One (BIG) step closer!

The shed is now insulated!!! WOOT! And the VERY best part of it is I didn't have to do it! (And neither did Red!) Just as I was getting geared up to do it myself, he said he called a kid who has worked for him before and hired him to do it for me! WOOHOO!!! He is also the one who insulated Red's shop for him last fall (or was it this spring? Whenever it was it was cold... Which is pretty much any time of year except July here... LOL and :( ). I've never worked with fiberglass insulation, but I've had more than my fair share of working with fiberglass (namely sanding it, nothankyouverymuch), and it is very high on my list of things I hate... Red's too... Or at least my list of things I do my very best not to come in contact with... ;)

The next step from here will be sheeting it, with which I will definately need Red's help. I've never been very confident in my ability to make long cuts with a circular saw. I'd be ok if I broke out the tablesaw, but I'd rather have his help anyways, after all he is the carpenter! Not sure when we'll get to that, the weather has been pretty rainy the past two days and so he's been home from work (they're painting a house, can't paint in the rain!), but we also can't be out cutting plywood in the rain either... So we shall see! Either way, I am SUPER excited!!!!! :D

Doin' the Electric Slide!

The shed has power!!!!! Just finished wiring it, got all the plugs wired, got the main plug wired, and it all works!!! The power coming to it is just a regular outdoor extension cord coming through a window in the house to a regular outlet, so it is temporary power, but soon I'll buy some direct bury wire (the Romex we have isn't heavy duty enough) so we can run a 20amp line direct from our main breaker box in the house, bury it along the way to the shed (via the greenhouse so we have permanent power there too) and install a breaker box on the shed! But in the meantime, all the outlets work (but won't be able to pull too much power, not enough to run a space heater, for example, which is how I will be heating it in the winter), the lights work, yay! So next on the docket is insulation, it's ready to be insulated, I just don't quite know how yet... ;) It's not hard, I just don't know the tricks. Then after that, sheeting it, then doing something with the floor, and voila! She'll be ready for paint, then furnishings!!! :D I am SO excited!!!

Speaking of furnishings, Red and I talked about my plans for the desk cabinets that we will take out of the house to make room for a pantry closet, and in the process of that talk, also decided to remove the two little hanging cabinets in our laundry closet, AND the little annoying counter cubboard thing and cabinets in the teeny little 'hall' that currently serves as a not so effective linen closet (our plan there is to actually build a real linen closet, it's probably the most wasted ineffective space in the whole house!) so I will get a TON more built in furnishings in my shed than I had anticipated!!! WOOT!!! We won't remove all those things until later in the fall, I think we plan on doing at least the pantry closet sometime in the fall, but perhaps we'll make it a big project weekend or two and do that and the linen closet and some shelves in the laundry closet, all in one fell swoop! Until then, I have my sewing cabinet/table, and a folding 4' table that I'll use in the shed, they'll serve quite nicely until we take out the various cabinets in the house! SO EXCITED!!!!!!! :D

Logoified!

Woohoo! I have finally settled on a logo for Made In The Mountains! It's above here, and is on my website! (Which still isn't public yet, hold your horses!) That actually is the real Vallecito mountain skyline, but I wanted to logo to be simple enough to be embroiderable, and to look cute on small printed labels. It might evolve in the future, but for now I think it'll do nicely!

As for the website, my inventory is growing but not quite as rapidly as I would hope. Other projects (the shed) and real life (real life...) tend to get in the way of my kiddo free crafting time (Wyatt doesn't let me work on projects while he's up, unless he is thoroughly contained and happy in his highchair, and that certainly doesn't last long... Plus that's usually my chance to sneak in a bite or two anyways...). I'm working on it though, as much as I can, and am planning on taking the plunge and actually purchasing and registering my domain name quite soon, and shortly after that hopefully I'll have enough stuff ready to open up the webstore! :-D

The shed hasn't made any progress since my last post, and probably won't until at least after this weekend. We have guests this weekend (WOOHOO!) and will be busy splitting firewood all day Saturday with them (not so woohoo, but we all need it!), though this is the last weekend for a while anyways that we definately have other plans. Hopefully I'll be able to convince Red to help me finish up the shed sooner rather than later! The prospect of all the storage space its completion will free up in the house should be incentive enough!

