DIY Archives - Summers Acres

How to Make an Egg Gathering Apron from a Pillowcase

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When we were living on the 40 acre homestead before we downsized, we had over 50 laying hens. There were lots of eggs to collect each day. The egg basket that I was using wouldn’t hold them all so I switched to a 5 gallon bucket. I quickly realized that a large bucket was a quick way to break eggs and carrying eggs in my T-shirt wasn’t cutting it either. I needed a solution to this problem without spending much money (“much” to this mama is about $10)…I finally decided that I would make an egg gathering apron out of an extra pillowcase and a little bit of ribbon. The apron was made in under 15 minutes and there has been no issue gathering eggs since!

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How to Tan a Deer Hide

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I have always had an interest in primitive survival techniques, and I enjoy teaching myself the lost arts of our ancestors. These days I normally kill three or four deer per year to fill our freezer, and I do what I can to use every part of the animal. However, I noticed that our deer camp throws out seven to ten deer hides every year.

I made the decision to find a way to use these hides. The more I thought about it, the more I settled in on an idea. Every winter I complete a survival challenge during which I spend three or four days in freezing temperatures to hone my winter survival skills. However, I can never seem to find a warm and comfortable buffer between myself and the ground. Continue reading “How to Tan a Deer Hide” →

Rustic Chicken Coop Built with Scrap Tongue and Groove and Old Tin for the Roof

Save Money Building a Chicken Coop

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A well-built chicken coop can wreck your chicken budget (I know I’m not the only one with a monthly budget entry for chickens). You need your flock to be well protected. You want your chicken coop to be sturdy and not be an eyesore in the back yard. You also need to make sure your hens have enough space, and never forget to leave a little room for the chickens yet to come. You know you are going to get more. So, how can you accomplish all of this without spending a fortune on chicken coops? Well, it’s not easy, but I am going to cover a few ways I have found to save a little bit of money on my chicken coops.

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DIY Eggs for Sale Sign from Reclaimed Wood

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Last month I decided to make some pallet signs to hang on our mailbox at the end of the driveway. I love pallet signs and I am constantly drawn to them in craft fairs, Pinterest, and so on, but I have never made one myself. With Jon’s affinity for chickens and our overabundance of eggs, my initial goal was to create an “Eggs for Sale” sign to let the neighbors know that we had farm fresh eggs for sale.
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Our 1940 Farmhouse – Upstairs Guest Bedroom Makeover

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We have been living in our new home for three months. We have been super busy with all of our projects and moving. We left the last upstairs bedroom untouched for sometime as it was not needed immediately. This is a rectangular upstairs bedroom with a closet built into the attic space that was mentioned in an earlier post. This will be our guest bedroom which will not be used often, except when Jon’s son stays with us during the summer. It was a relief that we did not have the pressure to fix it right away as this room was in the worst shape of all rooms in the entire house. But we had the realization a few weeks ago that Nolan would be here in a month and we had not done anything but close the door!

1940's Farmhouse Upstairs Guest Bedroom Makeover — 1940’s Farmhouse Upstairs Guest Bedroom Makeover

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DIY: Pine Floor Cleaner Recipe

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Here is a simple easy recipe to make your own natural, non-toxic pine floor cleaner with just a few basic ingredients and essential oils.

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Our 1940 Farmhouse – Upstairs Bedroom Makeover

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The upstairs of our 1940’s farmhouse has not seen many (if any) updates to it. The upstairs has three small bedrooms. Two bedrooms are rectangular and have closets that are built into the attic space. The third bedroom in the middle has no attic space to utilize for closets and is square. We only have our youngest who is 14 that still lives with us. We let her choose which bedroom she wanted. Not surprising, she chose one of the rectangular bedrooms that had a closet and had the best window view overlooking one of the hay fields. The bedrooms are a little small. Adding to the challenge, she currently has an excessively large bedroom at our current house. To compensate for the space, her bedroom will be the one she chose and the square middle room with no closets will be a game room. Today, we will discuss the updates to the bedroom so that it functions well and suits a 14 year old teenage girl.

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DIY: Building a Bigger Better Chicken Run

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We are just weeks (maybe a month) away from our move to our “new to us” farmhouse. We have been quite busy and we have failed miserably at keeping the progress updates flowing. We took a week off from work after Christmas with plans to get a lot accomplished at the new house. Although, we did stay very busy, the excessive rain we received delayed much of our moving and work outside. Although it was still wet Friday, it had dried up enough that we Jon was finally able to make some progress on the outside tasks. A big part of our move is of course moving our chickens which requires constructing a new chicken run.

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Pallet Chicken Coop | DIY Chicken Coop

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Our first chicken coop was functional, but left a lot to be desired. We learned a lot from our first little coop, and we put what we learned into our second, bigger pallet chicken coop. Things we learned from the first coop, make a coop big enough to walk in, roosters are big, need a bigger door, and always plan you coop to get even more chickens. Chickens are addictive, and you will always want more. With these things in mind, we worked on designing our next chicken coop.

The first step was to acquire some wooden pallets. Wood is getting more and more expensive. We wanted to do this as inexpensively as possible, as we are cheap. I got a truck load of free wooden pallets for our chicken coop by asking around. Continue reading “Pallet Chicken Coop | DIY Chicken Coop” →

How to Hem Pants By Hand

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About the only sewing I do these days is mending, but I actually do know how to sew. I made several of my maternity clothes with my first child and many a Halloween costume when they were little. However, it is more expensive to sew your own clothing these days most of the time. The price of patterns and material is outrageous. I have a pair of dress pants that I recently bought that the hem came out of. It seems that nothing is made very well any more. I needed to repair the hem and thought I’d do a little tutorial.

Hemming slacks is something that I do by hand rather than on the sewing machine. Hems on a sewing machine will be very visible as the stitching will show up as a continuous line. Typically the hem of dress pants are not very visible. Thus, the need to sew by hand.

Because this is a mending job, you can clearly see by the creases where the hem should be turned up to. If you are hemming a brand new garment or the crease is not obvious be sure to measure for the proper length by trying them on, turn up, and tack with a pin.

Visible Crease of Hem

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