Renovate Fox Ridge: Good Old-Fashioned Luck at La Maison Verte!

The last couple of days have been a 

REUSE-REDUCE-RECYCLE-REPURPOSE 

dream come true! 

The Story Of The Glorious 20-Ton Cast-Iron Farm Sink: Triumph #1 You'll never believe this, but John and I found the sink abandoned near our house upstate. Actually, we first saw it a few weeks ago, and there it remained, unloved and alone, and unspeakably heavy ever since. To have found the sink was unto itself a miraculous occurrence, but to get it home was going to be a very un-holy matter. The sink weighs slightly more than John, me, and John's extended family combined, so we devised a (faulty) plan to get it back to our house... hand truck. Ha. Wait, maybe we should all take a second and say "Ha" again. We are fools! Optimistic fools, I tell you. It was up-hill, rolling all the way back to our house, and if it hadn't been for a fortuitous encounter with a truck-driving neighbor who happened along, it is distinctly possible that we would either still be pushing the sink up that hill, or we too would have abandoned the sink. But- lo! There he was, laughing at the two of us struggling along with our (now) misshapen hand-truck and the trillion pound sink, and after a little more teasing, into the back of his pick-up truck it went. Hats off to that guy! I have promised him my first hot-house tomato in exchange for this tremendous act of kindness. To date, the sink is not actually connected to anything, but the game plan is to run a hose into the greenhouse to connect to it, and then another tube out of the greenhouse to let it drain.

It's gonna be awwwweeesssooomeeee! 

Re-Purposing Old #$!* We Should Have Thrown Away: Triumph #2 Once we'd gotten the sink up to the greenhouse, we had to figure out how to get it-- well- up. You know, sink height. Then I remembered that we had a slowly decaying (mostly molding) panel door in our basement that was missing one of the recessed panels. (It was one of many broken prizes that came with our house when we bought it.) Up came the door, and after a little adjusting with the circular saw, it was a fine table top. Then I grabbed five big hunks of wood that were scraps from building our fence, and bolted them and bracketed them onto the table top. Now we were in business! John and I lifted the sink up and plonked it into the opening I had cut for the basin, and voila-- sink table! Free! Plus, now there isn't a moldy door in my basement or five big hunks of wood behind my house! Even better! 

...And The Bargain Basement Yard Sale Finds: Triumph #3 Writing about these particularly incredible finds makes me worry that I might be making enemies in the D-I-Y community, because they were plum lucky and no real work on my part. Last fall, we picked up that spindle-legged farm table for $2.00 at a yard sale, and then found the industrial looking green pendant light for $5.00 at another sale. When I bought them, I had no idea what I was going to do with either thing, but it was just too good of a deal to pass up. And what do you know? Now they've found the perfect home! There is still a lot of work left to be done before the greenhouse is totally finished, but I am so chuffed with everything we've accomplished in the past two weeks. And now I have to get planting so that my little seeds can enjoy their brand new digs ASAP. 

I tell you-- the D-I-Y-ers work is never finished! 

I've got a new Do-It-Yourself Project in the works for tomorrow, if I can squeeze it in, so check back to see what I'm up to next! 

Have a great day!

*Note: I'm pretty sure La Maison Verte is NOT french for The Greenhouse, but it has a nice ring to it. If you know, please feel free to fill me in. 

Merci beaucoup. Or as some prefer to say: Mercy buttercup.