Choosing Voluntary Simplicity » Doing It Ourselves

Yes You CAN Learn To Do It Yourself

Shirley — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:15:38 +0000

Anyone can learn new skills. It's easier if you have someone to serve as an instructor, but "how to" books and videos work great too. An elderly uncle showed my husband how to do electrical wiring, but he learned how to do plumbing completely from instruction manuals. Both skills were learned out of necessity when we had an empty shell of a brand new house to finish and no money to spend on hiring professionals. The carpentry skills my husband learned grew out of the same necessity, with trial and error being his best teacher. My husband has shingled the roof, installed doors and windows, and learned how to make a perfectly smooth wall or ceiling. I have refinished furniture, painted, upholstered, made soap, cheese, slipcovers, curtains, and baskets. Together we have built porches and sheds, framed rooms, installed drywall, carpet, well pumps, bathtubs, toilets and sinks... first learning how, and working slowly and carefully until we could see we had it right. One of our proudest accomplishments is the way that we took a wild, wooded landscape and rock-filled soil and turned it into a lovely yard with a series of gardens and paths.

Not Compromising Our Scruples

Shirley — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 13:06:42 +0000

Our plan to order another truckload of logs came to a screeching halt the morning I called to place the order and arrange for a delivery date. There had been, the receptionist told me, some changes in load size, pricing, and availability since our previous order. She wasn't kidding. Not only had the number of logs in each truckload been reduced... the price had been increased... resulting in a price per cord that was almost double what we had paid previously. And the final kicker... it had been such a wet spring they were having trouble getting into the woods, and it was doubtful that they would have logs for sale again until next year.

Our Experimental 100% Leaf Mold Gardens

Shirley — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 14:16:00 +0000

It seems that every year we wish we had more garden space. There are a lot of areas in our meadow that get almost all-day sun and would make perfect gardens, except the soil is too wet, too full of clay, and too full of rocks. We have been working on digging rocks and amending the soil for years and years, but at best it's a slow process. We need more planting space now.

A Temporary Chaos

Shirley — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 12:35:42 +0000

Our house is a little disorganized right now. The dining room table and three chairs are in the living room. The rest of the chairs are lined up against the wall in the hall. The large buffet, the two tall corner cupboards, and the smaller china cabinet are too heavy and bulky to be moved very far, so they are pushed together in the center of the kitchen. Every countertop and flat surface in the kitchen and living room is covered with the dishes and other breakable treasures that are usually stored in these four cabinets.

This Is Our Stone Path

Shirley — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 12:16:34 +0000

This is our stone path. It is 55 feet and 9 inches long and seven feet wide and follows a gentle curve from the picket fence gate to the back steps of our house. The picket fence and the large hosta gardens on both sides of the path create a "courtyard" area that we absolutely love. My husband and I built this stone path ourselves, using ordinary rocks that we had previously dug from our property. None of the rocks we used are pavers... in fact, almost all of them are boulders that are at least a foot thick. Many of the rocks are even larger... as we gained experience we realized that as long as a rock had one flat side and an interesting surface, it probably was a good candidate for the path.

Visual Proof That Nothing is Impossible

Shirley — Mon, 17 May 2010 12:28:22 +0000

My husband was digging under yet another enormous tree stump and cutting roots. I was pulling out the roots as he cut them. One smallish root seemed to be unusually heavy and was very difficult to pull, even with both of us pulling together.

We Should Have Wondered Where All Those Rocks Came From!

Shirley — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 15:25:24 +0000

Our land is edged on all sides by beautiful old stone walls. Since ours is the first house ever to be built on this land, the stone walls were obviously begun when the land was first cleared for farming over two hundred years ago. Through the years as the soil was worked, more rocks would have been added to the walls. Although stone walls are not an unusual sight in New England, the extremely long expanses of stone walls that we have here should have made us wonder where all those rocks had come from. Once we started making gardens and digging holes for planting, we found out quickly that this good, rich soil was packed full of rocks. In all the years we have lived here, I can't remember digging even a small hole that didn't involve having to remove a large number of rocks. Many of the rocks are larger than two people can handle, but we eventually learned the easiest way of hoisting the really big rocks up and out of the way without heavy equipment. After a while it turns into a challenge. I thought some of you might be interested in seeing the process.

Somewhat More Intimidating Than the Usual Do-It-Yourself Project

Shirley — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:25:05 +0000

We have heat! It took nearly a month of telephone calls, research, lots and lots of perseverance, and a full day of exacting work, but our previously "dead" furnace is now running like new. We were hoping to repair... not replace... the furnace, and this turned out to be a problem because the part we needed didn't seem to exist. There used to be two dealers within a sixty-mile radius selling and servicing this kind of furnace. The dealer we bought the furnace from went out of business a few years ago. The other dealer is closing his business in a few months because of the recession and he had absolutely no interest in trying to help us find parts or information.

My Winter Herb Garden

Shirley — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:38:21 +0000

All I can see from my kitchen windows is snow, snow, and more snow. The winters are very long here, and spring is still several months away... this is a time when I absolutely yearn to see something growing and GREEN, so I really enjoy the herbs that make up my little kitchen garden.

The Final Cut and Summer Memories

Shirley — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:40:11 +0000

This was such a beautiful sight... to have ninety logs "done" and to see only one log still left to be cut. And there's the little "brook" that formed under this log during one of our last torrential rains... and the thick layer of sawdust that is so wet and packed down, we're having to rake it up in stages as it dries.