Our anniversary

Our nine year wedding anniversary was last Saturday! What better way to celebrate than by working on our future home?

I wanted something bright for the bathroom floor. I love the way it turned out!

And I think it will go great with the shower curtain, although I've decided to paint the wall blue instead of yellow:

 Remember the door that I made from two used half-doors and a $10 folding door kit? I cleaned it up - haven't painted it yet, though:

BA installed the windows into the window frame, and it was so awesome to be able to leave the shutter open and wake up to the sun shining through the window. It was kinda complicated and involved, but it turned out great:

AND I learned how to tape and float - it's really not hard. I kinda liked it. Didn't take any pictures of that, though. 

I also thought ya'll might like to see the current drainage system. Here's the sink, all set up. The wood that you see against the wall above is the paneling that will eventually cover that wall.:

And here's a pretty bug that I found in the yard. He had wings. A dragonfly, maybe: 

That's all for now!

The New "To-Do" List

Well, about that wind turbine...it doesn't work yet. BA is still toying with it, but with summer coming up, we're going to need some air conditioning soon. So, we called Pedernales Electric Corp., and they sent out two great guys (Mike and Toker) to assess our build site for an electric pole. I know, we weren't planning to go on the grid, but sometimes you just have to compromise. There will come a time when BaHa Ranch runs strictly on wind and solar power, but that time is not now. If the powers that be had more sense, it would be cheaper to build a home that utilizes green energy. But as I said, the guys from the PEC were super-nice (Toker gave the doggie lots of love and referred to her as an "old hound dog," which I think made her very proud =) and the PEC seems like a good, honest company. 

So, here's some "To-Do"s:  

• Get electricity. Because it's already hot. And this is Texas - it won't be cool again until December.

• Blow in the insulation (we got dry cellulose insulation - you have to drywall completely first, then cut a little inconspicuous hole and blow the insulation in with a machine.)

• Install the glass windows into their metal frame.

• Hang curtains. Put down some throw rugs. Hang up a picture or two.

Free curtains, tablecloth, and throw from my mother-in-law, who is awesome =)
The little streak of electric blue in the top two pieces is what I want to bring out -
I might paint a whole room that color!



And I think the linens above will go great with orange.

• Hang some insulating curtains over the metal end doors.

• Install our big wooden door.

• Finish the bathroom:

My mother-in-law's garage is the best store ever. This shower curtain

will go nicely with the blue and tan tiles in the bathroom.

Not sure if you can tell from the picture, but the blue tiles have several shades

 of blue, along with grey and orangey streaks and some yellow/gold splatters.

This creamy tan-yellow color will cover an accent wall in the bathroom. 

I might also paint the bathroom door with it.

After that, we'll have to tile the shower and install the plumbing (which is going to have to include a larger rain-catchment system). You may notice that the bathroom has no sink - for now, BaHa Ranch will have only one sink, which is located around the corner in the kitchen. You might also wonder about the toilet. Where the heck is it??? It's in a box, waiting to be opened - it's a chemical toilet like the ones used on boats and in RVs. "Chemical" and "Green living" might not seem like two words that go together, but honestly, pooping in clean water doesn't make much sense either. And the chemical toilet is not permanent - we will eventually move to a toilet that hooks up to a septic tank and flushes with greywater (our first preference) or a composting (sounds smelly) or incinerating (sounds scary) toilet. 

And that's probably more than you ever wanted to know, right?

Progress, y'all!

We made some major progress over spring break. Here are a few of the things we did:

The ceiling - we were just going to paint inside and out with insulating paint until we spent one stormy night in the box. I've never tried to sleep inside of a drum set, but I think the two experiences would be quiet similar.  So, here's the ceiling and what we did to it:

Bare metal ceiling

On the cheap...

Maybe I should just periodically make an updated post about all the cheap or free stuff that we've found! Our home design does change periodically because of the nature of our building methods: if it's cheap or free, we'll take it. It makes us especially happy if it has already been used.

Here are a few of our recent finds:

Used shower pan. $20 from Habitat for Humanity

Ikea sink. Bought new on clearance for $20

Used doors. Free for hauling away from Building Community's last build site

Wood. So much wood (this is only one of five, plus some thinner pieces).
This, too was free for hauling off from Building Community's last build site.

Small tiles. Left over from our first house
(but we recently found them in the bottom of a box, so I'm counting this as a recent find)

Large tiles. $10 for a box of 13

Not pictured but recently purchased: Two gallons of grey porch paint for the interior USB (Ha! I meant OSB) floor at $6/gallon (I'll show you pictures of what I did with it after I'm done.)

That's all for now! I want to take a minute to say a special thanks to Building Community. This is an awesome non-profit organization that renovates inner-city structures and does special build projects for other organizations. When we were at their build site, they were finishing up a cute, colorful garden shed for a community garden in Oak Cliff. You can see the shed in the first few pictures on their website. It's the one with the multicolored plastic tiles and slanted roof. The materials that we took from them were basically scraps from other building projects that needed to be moved off the build site. And we are grateful for every bit of it!