Here is my outdoor dehydrator. I used a 1x4 and 2 1x2s for the frame (free from the trash haul -thx treasure haulers!). I had to buy the light difusers for the tray ($14) and the hinges and foam weather stripping so the screens would get a good seal.  I also got 2 matching window screens from restore for $0.50 each.  So it didnt come out a great deal. But the total cost was around $23. Hope it works!

Night Stand to a Little Girl Kitchen

Nightstand to a little girl's kitchen

This was JJ's project. It was one of the first treasure haul finds that started the treasure haul empire that we have today. (ha ha) She found this little night stand, sanded it, painted it, spray painted the hardware, and cut a hole in the top for the sink (metal bowl). We found the knobs and the faucet at restore. The faucet was actually just a piece of pipe. So cute. She even used chalkboard paint for the side. Perfect for a little girl. Great job JJ. 

Very Hidden Treasure

Very Hidden Treasure
This was another Treasure Haul find that was quite a transformation as you can see from the before and after pictures. It started as this. It had all the pieces there but had a broken drawer and some just plain ugly issues.

But Jessica sanded, painted, sanded some more, painted some more and spray painted the hardware and Mikeal and Dad fixed the drawer and  look at the transformation.

Picnic table top to kitchen island

Picnic table top to kitchen island

Ok so one of my favorite projects lately started when Jill found me this picnic table top out of the treasure haul.

I got the idea from the pallet island found on beyondthepicketfence.blogspot.com. So JJ and I cut and stained the wood indoors because it was cold. Here is JJ getting nice and high from the fumes.

We used the 2x6’s from the picnic table top for the top and sides and then used pallet pieces for the shelf. We stained it with my favorite red mahogany and put a bees was on the top to seal it and make it food grade quality. The hooks on the side were from the dollar store and we spray painted them with the same copper patina spray paint we use for all hardware. The towel rack is my favorite feature and for that we got an old crib out of the treasure haul and cut and stained one of the rungs and then attached it with curtain rod holders that I had laying around. Here is the finished product. It was beautiful, easy, cost 5 dollars for the screws and sold for $120. I almost pulled a Mikeal and tried to keep this one.

Get great bargains on ebay

Hi Y'all Cheapskates

I just wanted to give you my tricks for finding some killer bargains on ebay. If a seller on ebay lists an item and happens to misspell the name of the item that they are selling, then buyers that are searching for that particular item will not find it. Here's what I mean, I buy a lot of airplane stuff, if the seller of an airplane picture misspells their item as "airpane picture", it will not show up in my search since I am not looking for an airpane picture.
What does this all mean? If You do search of all possible misspellings of your key word i.e. airplan, arplane airpane arplsne etc. you will find many items that many other buyers will never find. If you are the only bidder you will get the item for what ever the minimum bid is. It doesn't work every time but it puts the odds more in your favor. I have made some really good deals in my day.

chickens and wheelchairs

So I don't have any pictures but I just wanted to blog about Jana's amazing chicken-doctor skills. Together she and I helped put a brace on a chicks leg that broke. Today, you would never know her leg was every broken. Daisy was chasing her around the yard tonight and she was definitely running with no problems!! :)... Also, Josh and I are really at an advantage with our garage being full of so much crap. Y'all have to actually drive around looking for it, we simply have to walk out back to find it. On that note, we sold two unworking electric wheelchairs tonight for $110.... free money, just like that! I am also working on a bookcase recycle but with my four monkeys, we will have to see how long it takes to actually finish it.

Here is our chicken coop. It wasn't as frugal as we wanted it to be but it does feature wood scavanged from a platform doug found in the trash haul, left over building paper and rolled roofing from dad, plastic flooring found in jonet and josh's garage, left over wood we had from various projects, left over paint from our swingset, an umbrella pole joelle found in the trash haul, and a box spring frame we no longer needed to make the front doors.  We still had to buy some wood and hardware, but we saved a lot off what we could scavange.  I'm proud of our little red coup!

Go Rugby Guys!

Coffee (that would be bad) Table

Christin went running by Bullard High one day and saw that they were working on some of the buildings there. There was a pile of wood (mostly 2x6) that she noticed sitting by itself, so she inquired as to what the plan was for that wood. They told her she could have it if she wanted it. They were 12' long, so we went and cut them in half and brought them home.

Then we decided to turn them into a coffee table for the living room.

Before we could finish it, the kid's did the best they could with color crayon's and colored markers. We resanded it, and it currently sits on our back patio, awaiting paint/stain. Total cost...$0.

We love our Little-Red-Rebel and all...

...BUT WE SURE COULD USE A TRUCK!!!

Triple bunk loft beds

Christin picked up 8 trundle beds on an auction for $2 each.  I used 2 on the floor (sitting on top of food storage, of course). The third one is sitting on 2x4's mounted to the wall and a couple of 36" tall cube organizers ($35 each at target).  The stairs were made from left over wood and trash haul finds.  We sold our old bunk beds for $150 so it was a money making project! The girls love having their own spaces.  They play on there all the time.

Walmart Table Before and After

I bought this table and chairs for $10 on KSL. All I had to do was sand down the top, paint it black and poly it with left overs from our crib

The chairs needed reupholstered pretty badly obviously. They're grey because I already had the fabric from a $1-a-yard sale at Walmart from a year before. And we did have to buy a staple gun at harbor freight, which Mikeal was happy about, for $6. It only took a couple of hours and most of it was spent waiting for the paint and poly to dry.

My favorite part was trying to hop into the driver's side window after I tied the stinkin thing to the top of the car...not so graceful of a maneuver when you're 8 months pregnant.

Total price: $16

Sold it for $100 within 24 hours. (I just found the exact same table and chairs at Walmart for $124...shh, don't tell)

Kitchen Island Before and After

Ok so the other project I wanted to try was a kitchen island since the one we sold this summer sold so quickly so I started with this old cabinet that we found on the side of the road.

And I removed the knobs, added a back, added contact paper in the bottom, added a trim all around because the bottom of the wood was rotted at the bottom, stained the entire thing. (I learned from researching online that staining is like dying hair and as long as you are staining darker you dont have to sand.) added braces to the bottom and put new locking casters on it. For the top I took the leaf from my old table, sanded it, waxed it (with food safe wax) added a 1x2" trim and hooked it on with L brackets. It cost about 40 dollars for the wax, screws, L brackets and casters It sold for $180 in 2 hours. 

Dresser Before and After

Ok the calendar thing didn't really work so I decided to change things and thought this would be a fun place to post our before and after pics since we all do random projects. Here is the first one, this is a dresser JJ and I found on the side of the road. We sanded it a little bit, painted it, and changed out the knobs. What a difference!!!  One thing I discovered on this project is  a product called flotrol. It is added to paint to slow the drying time and it eliminates brush strokes. We bought cheap pulls that were silver and spray painted them a dark bronze. It cost about $25 for the paint, flotrol, and knobs and it sold for $150