Out with the Old, In with the New - Flooring that is

For the last 3 weekends and during the week after work we've been working on tearing up carpet and laying ceramic tiles in our living room/ dining room. It has turned out absolutely beautiful!
We found a really pretty sand glazed tile from a discount home improvement store in Missouri, Hoods. We purchased all of our other supplies (grout, mortar, underlayment) from Lowes.

We went with the sand glaze ceramic tile because it had a really great texture to it, which is perfect for our piggies. We certainly didn't want to get something that they would be sliding around on.

We pulled up the old carpet and removed the baseboards and all the tack board and nails in the floor.

Under the spots in the carpet where the pigs like to go potty we painted the floor with Kilz primer to seal out any unwanted smells.

For our underlayment we used HardyBoard. We put down floor and tile mortar by Mapei and troweled it out, followed by HardyBoard and lots of screws to seal the HardyBoard down. After the mortar had set, we could start tiling.

We used Mapei ceramic tile mortar, troweled it out and placed the tiles down. We used 1/4 in spacers in between each tile.

We're still finishing up the grouting. The main area of the rooms are finished, we just have a small area in a walkway to finish. For the grout we chose a grey color to match the tiles. I also figured the grey would show little wear or dirt in the future and be easier to keep clean than a lighter color. We used Mapei grout as well.

I will have to post pictures of the finished project, but here are a few near completion. This is prior to grouting, you can still see our spacers in the floor.

This is exactly the coloring of tile I was hoping to find. It really goes great with our wall colors and other decor.

Della likes the new floor, and of course the wood burning stove is her favorite place to relax.

We're finishing up the grouting and need to get some new baseboards to put up. Alex is talking about making some out of cedar, which would be really pretty and help keep bugs away.

We did one room at a time. I'm so glad that the furniture is back in the living room. After we get the baseboards up we can put the dining room all back together.

Solar Panels Round 2

Well, we have been working on all kinds of things around the house. I will post updates on all of these different projects in the next couple of weeks. Alex has been rebuilding the engine of a 1986 VW Jetta. We have been working on moving the animals around and getting them ready for winter. Our biggest chores have been cutting down trees and chopping wood. Anyway, it has felt like we've been working on all kinds of little things, and I couldn't figure out what to post on, so we'll start with the second round of solar panels.

We got these up in September, thanks to help from our friends Craig and Nathan. We used the same company for our solar kit, Anapode Solar. They have been great! We highly recommend them to anyone looking to do solar. Now we are in limbo with Ameren on our second rebate. They changed the rebate paperwork for additional solar panels, so we've got that all figured out and sent in now.

Round 2

The whole roof

The day before Craig and Nathan came down to help get the panels on the roof we cut down 2 of the 3 trees that were right in front of them. We cut the big one down later that week. We were cutting down and cutting up trees for a good three weeks. We then proceeded to start trying to top off the trees in the back of the house. All so we can get as much sunlight as possible on our solar panels.

It has all worked out great though. We put these panels up on September 15. Our electric bill for October was $7.16! Of course the weather has been great. So there has been no need for air conditioning or heating. Our house is all electric though, and its awesome that our bill almost nothing!

Rosemarie's Garden

I have been working on this garden on and off since early spring. I started by completely tearing out everything that was growing there. It also had a sort of decorative rock bed that I had to remove. I pulled 5 wheelbarrows full of this rock out of here. And whatever these plants were, they were terrible to pull out. There root system was crazy. I got everything out, had Alex till it up with our tractor. A couple weeks later more stuff was popping up, so I pulled everything up and he tilled it again. It was a process.

I also pulled the rock "wall" out and rebuilt it. This took me a couple days to do. I didn't do it all at once. And there were several large rocks that I didn't know what to do with. I ended up putting them in the middle in an attempted artistic looking way.

This is how it looked after all of that. A nice blank canvas.

Then I had to decide what to plant in this garden. I originally wanted to do an assortment of daylillies and some decorative shrubs. Then one day we were at our local Buccheits, and I saw a wildflower shade mix. I thought that would be perfect. So we got a box and I planted them.

Here it is about a month ago.

And here it is now.

The blooms are small and they seem to just be getting started, but it looks really pretty. It's hard to get a good picture of it. I plan on buying the same seed mix next spring and planting even more. It's a very beautiful perennial mix, and adding more seeds will only help it.

My uncle saw the post of all our gardens a few weeks ago and suggested that I name a garden for my grandmother. He suggested "Rosemarie's Garden." I had to think for a little while which garden I wanted to name for her. And this one has become quite pretty and the more I thought about it the more it made sense for me. This was that garden.

Going Solar

Alex started installing these panels a couple weeks ago. He got the racks and microinverters up on a Saturday afternoon, and then continued with the wiring. We used the Enphase microinverters for the grid tie in system, that way we don't have to worry about batteries or anything.

This past Sunday, we had friends and family come down to help get the panels up to the roof and installed. A special shout out to Nathan, Aaron, dad, Danny, and Nick! Thanks for all your help! My mom came down too and helped me cook lunch for our hard workers (thanks mom!).

We got a great kit from Anapode solar that came with the racking, solar panels, and Enphase microinverters. It is a 3kwatt system, 12 solar panels. Alex did a lot of looking around before he went with this kit. Our electrician is coming tomorrow to inspect it, then Ameren will come install the net metering system. After that we can send all the paperwork to Ameren for our rebate. They will give us $2/watt. And then when it comes time to do our taxes we'll get money back from the government too. The system will have cost us almost nothing when all is said and done.

Our neighbor up the road also installed solar panels. We went and talked to him and his wife a couple weeks ago about the process. It has gone really smoothly for them, they just got their rebate check from Ameren.

After we get our rebate we'll be ready for round 2. We want to put them over the garage roof too!

Pond in Progress

Sunday we worked on the pond. We've got this big dip in the back of our property that we're working on clearing out to make it. Last summer Alex and his friends cut this enormous tree down. At the time we didn't have a way to get it out of there. We got the big pieces out of the hole, using the tractor and our scoop. We were able to load them up the hill and then rolled the logs up a ramp into the back of the truck. It was exhausting.

This is the pond after moving the big logs. Its hard to capture the dip here.

These were the biggest logs we've moved yet!