Cottage Farmhouse Kitchen Makeover

You guys! We just realized that we never showed you our finished kitchen after the makeover! We still have some small projects to get done but we wanted to take some time to show you what our beautiful farmhouse kitchen is looking like. 

If you missed our kitchen remodel you can catch the whole journey HERE. 

This was our kitchen before we updated it:

What started as a simple fresh coat of paint turned into a full scale remodel from the dirt up thanks to a leaking refrigerator. It wasn't something we had planned on doing but after months of work and a couple of major setbacks we now have our dream kitchen!

This was the sketch for the layout of our kitchen, you can read the whole story of what we wanted in our kitchen and why we picked this layout HERE.

It was so amazing to see these drawings come to life in our kitchen! 

Want to check out some more articles? Check these out!

Building A River In The Garden

Grandma Cottage absolutely loved Jesus, ponds, and roses so when we moved to this house 18+ years ago she was thrilled. There was plenty of room for ponds and a rose garden! We had a convenient, rather large gully in our yard that always collected water and was a pain to mow. Just like that, the idea for the big pond was born. We tried a hard plastic liner, but Mr. Cottage just didn't care for it so we pulled it back out and dug the hole wider and got a rubber pond liner. We covered the edges with rocks a variety of rocks (most of those are from our yard believe it or not). Originally we had a river behind the waterfall so the water traveled down it and then over the waterfall but we ended up changing it to what you see now. 

A while later we added a small little plastic pond further down the path, again we didn't end up liking it so we removed it and used a rubber liner and covered the edges with rocks. Grandma always wanted to add a river between the two ponds but we never got around to it- until now. Last week after several days of rain I decided to make her dream a reality.  

This is the pathway and patio before we started our project, the bushes have grown out enough that it was annoying to walk down the path. We put our cowboy grill and extra chairs from our outdoor table out here so we could enjoy the evenings.

Related Article: Beginnings Of The Cottage

We already had some of the landscaping done, with some slight transplanting we had it set.

We pulled up 4 rows of stones along the walkway to the pool and all the stepping stones along the path.

We dug the outline out slightly so we could see it, once we got the angles and layout right we went ahead and continued digging.

We decided to have the river cascade at this point into the smaller pond. We removed the rocks on the end and dug a ditch 4 inches deep to the big pond. Don't worry that isn't the water line on the smaller pool we drained it to get the gunk off the bottom from several years of just sitting there.

We got a little too wide so we ended up backfilling and raising sections to 10 inches tall.

Related Article: Cottage Garden Tour

We picked up 2 rubber liners from Lowes, and attached them together with tape (also from Lowes) then spread it down the ditch making sure it was well over the sides. We tried to get as many wrinkles out of it as possible. We saved digging out the section next to the big pond for last so we wouldn't have water everywhere. We ended up cutting some of the excess off the side of the liner and using a piece to help cover the seam between the pond and river so we wouldn't have any leaks. Next, we added rocks, one of the very few good things about having a rocky yard.

It took a little adjusting to get the flow right, but after some shifting and digging we got it working right and began thinking about landscaping!

Here is another view of the river flowing down to the little pond.

We stopped by our local Lowes and found some beautiful flowers on clearance for 50% off and "adopted" them for this space.

The brown mulch was also on sale so we went with that to mulch around the pond. I love how rich the color is!

Mr. Cottage also built a bridge for us [Tutorial coming soon!]! We also brought two of our butterfly benches out to the patio and some cute garden art. It's so nice to sit out here in the evenings and watch the dragonflies and butterflies dance through the air and listen to the water!

Do you have a water feature in your garden? 

DIY Egg Garland Tutorial

One of my favorite things to decorate for is spring! I love the colors, the flowers, the baby animals (you know me- I love baby animals), ok I admit it I love everything about it. A few years ago I made this egg garland out of a bunch of our chicken's eggs. This is super easy to make and so cute! The perfect touch of farmhouse spring! 

Supplies:

Eggs

Yarn or Twine

Step 1: 

Poke a hole at each end of the egg and use grandma's method of blowing eggs - by putting her lips on one end of the egg and blowing- or my method -sticking a straw over one of the holes and blowing-. Wash the eggs thoroughly and allow to dry.  

Related Article: DIY Egg Wreath

Step 2:
Tie a knot in one end of the string, you want it big enough that the egg won't slip over it. Gently push the string through both holes in the egg, continue adding eggs until you reach your desired length. Tie another knot in the string and you are done.

Related Article: DIY Spring Garden Wreath

DIY Farmhouse Egg Wreath

Egg wreaths are super fun and add a cute breath of farmhouse spring. We made quite a few of these when we had chickens. My favorite ones were from our blueish green egg layers. You can also dye the shells with food coloring or natural dyes, we did that a few times. This project is really easy and super fun! 

Supplies:

Floral Wire or Fishing Line (don't have them? That's ok I linked each one to where you can find it on Amazon)

Grapevine Base Wreath (Same here just click the word and it will take you to Amazon)

Eggs

Related Article: DIY Hydrangea Wreath 

Step 1: 

Select your eggs, any kind will do -quail, turkey, chicken- we happened to have Americana/easter eggers so we used their eggs.

Step 2: 

Wash the eggs, puncture a hole in both ends of the egg, the next step is a bit gross but you have to blow the insides out of the egg. You can do it the way my braver-than-me grandmother did it, or you can do it my way with a straw pressed up against one hole in the egg and blow. After this is done, wash the eggs again and allow to dry. 

Related Article: DIY Spring Garden Wreath

Step 3: 

Use floral wire or fishing line to attach the eggs to a grapevine wreath base. Don't pull too tight or you will crack the eggs. You can use grapevine branches or other bendable vines to fill in gaps and cover the wire.

