Little Star Farm KC

When we bought the farm house, it was listed as a tear down. It looked horrible. However, I saw the potential and once I was able to get Mr. DJ to see it as well, he got on board.  The kitchen was a freakin' nightmare.  The window into the added back porch had wire over it, as they had kept their dogs in the back porch. The wet wall to the bathrooms was open and they had added washer and dryer hook ups in that area. Not sure what they had been doing with the kitchen ceiling, a lot of it was wide open, but we fixed that. I initially moved the 80's chandelier that had been in the dining room into here, but then I found this AMAZING milk glass chandelier at a thrift store that matched the original sink light. It's just perfect. For security, we replaced this original front door with a steel solid door. I moved the front door back to here. So far I haven't painted it. I like the story of it. I will probably eventually repair, restore and paint. One of my clients was remodel...

I'm seeing and responding to a lot of chatter on the gardening and homesteading sites [including my own] about starting transplants, and I wanted to do a more in-depth tutorial on how I do it.  [This post contains affiliate links.] There are several key elements to a good transplant: Fresh seeds , seeds really shouldn't be more than 2 years old, unless they have been stored in the freezer, for proper germination. Proper growing medium. You need a good TRANSPLANT medium, not soil, not compost, not potting soil, but actual starting medium. You can make your own, but for most home gardeners it is more economical to buy it.  Enough, proper, light . A sunny south facing window is fine for a couple weeks, but if you are starting a lot of plants, and/or way early, you need a proper light source with a full spectrum light. Without enough light, your plants will grow too tall too fast and be spindly and weak, and often not make it. Enough space. You can start 200 tiny seeds in a sing...

[Post contains Amazon Affiliate links] My parents had a residential/commercial painting company that I worked at for 4 years. Decorating trends were just getting into the white woodwork. At that time, most woodwork was dark '70's or golden oak '80's. Much of our residential work was painting entire houses of trim, cabinets and paneling. I did this for up to 14 hour days 6 days a week when business was booming. I've also rehabbed several old houses since then. The pics below are from our 100 year old farmhouse rehab. If you do it wrong, the paint will just peel off. You don't want that to happen. Believe me.  Rule to remember: Water based paints CAN go over oil based paints. Oil based paints can NOT go over water based ones. To keep it simple, just use water based paints unless you are sealing brand new wood, coating masonry or painting outdoor metal. Remove cabinet doors and hardware. Don't try to paint around knobs, hinges and handles. Just don't. It ...

Mealworms are SOOOOO easy to raise. I have a leopard gecko at my daycare. I started a meal worm colony to keep fresh food available for him. I saw my son pay almost $40 for a bag of freeze dried insects at Feldman's several weeks back for his chickens and about had a heart attack. I bought a large package of live ones off Amazon, threw them into a fish tank with a container of cheap oats and toss them some banana peels and apple cores every once in awhile. That's it. Once you get some hatched into beetles, the cycle is self perpetuating. The beetles never try to get out of the container, they just bury into the oats. When the worms are at their peak growth, they move to the top of the oats to pupate. I pick them off at the large stage and send to the lizard or chickens. I highly recommend raising your own mealworms for your poultry. What you need: Shallow container. Size depends on how many you want to raise at a time. The commercial growers use tubs about the size of under be...