Fun Side Projects - Erin's Middle Niche

Fixing up the house is a lot of fun, but so are the little side projects for decorating and furnishing the house and yard.

The yard is pretty much a blank canvas since my grandma gave up gardening several years before she passed. My plan is to use some of my dad’s old hog feeders as raised garden beds. We will take the top ring off and I think that will be about the right height. We’ve read where you can fill the bottom 1/3-1/2 with limbs and leaves to decrease the amount of soil you need to put in, so I think that is the current game plan. These will be on the south side of the house, between the driveway and the house.

Outside Projects

I *think* it will be as easy as removing a few bolts to get that top ring off. Then roll them to where we want them. We’ll see…

Then I wanted to add some play things for the girls outside but didn’t necessarily want one of the huge playsets, so I perused trusty Pinterest for ideas. There are a lot of tractor tires around, so I found this idea for a climbing tower.

This is the general idea. I think ours is slightly different with the pole placement. It currently looks a little bit like below.

Actually all four poles are attached now. Next we are going to have my dad lift if with his loader tractor so we can mark the spots in the grass where we need to dig the holes. We have to do that because the a couple of the poles are warped like you can see in the picture. Then we will take it all apart and spray pain the tires some fun colors and resemble. (Can you see the girls in the distance? They were playing safari in the tall grass. Morgan goes in barefoot, but Natalie prefers some footwear.)

We are going to stain the brackets on the roof. Brandon ventured out to make sure they were in okay shape and they seem to be. That will most likely include renting a boom truck so one of us can be lifted up to stain them on the sides of the house. But I think it will really make the “pop” and give some interest to a very white house.

Morgan really wanted to get out on the roof, but that was a hard no. It’s steeper than it looks.

Inside Projects

The next one is one I’m most excited about completing, but it doesn’t need to be done until we refinish the floors downstairs. It will be the lighting fixture for the dining room. Brandon has also found a lamp for the living room he wants to build and I’ll share that once we get closer to making it. Here is the inspiration.

I have glass insulators I purchased from my grandpa Tumbleson’s farm sale, so those will be used and the piece of wood is coming from a barn my dad is taking down on this farm.

You can see the lumber is attached to my SUV to be pulled out, but Brandon ended up cutting it and pulling it out himself. He has a few others to turn into shelves for the living room.

Here they are getting all sanded and ready to be stained. They look great!

There will be many more projects to come. Brandon’s currently reading this book to Morgan at night before she heads to bed, so who knows how many projects will come from there? 🙂