I Didn't Want Chickens, I Just Wanted Their Eggs

After a lovely time in South Dakota we returned home and it was time to get to work unpacking and learning all about our new surroundings. Did I mention that when we bought our house it also came with about 40-50 chickens? I still don't really know how many chickens we actually have.

If you know me then you've probably heard that I've wanted chickens for a long time, but our previous home didn't have the space and our HOA didn't permit it. Well, I've finally got my chickens, but did I ever mention that I know nothing about chickens or really any pet or animal for that matter? What have I gotten myself into? I even mentioned to my husband that I really didn't want chickens, but I just wanted their eggs. He had a good laugh while I began researching chickens like crazy by checking books out at the library, and Google has been a great help too. We not only have hens, but we have a few roosters too! What do you do with roosters? The previous owner, whom we still speak to often, told us to leave eggs in the nesting boxes and we'll have baby chicks in 21 days. What? We've contemplated getting rid of them. That was until a very large bird swooped down and tried to attack our chickens. The rooster, that the children name Saruman, fought the bird off. He has since been renamed Gandalf, for protecting his flock. We're keeping the roosters for now. The previous owner let the chickens out all over the property, so we've done the same thing with a little hesitation. How do we get them all back into the coop at night? We don't. We've learned that they just know where to go when it starts to get dark outside. We don't have to do anything. The roosters pretty much herd their hens back to the coop, which the children have recently named The Shire.

We have a large open field in the back of our house with a massive wall that still needs to be finished. When we moved in the weeds were waist high and now we've been told that we need to get some goats to keep the weeds down. What? I don't even know what I'm doing with chickens. That little green mower works just fine in the field, don't you think? If anyone out there is looking to do a little labor putting up a stone wall let me know. We have all the materials and I'll feed you!

          

We were told that our recently inherited flock of chickens were pretty old. Not all of the chickens are even laying eggs anymore. The previous owner suggested that we grow our flock by, guess what? Yeah, these kids talked me into buying baby chicks when we returned home from South Dakota. AHH!!

I have to admit that they're pretty darn cute and they're growing on me, but I still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing.  We'll see how many make it through the winter. Stick around for more to come on our little urban farm?

Moving Day!

Upon returning home from Aspen we had high hopes to close on our new home that very same day since my husband made what seemed like a thousand phone calls while we were hiking trying to make everything come together. It didn't work out the day of our return, but we did end up closing soon after. Not only did we close on our new home we sold and closed on our old home that very same day. That meant we had to get packed and moved ASAP all in-between baseball games. AHHHH! My little mini-me and I decided to switch up our sunglasses to pass the time while we watched a few games. Isn't she the cutest? My Lutheran Stud picked up this U-Haul which we filled up 3 times! I don't know anyone else who can drive and park a truck this close to a house without hitting it. Do you? That is some serious awesomeness right there.  We were spoiled by our friends and church members who came to help us pack up and move big furniture, including a piano that was in our basement. We pretty much moved everything in one day. While the men moved most of our belongings I had some fabulous gals join me in deep cleaning our home. We could not have moved in one day without everyone's help, so thank you to you if you helped us.We even squeezed in one last day at the neighborhood pool. We'll miss our pool time, but now we'll enjoy our new enormous yard!

Our move was quite an adventure, one that I never want to take part in again. Moving 11 people out of one home and into a new one wasn't even the worst part of this move. I think the overall stress of trying to sell our home and dealing with shady realtors, and waiting on a closing date was much worse than the actual move. The actual move went quite smoothly and for that I am thankful. Stay tuned for more adventures from our summer. It's been quite a ride!

Our Home is For Sale

We ended up working a deal with the owners of the home in which we visited in March contingent on us selling our home in a reasonable time. As soon as the Fienes left we began packing and we loaded up a pod. Having a large family we've accumulated too much over the years. Some of those things we still needed, but other things we were able to give away or sell. The owners of our soon-to-be home let us park our pod in their driveway while we had our home on the market.

The market in the Denver area has been insane. There are more buyers than there are homes to purchase causing home prices to sky rocket and bidding wars to ensue.

