Adventures of an urban homesteader growing greens, preserving the harvest and tending a backyard barnyard
Distressing furniture doesn’t mean your furniture is feeling panicked. It’s a term used to describe the process of making furniture pieces look weathered – also called shabby-chic.Β I’m in the process of going room by room at our new house to try to blend a homestead feel into our new digs and Juniper’s room is my first project. My Aunt T always finds the best stuff
I did a lot of laboring over Labor Day weekend! Our new house is a cosmetic fixer, complete with old carpet and wallpaper in every room. Everywhere I look I see a new project, which has been overwhelming. So my new method to this madness is to finish one room at a time. Juniper’s room is first up on the list. A big feature of
The boxes are all unpacked and the garden design is done – soon to be installed this fall. In the meantime, it’s time to start the cosmetic makeover inside our house. I don’t want my love for nature to stop at the door, so I spent some time and a little money on second hand goods that celebrate my love of plants. My aunt found
Eight years ago we moved into a little bungalow on a 1/10th of an acre lot in the Brentwood-Darlington neighborhood of SE Portland. We put a lot of elbow grease into polishing this house into a loving home. Β But the tine has come to start the next chapter with a new homestead. We scored big with our new digs! We found a cozy, 1950s bungalow
How is it that I have never posted my recipe for homemade laundry detergent? I started making my own homemade laundry detergent about a decade ago, tweaked the process over time, let the recipe evolve and even included it in my book Modern Homestead: Grow, Rasie, Create. It just takes a few simple ingredients and about thirty minutes to make a huge batch. Ingredients 1/2
April on the homestead means the lilacs are just starting to open up, our fruit trees are flowering and there is enough weeding to keep an small army busy. Here are some things on my homesteading to do list this month: Weed, weed, weed! Propagate woody perennials Transplant groundcovers and small perennials Direct sow vegetables Keep the raised beds watered Restock indoor homestead supplies An
Portland’s cold weather kept us housebound for several days. Time seemed to stop as the days went on and on, without the distraction of modern life. Instead, our attention was really focused on keeping everyone healthy and happy – inside and out. Every morning started with a visit to the chicken coops. Their roof had about 6″ of snow on top, but the girls were
This has been a year of nesting, growing our family, expanding the garden, sinking our roots deeper down into our homestead and savoring where we are at in life. Our tiny 700 square foot house is just the way we want it. Cozy, warm, and designed to fit our style. The garden just grows and grows by leaps and bounds with every season. Our winter
In our series of room facelifts for our tiny house, we did some simple changes to our kitchen as well. This room functions as a kitchen and dining space and is luckily one of the larger rooms in our house. Before the kitchen had a funky light hanging over the dining area from Ikea, which has since died of unknown causes. We were repurposing a
