Living a DIY Life

The kitchen cabinets in our house haven't been updated in over 30 years.  The cabinets themselves are great - light oak, so thank God they don't need to be replaced.  J and I decided we wanted to update the kitchen in some little ways and make it more our own.  We are starting with drawer pulls and window treatments.  We found some great oil-rubbed bronze ones at Lowe's.  They have leaves on both ends and are very simple.  At only $2.97 per pull, it didn't seem like a big deal and it would take less than 30 minutes to do the whole kitchen.  Here comes the problem - we have 26 cabinet doors and drawers to replace so that comes to around $80 for the whole shebang.  We don't have home improvements worked into our monthly budget so we had to figure out another way.  We discussed it and decided that we could do with one less eating out day every 2 weeks and we could use that money to buy pulls.  So, every 2 weeks, we buy 3 drawer pulls and in...

Our land was covered in oaks when my parents built on it 20+ years ago.  Oak leaves cause the soil to be acidic.  About 2 feet down we have slick red clay.  Theses things lead to a not so hospitable environment for a garden, but a great way to save money is to plant your own garden.  The solution to this for me is a raised garden.  I have 4 8' x 4' beds in a clearing in front of the shop.  The big one in the middle has my two fig trees that were trimmed back drastically 4 years ago before my parents move.  They only produce enough right now to feed the squirrels.  Since the telephone pole guide wire runs through the middle, I usually only plant flowers in this bed.  This year, I'm thinking about planting my tomatoes there.  (This photo is before I finished clearing out 3 of the beds.) Last summer it was evident that the weed guard underneath the beds needed to be replaced.  We've had some horrible freezing weather (we actually...