Since we have a large family and we homeschool our home has been catered around that. Most people interested in buying our home probably aren't looking for a home arranged the way we live day to day, so. . . we emptied our home, and using things we already have, we staged our home according to the way the rooms were "supposed" to be used.  Boy do I wish our home looked like this all the time. One can dream right? Once our home hit the market it was a little surreal. Within the first hour we had 3 or 4 showings scheduled for that very day. One of biggest reasons for us wanting to move was our backyard. It's small. It causes our boys to hit many homer-runs when the attempt to play baseball or any other sport back there. Our neighbors were a little too close for our comfort. My husband grew up on 10 acres. You can't smell cigarette smoke or hear blaring loud music from the neighbors when you open your windows and you live on 10 acres, but you can on our current little plot. We sold our home in 4 days and got an offer above our asking price. Now it was time to start the real packing because we were moving. Yikes!

Shove It All In Here

The final room on the main floor of our house is the laundry room. It is on the far right in the photo above. It also goes into the garage and that is how we usually enter our home.

Do you have one of those rooms, in your home, where you just stick things you don't want to deal with at the moment or don't know with what to do with them? Besides being a laundry room that is exactly what this room is for us. It's kind of an everything room.

When you walk in you see the washer, dryer, sink, and a bunch of cabinets. Don't ask about the decorating here. I had nothing to do with it. I think the previous owners were going to for a beach theme, hence the sandy, beachy wallpaper border. We don't spend enough time looking at this room for me to do any re-decorating.

Directly across from the photo above is a closet. We took the doors off and Jared added another shelf and it, obviously, houses a mish mash of things.

Standing next to the washing machine, Jared has hung a bunch of hooks to give a little more space and get things off the ground. It works quite well.

Then directly above the door he added another shelf. We have high ceilings in our home. The shelf is great for things we don't use often and it makes use of the extra vertical space that we have.

This is the view from the garage.

That pretty much sums up the tour of our home on the main floor. Maybe someday I'll get around to photographing the rest of our home. For those of you that don't know, we purchased this home after it went into foreclosure and paid roughly $50,000 less than the asking price. We haven't really done much to this home, just a little painting here and there, and of course, Jared has added shelving all over. The one major thing we did was remodel the basement, but I think that's about it. After talking to our neighbor, who knew the original owners of this home, we found out that they lived quite an extravagant lifestyle. The kitchen had been remodeled three times while they were living here. My guess is that the cabinets in the laundry room are the original cabinets from the kitchen. I've seen other homes with our floor plan with those cabinets in the kitchen. They put in all the tile you see around the house. It's been great because they put the tile in all the areas that get the most traffic. They also put in hardwood on the stairs and hallway on the second floor which I love because who likes vacuuming stairs? From what we can tell, the whole house was remodeled except the master bedroom. That room is a disaster. It's also another room where we just stick things. :) I guess I didn't mention how they were able to live such a lavish life, did I? The wife of the household worked as an accountant for a trucking company. Any guesses? Over the course of six years, she had embezzled over $800,000 from her company. They had many flat screen TVs, motorcycles, jet skis, a boat, 5th wheel, you name it and they probably had it. Crazy, isn't it?

Random House

No, not the publishing house, random rooms in my house. :) Standing in the kitchen, facing away form the kitchen, you are able to see four different doors. The door on the left goes to the basement. The middle door houses school supplies, puzzles, and games. Next to that closet is a tiny bathroom and the last door, furthest away is the laundry room, which leads out into the garage.

Here is a look at the bottom of the basement. It basically serves as the children's play room. There is also a guest room and two other storage rooms. I have a lot of canning items, canned foods, and food that like dark dry places in one of the storage rooms. Maybe you'll get the tour down there and maybe not. I rarely go down there. We had a small flood a few years ago and ended up doing a little remodel, so it fit our needs better. HERE and HERE is a link to that.  HERE is another view of the basement, mostly finished.

Now, I believe this closet was meant to be a utility or coat closet. We needed the space for other things. Jared was kind enough to build a bunch of shelves. Then he hung a pantry organizing thing on the door. It works quite well for us. Notice, I keep things at the higher end of the closet in order to keep things out of the reach of tiny people in our home.

On the main floor, we also have a small bathroom. It really just a toilet and sink room. It's super tiny and the ceiling, again, is really high.

I was desparate to hang something in here, so right now there are some photos of the Seattle view in our bathroom. There is still plenty of open wall space.

Next to the sink is another wall calling out to be decorated.

Want To See More House?

Here is our family room. I am in the kitchen shooting this photo. It was feeling a little cramped, so we moved two chairs and the coffee table to the other room. I like this much better. Jared would really like to get a wood burning fireplace, but for now that gas thing will have to do. I want to give it a makeover. I can't stand that gold. Anyone have any cheap ideas? I doubt we'll do anything to it. I'm also not a huge fan of the cut out wall thingy. I wished that it was just a plain wall. I think it limits what we can do with the room.