If I had a hammer...

The craft shed is on it's way to being, well, a craft shed, but it's taking a while (as could only be expected!). The window is in, more lumber was added for nailers (to attach the sheeting to), and the wiring is almost done... Drilling holes through lots and lots of studs with a really long paddle bit is a PITA! Especially through the studs around the window, since we added an extra trim stud on either side to help support the weight of the roof more. But the good news is, the roof won't collapse. ;) What's next is to finish the wiring (the romex is mostly run, except through a few studs I couldn't do myself, then I just need to install the plug boxes), then insulate it (not looking forward to that... Boatbuilding school left me incredibly sensitive to fiberglass), and then sheet it (I'm using CDX plywood, a lower grade plywood that I think is 3/8" thick, I wanted 1/4" ply with one nicer side, but they only had three sheets, and I needed 14...). After sheeting, I'll do a spackle number on the seams and any holes in the plywood where knots were in the wood, then paint the walls (yellow! YAY!), and voila, she'll be ready for furnishings! (still not sure what the plan will be for the floor, it's uneven since the building isn't totally leveled, so I can't do anything rigid. We have some leftover carpet from when we carpeted Wyatt's room, but not enough to do the whole floor, plus I'd rather it be sweepable. For now I probably won't do much of anything to it.) As far as that goes, I have a sewing table/chest which opens out to hold up a drop leaf to make it longer, (closed it looks like a nice bureau) so that will go in there. Eventually, we will be removing the desk and cabinets that are in our mudroom/office/laundryroom, and building a pantry/coat closet in their place, so that desk and cabinets will go into the shed. Until then, I have a 4' plastic folding table that will do quite nicely. Since it may not be entirely critterproof, I'll keep all my fabric and other vulnerable materials in rubbermaid containers, so they'll be stacked up in a corner (I thought of building shelves, but it'd be that much more materials, and the boxes stack nicely anyways). I'm so excited for it, I'm hoping we'll get a chance to work on it more soon, but at this point I need help (never insulated before so not sure exactly what to do), and our weekends have been and will be pretty busy for a bit. We shall see! It's fun though, and exciting, and I can't wait to have dedicated space to spread out all my stuff and get down to business!!! :-D

Working on it!

Well, my website is kindof at a standstill as I make more inventory for the store. My hands, however, are certainly busy! I am currently making a cute crocheted boys hat out of fun variegated brown yarn, it'll be cute! I also got a set of Knifty Knitters knitting looms, and I have to say they are AWESOME! My reason for trying them out is because I have a bunch of really cool yarn that my mother in law got me, but it is nearly impossible to knit or crochet with because it has holes in it (hard to describe...). Fortunately, it is perfect on the loom! So my first loom project is a skinny scarf with this purple fuzzy yarn, it is turning out super cute! I'm glad I have two skeins of this color yarn, cause I'm definately going to make one for myself!

I have been unsuccessful at finding a flower press to buy, and though they are very easy to make I haven't had the time or the materials to make one yet. And still no further progress on my shed, but it will happen soon I hope! Our cherry tree is doing awesome, and the cherries are starting to ripen! The smaller trees we left uncovered (the big one has bird netting over it) have already ripened, and are being ravaged by the robins and chipmunks. They're much smaller and have a much smaller yeild than the big tree so I'm not too upset about it, plus since we displaced the robin's nest and made them lose their egg, I feel like we owe them this at least... We'll still get plenty off the big tree! I imagine we'll be able to pick in about a week! Yay! Ok, enough writing, back to the loom!