A long time coming.

I know many have stopped following my blog. I understand. I stopped writing. Now I am back and settled I hope to pick up my homemaking journal. To make a long story short, my husband retired in 2011. We left our home and all I had started for a life at the beach. Well that did not satisfy us.We are back in the area we came from again. I love being closer to family again.
   We are starting over in a new property and a new frugal lifestyle.We have been in our new home almost two months. In that time we have had so many things that needed repaired or prettied up . We saw money flying out the window without it seeming to.  We sold our single wide trailer we were living in. It seemed like we would have plenty to do all of the stuff we needed or wanted to do. It really diminished quickly.  I had to be the bad one and say no to wanting to replace some things because they were smelly or needed repair.
    For instance, any home will smell after being closed up for any time. Well this one did. too. My DH wanted to rip up all the carpets and replace them. To me it was obvious that these carpets were not very old. They were just dirty. Being a light tan they will get that way. But they were good quality carpets with a thick padding under them. So I begged for him to let me try to clean them. He finally agreed. So I rented the big green machine from the Lowes store. I used pine sol and purple cleaner as the solution. With the exception of a few minor spots it all came out perfectly clean. It smelled fresh because of the pine sol. He was amazed. He would still grumble some because he wanted new everything. Well we all know how that goes.  You cannot afford to buy everything new.       The bathtub is acrylic and it was scratched and pitted. The home inspector said we might need to change it so it does not leak. I asked to try my hand at fixing it too.I got some epoxy putty and smeared it all in the pits as well as I could. I sealed all of the big holes where you could see the webbing. I let it dry and sanded it some. I primed the bottom of the tub and when it was cured, I spray painted it with Krylon Maxx. It also has primer in it. I tried to stick to the color the tub is now. Is it perfect? No. But it looks good and the bath tub mat covers any bumpy spots I did not get perfectly smooth. We did have to buy some new things.
   The fridge and the stove are new. If I had waited longer I might have gotten a good used one but they did not show up until after we bought ours. At least I know how old it is. We had to bring in plumbers to redo some lines as well as replace the tank. That was very expensive. When they offered to come redo our bathroom, I said no.
  The property had a big workshop that was crying out for repairing. We are still in the process of fixing it. It needs new siding and work on the doors and putting in windows still.  The roof was in tatters and leaked like a sieve. We bought tin roofing and the tar paper to repair  it. Tin will last longer and was cheaper to use than shingles. Our son in law offered to come install the tin panels for us. He and his friend and two more came on Saturday to do it. Oh what a blessing. All he wanted was a fried chicken dinner for the trouble. I will be sending them a gift card to the grocery store as a surprise.
  This property is around one and three quarters of an acre.  I have plans to put in a huge garden and chickens by spring. I have tin roofing left from our shop buy. It should be enough to roof a small coop. I am looking forward to it. But we must do it on a strict small budget. Even buying paint to paint the walls was expensive. We went with a better quality paint that had primer in it as well as low odor.So step by step we are making this our home.
  I have used the local swap sites and craigslist for searching for what we need. I also have asked friends and bought things from them.  I want a beautiful home that is functional but I do not want to go broke doing it.
  Home is what you make of it. Faith, love, joy and gratitude will make the smallest home into a palace.