restoring the roost

North Carolina Country Living and Farmhouse Style

North Carolina Country Living and Farmhouse Style
since 2010

Sketch-Up 3D model of the New House

· new house

My husband is definitely a jack-of-all-trades.  He is surprisingly talented at SO many things outside of his forte as a scientist, and in addition to leading the way in our house building process he took the initiative to build a 3D model of our house in Google Sketch-Up.
I especially need to be able to see things visually and spatially a lot of times before I can make design decisions, so this modeling has been extremely useful for us. It’s also just really cool and fun to work with!  Of course we don’t have every detail on the model yet, but here is a rough draft of what the exterior of the house may eventually look like from several different angles:
Front Elevation
Side Elevation (Screened Porch, Master Bed and Bath)
Rear Elevation (Screened Porch and Laundry Room)
Side Elevation (Kitchen, Breakfast and Dining Room)
You can also model/design the interior and add various textures (aka materials) walls and so forth. Sketch-Up even has furniture you can place inside the house if you want to see how different layouts will look. The textures do make the actual model look a little off in terms of color and tone, but it gives you a general idea. For example, we aren’t planning on doing a green metal roof (most likely a gray or silver one) but it comes out looking light green on the model in Sketch-Up.
Below is a section of the model looking into the kitchen and breakfast area with the dining room on the far right and the pantry and laundry on the far left. I’m excited to be able to print out these sections for each wall so that I can draw or write onto it notes for materials, paint colors, and other design features.
Section of the what will be the south elevation, looking at from left to right: laundry, pantry, breakfast nook, kitchen, and dining room.
My husband says it wasn’t at all difficult to do (but he doesn’t think anything technical like this is hard!) but it does take some time and a bit of playing around with Sketch-Up to learn the ropes. I used to use Sketch-Up in graduate school and haven’t touched it for quite some time, but I’m learning quickly again 🙂
Have any of you used Sketch-Up or a similar program for design work?
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French Breakfast Radishes

· gardening, Homesteading

My love for radishes has grown in recent years. I love the spicy bite they have and I think they are such a great compliment not only to salads but to all sorts of dishes. Roasting them is delicious too.

I’ve always wanted to try French Breakfast radishes because I love eating them with butter on top of a good, crusty bread like a French loaf or a sourdough. This year we planted them in our raised beds and although they aren’t very big, so far we have several that actually grew!  Whoohoo!

I’ve been enjoying them in salads, with dips, and of course, with butter on top of crusty bread 🙂

Here is one of my favorite salad recipes with radishes:

Bibb and Radish Salad with Buttermilk Dressing

4 oz. country/crusty bread, cut into 3/4″ pieces
1 tbsp. olive oil
salt and pepper
garlic seasoning (optional)
1/2 cup buttermilk
3 tbsp. mayonnaise 
2 tbsp. chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
1 clove garlic, minced
1 head Bibb lettuce, torn
4-6 radishes, sliced
1 shallot, sliced

Heat oven to 400 degrees. On baking sheet, toss bread with olive oil, 1/4 tsp salt and pepper and garlic seasoning. Bake for about 10-15 minutes to form croutons. In large bowl, whisk together buttermilk, mayo, parsley, garlic, salt and pepper. Add lettuce, radishes, shallot, croutons and toss to coat.

I’m going to plant them in the fall again too hopefully another good crop!

Shipping Fertile Eggs

· chickens

A while back Elizabeth from Messy Organic Mum had asked me about sending her some fertile eggs because she wanted to add some Dominiques to her flock. Finding quality Dominique stock can require a bit of searching and therefore we as breeders who hope to preserve the breed standard welcome those wanting to get in to raising the American Dominique. I was happy to help!

But I had never shipped eggs before.  Thankfully, Elizabeth gave me some tips on how best to ship eggs from her experience.  So here’s what I did:

I wrapped each egg individually in a little piece of a paper towel and then placed it small side down in the egg carton.

After placing all the eggs in the cartons, I covered them with more paper towels and then taped the egg carton together.

I put the egg cartons in a small box with packing peanuts or some sort of other soft filling so that they won’t slide or bounce around. I taped up the box nice and tight.

After addressing the box, I wrote “EGGS” and “FRAGILE” all over the box so that the carrier would know to use caution when handling them.

I shipped the eggs Priority Mail with a note to the carrier that these were fragile, fertile eggs that were being delivered.  The first time I shipped them, Elizabeth said that all the eggs arrived intact! However, the hatching rate wasn’t great so this time around I am hoping for a better fertility/hatching rate.

We just had a broody hatch out a couple of chicks so I can’t wait to share some pictures with you. They are as cute as they can be!!

Can you share any advice on shipping fertile eggs? What are the best tips for good hatching rates in your experience?

Spring at the Roost

· chickens, Homesteading, new house

Ahhhh, springtime.  We just returned from spending a couple of weeks in Kentucky with family and since I hadn’t posted in a while I thought I would share with you a few glimpses of our spring around here.  I wish I had remembered to capture photos of when the redbuds are all in bloom because it is always so beautiful!

Our chickens have been enjoying the warm North Carolina spring weather…..and (hopefully) we will have some baby chicks soon as we have a broody sitting on eggs as we speak 🙂

The screened porch is a must-have here in the country and we are planning for an extra large one in our new house!

I love hellebores–they survive in shade, are hardy, and multiply every year!  Also such a classic southern addition to any garden. 

Of course you will not find our house without flats of seedlings and starts either under a grow light or hardening off on the porch like these tomato plants are. They will go into the ground in the next week weather permitting.

Because we have been so busy planning for the new house this spring, for a while now I’ve neglected  our current rental in terms of any decor projects or updating. As you can see below, our house plans came and it is exciting to see the all of the details laid out! Now on to the land survey, building permits, and plan modifications with our builder.

I hope you are having a pretty spring and I can’t wait to update you as we continue the new house design and building process!

Homestead Design: Landscape Details

· gardening, Homesteading, new house

Lets talk homestead landscaping!

A lot of times landscaping around a house is an afterthought but in planning our homestead I think it is important that we design the landscaping simultaneously with the house itself, so that they can evolve together and so that we can maximize the use of the plants–whether they be ornamental, edible, medicinal, or as natural pest control.

FYI– if you haven’t heard, we are building a house on 10 acres in the country! You can read about our decision here and look at my first draft of a homestead design here.

In addition to designing the kitchen garden, I’m hoping that the landscaping around the house and driveway can be just as functional and beautiful. I plan on putting in some of my favorite flowering plants and bushes like hydrangeas, peonies and lilacs, a couple of small flowering fruit trees such as cherry and non-fruiting ones such as camellias, a small herb garden on the rear elevation of the house and shade-loving perennials on the north elevation of the house.

The orchard will be located to the southeast of the house where we plan to have varieties of apple, peach, pear, fig, plum and nectarine trees. Large and medium sized trees such as pecan, walnut, American hazelnut, magnolia and oaks will provide nice shade in the summertime and as a bonus supply us with nuts or pretty foliage.

I have zero experience with landscape design so I very much value your suggestions and advice! What do you think?