The Weekend Country Girl

If you check in with me on Facebook, then you know we have been working on an outdoor kitchen in preparation for our full-time indoor kitchen to be out of commission.  Mr. Math has worked hard on the kitchen but with teaching summer school and my new and much more demanding job, it was a slow start.  Just about the time we were making progress, sub tropical Cindy rolled through and the tropical moisture has hung around.  We are getting rain daily.  Our yard is beautiful, especially for end of June, but painting and carpentry outside has been a challenge.  I am happy to report we now have running water, a sink that drains properly, a galvanized metal counter and a storage cabinet that has sealed rusty metal as inserts n our outdoor kitchen.

A glorious sink outside.  This will be a place for the dudes to clean up when they are working on machines, cleaning fish, and smoking meat.  Yay for me!  No more nasty stuff coming inside.

The counter top will look weathered with time and when I am happy with the finish it will be sealed.  The backsplash is the same material.  I am not sure it is finished.  I think it may need more screws to smooth it down.

We are grandparents now and it is funny the things that worry us that we might not have worried about before.  Like sharp corners.  They are all covered with corner piece.

The cabinets are painted with Behr Circus which is a soft, rusty, red.  It blends well with the redwood stained picnic table.

I love those corrugated tin inserts.  The tin is from Mr. Math’s family farm.  It is at least 60 years old, but my guess is it is older.  It all got coated with polyurethane before being installed to seal it.

Here is what is finished.  We couldn’t finish the shelf underneath because we ran out of 1X6 boards but it will be quick work.  I am going to stain and seal the boards.  I am thinking that the drain needs to painted either silver or black.

The porch will be great once we are through but right now it is a mess.

The slate top is not done and the trim work needs to be finished around it but it is going to look great.  Stone sealer will keep out the yuck.

This is going to be a great spot to hang out, entertain friends, and cook.  I am looking forward to getting this one finished.

Thanks for following along on our journey.

Blessings,

Karen

It was another busy weekend here at Providence Acres.  We had family over, we made a trip to see my sweet daddy for Father’s Day, we picked a pile of peas, tomatoes, squash, peppers, and kale.  I now have a freezer full of produce for later.  

We also made progress on the outdoor kitchen.  This is a low budget, heavy use project so, we were way more concerned with functionality than aesthetics.  It will be stained barn red and will look better, but honestly not having the dudes run in the house to use my sink to clean fish, wash nasty hands, or drip meat juices makes my heart sing.   The timing of this project is crucial because my inside kitchen is about to be under renovation and I will never wash dishes in the bathtub again.  Two homes we lived in required me to do dishes on my knees at some point and I am over that.  Forever.

Mr. Math built the sink base out of treated 3/4 inch plywood and 4X4 posts.  The stainless double sink was a side of the road find.  We bought the cheapest faucet they had at Home Depot that had a spray attachment.

It took us over an hour in HD to puzzle out the plumbing but the sink now drains 55 feet away so the fish water won’t be gross smelling when we are sitting on the deck.

The counters are this sheet metal.  It took two sheets to clad the counter.

So far, we have the metal roof extension, counter clad in metal, deck power washed, drain in, and plumbing for water worked out.  We didn’t get the right water connection but it should go quickly. 

Next will be to add cabinets up on the deck that will back up to the sink and will be backed and topped in metal.  We are also going to be adding a very small hot water heater.  

I am so excited that my farmhouse sink and faucet arrived from Overstock safe and sound.  

The quartz has been selected.  Zodiaq concrete.  

The backsplash will be this awesome herringbone marble.

Mr. Math is going to redo the cabinets so that they look like white shaker style.  

Next week I will be so super busy that I will be out of commission but soon I hope to have pictures of a finished outdoor kitchen all staged and looking nice.

Have a wonderful week,

Blessings,

Karen

I promise I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth.  Really, I am still alive and kicking.  Right after I wrote to you that I missed you and was back, there was another turn in my road.  I was offered the opportunity to be Director of Elementary Instruction for the fast growing district I have worked for the past four years.  Crazy.  It has taken all my extra minutes just to catch up.  You see, for the past 10 years my focus has been secondary and or advanced students.  I have had terms to learn, programs to get up to speed on, research to read, and plans to make.

I am excited for this opportunity and expect this to be my last stop in public education before  retiring, but I would have said that about my last position too, so what do I know.

In the next week, I will have a few posts that include our outdoor kitchen (which had to be finished first), the kitchen renovation that is imminent, and what is up at our little cabin in the woods.

I spent a few moments this evening looking longingly at my shop.  I must make time to get back to what feeds my creative side.

I hope all is well in your lives,

Blessings,

Karen

My son, his wife, and our precious granddaughter live in our rental property in Huntsville. It is a decent sized corner city lot but in addition to the house on the lot there is a garage apartment. The back yard is almost always in the shade because of the two story unit and mature trees that surround the yard.

In spite of living in the city and not having a great space for a garden, the kids want a garden.  The best plan for them is a raised bed in the side yard.

Using all reclaimed material and deck screws Mr. Math was able to whip this raised bed together in about an hour.

We are hoarders of reclaimed wood and corrugated tin.  I know we have a problem but we plan on putting a ton of it to use this summer.

The tin we used for this project was actually left by the former home owner.  He was a bit of a hoarder, too.

The cedar 4 X 4 posts were given to us years ago when our friends replaced their lakehouse porch posts. They were solid except for the bottom where they stayed wet.

The rest of the wood came from a dock that was torn out near us.  The wood is in great shape.

The pile above was where we collected the wood.

Mr. Math has a special circular saw blade that cuts metal.  It makes short work from cutting corrugated tin.  It actually took him longer to change out the saw blade than to cut the metal.

The bed is 4 feet wide and 8 feet long. We used a full width of tin to make the sides. That is a little higher than normal but we wanted it to be high enough to sit on the edge.

Mr. Math cut the posts to length then attached the 4 foot section to the posts first, then the long pieces and added a post at four feet on the long sides.

Next he added the reclaimed wood to the top edge.  We did not put any of the dock wood where it would come in contact with the soil.  We aren’t too keen on treated wood coming in contact with food.  This wood has had a lot of exposure to water and sun so we are not too worried about sitting on it and I plan on sealing it with marine varnish.

Mr. Math used two by six boards on the top to make the ledge that he attached directly to the cedar 4 X 4 ‘s. Can I just say how impressed with his mitered corners? He does good work.  We put the rusty metal inside for this project.  The house isn’t as rustic as ours and would have looked a little funny, but our next project will be all about the rusty metal.

Scrap cedar covers the sharp edges at the corners.  When it gets installed another board will co around the exterior bottom but this puppy is heavy so that piece can wait. ( By the way, did you notice how good Mr. Math’s shop looks?  He did a great job getting it organized. My shop is next on the list for a good clean up,and storage.)

I will post pictures when it is installed.  Landscape fabric at the bottom, then a little hay that has been outside and is no longer useful for feed, then garden soil.

They plan on tomatoes, peppers, beans, squash and who knows what else.

Thanks for following along on our adventures.

Blessings,

Karen