I have been a huge Square Foot Gardening fan for many years but my wife recently turned me on to a new gardening method called “Straw Bale Gardening” she learned about online from sites like Pinterest and Garden Web. I was super resistant to trying it out as we have always had such great results with the Square Foot method and probably would have never got around to trying it out if it wasn’t for Bethany. I was traveling for work one week in early 2016 and when I came home Bethany had completely set up a straw bale garden in our backyard. This post documents the entire process with pictures and even a time lapse video. Continue reading Straw Bale Gardening
Category Archives: Hobbies
DIY Farmhouse Art – Black Sheep Painting
It’s been two months since our last post but I finally had a few minutes to write this post so you can see one of the cool projects we’ve been working on. We have a wall in our front dining room that needed a little something so Bethany wanted to hang a DIY Farmhouse Art painting similar to the one Haven made for us that is currently positioned over the fireplace in the family room. This post shows how the picture was made and what it looks like mounted in our front room. Continue reading DIY Farmhouse Art – Black Sheep Painting
Snow! Homemade Wood Snow Sled
Last night a winter storm passed through our area and we received several inches of snow! We had fun playing outside and making snow angels but the snow was not sticky enough to make a snowman. We had planned to pick up a snow disc at Ace Hardware but when we stopped by they had already sold out. The forecast predicted 2-4 inches of snow to fall during the middle of the night so we went to bed looking forward to seeing in the morning how much snow stuck around. Continue reading Snow! Homemade Wood Snow Sled
Homemade Wood Shelf with Crates
We built this homemade wood shelf unit a couple months ago but held off on writing this post as we wanted to finish the crates that go with it first. The shelf was surprisingly simple to make and cost a fraction of what it would if you purchased something similar from a store. The unit is solid wood, nearly 9 feet tall, is anchored to the wall, and stained to match the decor of our house. This post contains the instructions and pictures to build both the homemade wood shelf and the crates. Continue reading Homemade Wood Shelf with Crates
Homemade Chicken Tractor: a mobile home for hens
If you are not familiar with the term “Chicken Tractor”, its basically just a portable chicken run so that chickens can be moved around to eat fresh grass, much like a tractor mowing a yard. We had originally planned to allow the chickens to free range in our backyard. That lasted for a couple weeks….right up until we lost 6 chickens to a family of Georgia Red Foxes. The chickens seemed so happy free-ranging so we hated to leave them locked up in the chicken coop and attached run with no access to fresh grass. That’s when we decided it was time to design and build a “Chicken Tractor”. Continue reading Homemade Chicken Tractor: a mobile home for hens
Bathroom Vanities
We are all moved in and enjoying our new home but haven’t found much time for blogging the last few months. Our commitment was to blog the entire process so I decided to go ahead and knock out one more blog post this weekend. In this post are the pictures of the bathroom vanities and links to the instructions to build the vanities yourself. We saved an amazing amount of money by building some of our own vanities. If you like a farmhouse or rustic style then I highly recommend these homemade vanities as an alternative to expensive manufactured vanities. Continue reading Bathroom Vanities
Farmhouse Dining Room Table
I have been busy working down Bethany’s “honey-do” list since we moved into our new home. There were quite a few woodworking projects on the list, including building a long farmhouse dining room table for our large family. When I sat down to start drawing up the plans I asked her to provide me with pictures of tables similar to what she had in mind. Bethany only provided me with one example, a picture from Chip and Joanna Gaines’ website:
The table was made for a couple with 7 children (Allen and Gail Holt) on an episode titled “Fixer Upper: Yours, Mine, Ours, and a Home on the River”. It was built by Clint Harp with Harp Design Co. and met Bethany’s design guidelines of simple, rugged, and LARGE.
SketchUp Tutorial for Woodworking Projects
Last year I completed one of my first “real” woodworking projects, the Ana White 4×4 Truss Beam Table. I was impressed with the quality of the directions Ana provided, especially the images she created using SketchUp. We are currently in the middle of building our dream home and my wife has many woodworking projects in mind for me. For example, she would like me to Continue reading SketchUp Tutorial for Woodworking Projects
Trip to Ireland
We started a tradition two years ago with Mannah’s trip to Paris. The tradition is that for our children’s sixteenth birthdays they can take a week long trip to anywhere in the world they choose. Haven chose Ireland and we just got back yesterday. This post is a summary of where we went, what we did, and a collection of some of the best photos from the trip. If you have any questions about the trip please leave a comment at the very bottom of this post. Continue reading Trip to Ireland
Homemade Powder Room Vanity with Vessel Sink
For those that have been following Wholesteading.com for a while, you probably remember my first real woodworking project…the Ana White 4×4 Farmhouse Truss Beam Table. That project was a huge success and has given me the confidence to take on many other woodworking projects. My most recent project was a special request from Bethany for a homemade powder room vanity with vessel sink for use in the new house we are building. Continue reading Homemade Powder Room Vanity with Vessel Sink