this life with. 
Thank you for our beautiful family.  May our DRF always be a respite and a haven to them.
Thank you for all those who have helped us start bringing this DRF back to life.  
Please continue to guide us and grow us, through our joys and our sorrows.
Please ease the suffering of all who are struggling.  A special request for all who battle autoimmune diseases.
No matter what comes, Lord, remind us that we can overcome anything with You in our hearts.
Let your sweet presence settle in our bones.
In your precious name, Amen.