Make Some Pigeon Holes For Extra Space

We're always struggling for storage space, too much stuff is probably the reason in all honesty. And we do try to chip away at it, and reduce how much we buy as well. 

But our porch isn't really big enough for the five of us, it was as big as I was allowed to build, but it is still a squeeze with all the coats and shoes (so many shoes). I decided a little extra vertical space would help so made a set of pigeon holes. 

As is my way now I filmed the process, and the plans have been in Woodworking Crafts magazine. 

 

It was a fun, fairly simple project to make using reclaimed boards and some spare plywood. It's been in use for a few months now and has been a great success. 

Has it tided up the porch at all? No, but at least I can find my stuff now! 

Could you do with some storage like this?

3 Course dinner Cooked By The Children

My wife was a way the weekend just gone, but me and the children still had a lovely time. We went to a friends for a fish and chip supper on Friday night, had a lovely sunny day outside on Saturday and Sunday we went swimming with friends and had a picnic in the park afterwards.  

On the Saturday the children were messing about making some fun fake food, when I suggested that if they liked they could plan a meal for when their mum got home, I said I wanted three courses! They jumped at the chance and grabbed some pens and paper to make a menu. 

They settled on Italian, I told them that before we go swimming we could pop to the shops and get anything extra they needed. The starter was fairly straight forward (above) and had everything they love! 

Trio Of Carved Toolboxes

 I've written a lot of magazine articles now, well over a hundred, and very occasionally I might hear back from someone who has read one. 

One of my first articles in Woodcarving magazine was about making a carved tool box for my daughters 9th birthday, this was a few years back now, so it was lovely to hear from Gordon in Ireland who had read my article and decided to make one.

He has now made three of them! I think the his use of colour on them is amazing! Talk about making  a project your own. 

April Homestead Tour

 I love this time of year. It's been a challenging spring so far (I know we're not even very far into it yet either!), but the sun was shining so I decided it was the perfect opportunity to go for a walk around the smallholding and have a look at what we've got going on. 

In this walk around you can see our downed oak tree as well as the garden ramping up production, everything is looking very green and lush, but we're still having lots of cold nights, so don't be fooled and get too much going too early! 

Let me know what you think (I'd love for you to leave a comment on YouTube as well if you would - helps loads! Even just a thumbs up is a big thing on that platform). 

Thanks for watching!

Stored Apples In April

Although we still have some good, tasty apples left in the store we have started buying some the last few weeks. 

The stored ones just don't travel well now and as four of the five of us go off every day and need to take lunch the apples look very bruised an unappetising by the time it's lunch! 

so although I'm eating ours from the (apple) store, the other's aren't. It's shame, I could do with growing some that travel a bit better at this age. The middlest still takes dried appple with her every day though. 

I think it might be worth stewing up some of these and dehydrating the better ones before they loose too much condition. I had a go through the other day and I think the mild weather has made a few of them start to turn. 

If you store apples how are yours looking this year?