This is the view from the stairs. Now see those pillows on the couch? I am thinking of giving them a makeover as well. Please share your ideas with me.

So, now I am standing in front of the fireplace. Our house is pretty open. There are pros and cons to that.

The family room has really high ceilings, just like the front room. Up at the top of the photo you can see some railings. Jared calls that the "catwalk." From up there you can see pretty much the whole main floor with the exception of the kitchen.

Standing on the "catwalk" this ledge is directly across from me. Those are toys that the kids have thrown up there. They've been warned several times about throwing things up there. It usually happens when someone gets mad at someone else, so they throw the other person's toy up there, knowing that we won't get it down from there. We usually do a cleaning ever six months or so. I guess when I say "we" I mean Jared. There is now way I would go up there. I'm scared of heights. I also had him get up there and paint that wall gray. Isn't he fabulous? He did a great job. :) So I'm not sure if I should do anything with this wall or not. It's pretty high. Thoughts?

Looking down from the "catwalk." Tempting to drop things isn't it? Yes, it happens often here, even though the kids know they aren't supposed to drop things.

Then we have a massive wall of just windows. It gets a little drafty, but the amount of light that gets let into the house is all worth it to me. That is one thing I love about this house. The windows bring in a ton of natural light. It helps a lot, especially for photography.

The Tour Continued...

Here is where I spend most of my time during the day. This is also the room that sold me on this house. I love my kitchen! The large cabinets and all the counter space sold me! It seems that one can never have too much cabinet or counter space.

From this angle I am standing on a couch in our family room.

Some sweet ladies from church helped me decorate above my cabinets. They actually purchased all the fake food that is showcased in the baskets and bowls. When we have large gatherings, I use a lot of the dishes and baskets that are above the cabinets. One year, for Christmas, Jared bought me a speaker system. We have surround sound in the kitchen. He drilled holes that run through the cabinet and to my computer. It's great. Sometimes the kids and I have dance parties in the kitchen. :) Speaking of Christmas, those are Christmas cards and photos hanging on the wall and cabinet on the edge of the photo. They aren't there year round. In fact, they're gone now, so if you come over it's almost a blank wall. :)

There are two ways into my kitchen. This is the main "door" I guess you could say. It opens up to the family room.

If you know us well, you know that we've moved several times. I am tired of moving, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is not the last house we live in while in Denver. Because my husband likes to track the real estate market and find "deals" on homes and things, I've made ultimatums if we are ever to move again. I first started this while we were still at the seminary. There aren't many requirements, but one of them is a gas stove. I've learned to love cooking with gas and when we lived in an apartment for a few months, I burned everything on that electric stove. So now, I require a home with a gas stove. Our current home did not have gas, so my lovely husband installed a gas line before we moved in. He's a rockstar. Then he spoiled me with this awesome stove. It's got 5 burners and is a double oven. It's also a convection oven. The main oven is pretty large. I can get three racks of cookies in there at one time. It's perfect. The bottom oven has been great for those turkey days and as a warming drawer. I love it!

My other requirement is a decent dishwasher. Before moving to Colorado I did tons of research on dishwashers and we found a used Asko dishwasher on Craigslist. It was their bottom of the line dishwasher and I have to say it was the best dishwasher I ever had. Seriously. When we moved into this house the dishwasher was already here. I was little leary of it, but I've now learned to embrace it. This a two drawer dishwasher, so it's like two separate dishwashers. They run independently. It does a decent job cleaning, but it's still not like my Asko. Each dishwasher holds quite a lot of dishes, more than half of a full size dishwasher. What I love about this Fisher and Paykel dishwasher is that I never have dishes sitting in the sink or on the counter waiting to be washed. Since I can run one dishwasher at time I always have one that's running or clean and one that is empty or dirty. The only exception to this is when we have company. That's when I wish I had another dishwasher. I actually wouldn't mind another dishwasher. I know we'd use it.

Here I'm standing in the corner of my kitchen by my knives and things. You can see the two entrances to the kitchen, that go into the front room and the other goes to a number of places, family room, stairs, etc.

This is my little work station, where I am sitting right now writing this post. See that "Keep Calm and Snap On," it plays a huge part in covering up wires and a phone jack. :)