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How To Process Maple Sap Into Syrup

Who doesn't love maple syrup? If you caught our maple tapping adventure then you've probably been wondering how you make the sap into syrup. Well here is the next half of our adventure! 

The sap starts degrading as soon as it leaves the tree so you want to keep it cold and proccess it as soon as possible.

The first step is to strain the sap, we used the same method as when we make cheese. A fine grain colander with a clean pillow slip (never used before). This way worked really well for us. 

Outside:

The Plan: 

This method you have to keep a fire going beneath your pan until the sap has reduced into syrup (water has boiled out of the sap). Keep and eye on the sap and make sure no bugs or ash fall in, the ash will make the syrup taste smoky. This method should take between 5 and 12 hours. 

What Really Happened:

The first round we built a fire under the grate of our cowboy grill (by the way this method is makes AMAZING burgers- and smore's). We used cinder blocks to hold up the grill part. Now would probably be a good time to mention I am lousy and starting/keeping a fire going. No seriously I'm horrible at it. Mr. Cottage had mercy on me and started it for me at sunrise- yes it was cold out, very very cold. Thank goodness for hot coffee.

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Because I am lousy with fires it took a VERY long time to get it hot enough to start reducing the syrup. Once my dear, sweet, wonderful, amazing, twin sister who can actually keep a fire going took over around noon then it started actually redusuing. We pulled it off around 11 PM when Mr. Cottage got home- but not before we cooked burgers out there and made smore's with our home made marshmallows.

The next day when I jumped out of bed to start it again, I was startled by how white it was outside my window. It snowed. And was still snowing. So we moved on to method 2...

Result: 

This batch has the most amazing flavor of citrus, smoke and maple! Next time we will use smaller pans so that it will go faster instead of working with 6 gallons at a time. 

Related Article: Making Peper Jack Cheese

Inside:

The Plan:

Method to is the same basic idea- but without the worry of ash and bugs falling in. Using roaster pans that devide the liqued evenly to make it go faster over high heat on the stove. We read that this could leave a sticky residue on cabinets around the sap so keep an eye on your cabinets. Basically you boil the sap until it becomes amber and syrup like.

What Really Happened:

We used one of our big roasting pans (it held 2 gallons of sap at a time), sat it on top of the stove and turned both the front and back eye on high. For the record this way was WAY faster. In the picture below you can see that it is starting to change colors.

Related Article: Making Vanilla At Home

We babysat the syrup/sap (thank goodness for the window seat in the kitchen) until it was finished. Strained it through a pillow case again, poured it into jars and stored it in the fridge.

Result:

This batch didn't have the citrus/smoke flavor probably because we could see and didn't leave ash in it, however it still tastes AMAZING. It's some of the best tasting syrup I've ever had. 

Tapping Maple Trees Part 1

 Maple tapping is something we've wanted to do for a very long time, not just because we love maple syrup or have a bunch of maple trees. We genuinely thought it sounded like fun! So when I unwrapped a maple tapping kit this Christmas I was ecstatic! I could not wait to try it, so- on to the computer, I hopped researching and reading everything I could get my hands on. I typed in "Maple tapping", "How to tap your maple trees" and "When to tap your trees in Tennessee" in the search bar and did more reading until I was finally confident I would mess things up and had a pretty good grasp of when and how to do this (I tend to over think things).

Step 1: Identify Your Target -The Maple Trees-

We already knew which trees were maples so we skipped the identification stage, over the years as we added trees and other plants we drew a map of where things were and what they were. Making the first step a breeze. Many types of maples can be tapped (not just sugar maples) the most common are silver, red and black maples. Trees should be at least 12 inches around and healthy.

Fun Fact - Birch and Walnut trees can also be tapped.

Step 2: -Supplies-

We already had a kit (you can find the one we bought here) so we stopped by our local home away from home (not to be confused with Hobby Lobby) that's right Lowes and picked up 1-gallon food grade buckets and lids. (We realized later we could have used gallon water jugs for this). Our kit came with ten spiles (also called taps) so we bought 10 1-gallon buckets and a 5-gallon bucket to pour it in.

Spile or Tap

What we used: 
Tapping Kit
10 1-Gallon Buckets
1 5-Gallon Bucket
5/16th Drill Bit
Hammer
Electric Drill (cordless would be easiest but if you are impatient like me and don't want to wait for the battery to charge you can use a corded one like we did)

Our tapping kit came with hoses, so we drilled a hole just big enough for the tube to be inserted in each lid. The easiest way to get the hoses in is to dip the ends in hot water for several seconds and then insert that way they are softer.

Related Article: Making Butter In 7 Easy Steps

Step 3 -Charge!-

Drill into the tree using the 5/16ths drill bit at a slightly upward angle, you are going to want to go in about an inch past the bark into the white wood (eye protection is recommended- I have a feeling they would frown at my use of sunglasses for this job).

Insert the smooth end of the spile into the hole you just drilled and gently tap with a hammer, loose is better than tight in this scenario because you are going to need to take it back out after the sap flow has slowed down or the tree buds out (after this point the sap will taste funny and not make good syrup).

If you haven't done so already (ahem! We took our own root and attached them when we were preparing the buckets, connect the tubing to the spile (again hot water will help with this).  Secure buckets to the tree, we simply tied it with twine.

Related Article: Making Jack Cheese

Ok, I admit it I've been checking the buckets like crazy the last few days (you only need to check it a couple times a day). The best days for collecting is when the high is between 50-60 degrees and the low between 20-30 degrees. This causes the sap to rise to the top of the tree while it is warm, and return to the bottom when it is cold.  It will take around 6 gallons (yes you read that right) to make 1 quart of syrup.

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