September at the little house has been nothing but joy! We've come through the worst drought recorded in Texas history and one of the worst heat waves I've experienced in my life time, too many hardships this summer to list, but we're starting to feel a breeze and it was in the low 60's last night for the first time in I don't know how long, it was the BEST feeling to wake up to windows open, fresh air blowing into the house.
'The best part of having hardships is everything after it seems WONDERFUL....I say you can't appreciate the good without having the bad, too."
We started our painting in the spring, but it got hot so quickly and other projects like WATER & the septic system became more pressing, so we only had the bottom half of the house complete with the 'elk horn' paint until this weekend, when Robert was able to paint all the high areas. We've mocked up a few white window frames for the photos, but we have a long way to go to finish off the outside. We're hoping to start the floor of our wrap around porch at the end of the month! We're planning on an 8ft deep wrap around covered porch. We are already making plans to modify the house being this project when started was to be a guest cottage while we built our actual house - however if you've followed the blog, we now have plans to make this our actual home and it's been amazing to see how creative we have become with space. Anyway, our recent idea/plans is to make one side of the house that is porched a sunroom/screened in room and make one of the original windows a door. We also plan to move the french doors to the center of the house which will allow more kitchen space and we'll most likely include a red iron wood burning stove in the kitchen. I'm very excited about the porch, which will give us 1,056 sqft extra living space!!!
The porch will be covered with the same copper metal roofing, the posts and supporting structure will be painted white and the porch floor will be stained a warm honey coloured brown. We also plan for outdoor closet/storage against the house in certain areas and will be pushing out the middle of the house where the french doors will be moved to create some more space for the entry. Being we'll be centering the french doors - we hope to find some all wood ones that I can paint either red or a robins egg blue.
We've moved our kitchen table from the Weatherford house (which is listed to sell!) It makes for a perfect farm house kitchen table, it's 7 feet long and has a bench - I use the end nearest to the sink as part of my work space and being I'm short it probably works better than most islands, which are a little tall for me. Our kitchen sink is actually a utility sink that I found online at Home Depot - I love it! It's got these really nice stainless steel legs and it was made in Wills Point, Texas - Griffin Products. It's SO large that Audrey can take a bath in it and I can hide all my dirty dishes and still take a photo and no one can see them. We are still putting up drywall and I plan to put up bead board for the whole back of the kitchen wall - it will be painted 'elk horn' and the cupboards (which aren't many) will be stained a white. The trim will all be white. Right now the counter tops are just boards we cut to fit until I pick out something, I'm keen to see everything else finished before making my selection. I'm thinking about having custom made butcher block countertops and maybe one area that is marble for baking purposes.
We switched around our room, once we moved the other kitchen table here to the house. The couch was facing the front and now it's facing the side, it actually made the main room feel more like two living areas in one space. At one time we had thought about painting the ceiling beams white and leaving them exposed, but we are now rethinking that idea and will probably cover them with bead board. The corner of the room you're not seeing is full of Robert's mess, it's where his chair is and two windows, one window will actually be turned into a door that will lead out to the 'porch sunroom'......smile.
 |
| Robert installed our first ceiling fan!! It's remote controlled, which is cool. |
 |
| Our utility room, it is amazing how much you can fit into it - it will have some type of bifold doors. |
 |
| Jack & Audrey, August 2011 ~ First Day of School |
 |
| being goofy! |
School has started for the children. Our annual school photo in the past has always been at the front door, but we're not quite ready to take front door photos, so I got creative and thought we'll be taking them at the front gate and we might just do their school picture here from this point on.
Some family fun...
We're big Top Shot fans! So we were doing some target practicing and Daddy was being the spotter.
 |
| bullseye! |
Robert is always coming up with fun projects for the children from Instructables - he made a mister for the animals and children to keep cool this summer.
As per my list, Robert was putting the two old tires (that were sitting by a cedar tree) from my car away and Audrey asked how tire swings work and the next thing you know, we have a tire swing up in a tree by the house.....smile.
 |
| some end of the summer watermelon yum! |
Our summer project was to write thank you letters to our teachers and a few family & friends. I had received in the past some great christmas cards from a friend's family and decided to try using the Apple Mac card feature. I'm so pleased with their products. We had created calendars and books for some gifts last year and I highly recommend any of their products, you will not be disappointed. The children were excited to write the letters on these special cards, Audrey said she felt famous seeing her picture on an actual card...smile.
 |
| The card has a photo on the inside and our blog website. |
We are so thankful that summer is almost over, today was the first time it started to feel like the heat was really going to finally leave for the fall. Our trees are already almost brown and so many things have died over this summer, I hate to list them all.
Our guineas!
 |
| the guineas have started to sleep on our large metal building structure... |
It's funny to witness their night time routine - first they make their noises and you see them getting a bedtime snack, usually standing by one of our large ant holes. Then they scurry to the last metal building where we have a garage and it was where they lived when they were keets. Then you hear them fly up one by one and scurry across the first metal building, they stop and chirp quite loud and finally one flies across to the roof of the travel trailer between the metal buildings and the others follow and you hear them scurry across the large metal roof to the end where I took photos of them. I'm sure you can tell we are very fond of the guineas and enjoy watching them do all their interesting activities. They are by far the most adventurous and active birds out of the lot that we have here on the land.
We've had some interesting and memorable experiences this summer. We're already enjoying dove season and looking forward to the rest of the hunting season to come. Robert was able to take some time off from the house progress and take his bow out in the back woods and shoot a feral hog! We love smoked barbeque pork. We've already enjoyed our first of the dove and have more to cook and hopefully more to shoot. Audrey declares that dove is better than steak, which is surprising being she loves steak and is a very picky eater. We hope she feels the same way about venison. I will say that we have a greater appreciation for what goes into catching/hunting our own food and cleaning it and cooking it.
Life on our seventy two acres has blessed us in so many different ways than we could have ever imagined or dreamed. The hardships we have endured have been character building for our whole family and we've grown closer and stronger the more we experience. Robert has really made the little house feel more and more like a little home and the family has filled it with a lot of love.
 |
| our sign we had made for our private lane... |
Thanks again for following our story.......smile.
