Doors, Flowers, and a Porch

So in the last few weeks, we've, mostly I, have made quite a bit of progress on the kitchen built-in refinishing... Phase 1: the doors. It may not look it, but the door below is finished and ready for painting, we have three such doors so far. Okay, actually we've only been working little by little, on the weekend.

We scraped and sanded, then added wood putty and sanded more. Then, actually, sanded again because I found that I was better at the finish sanding than Patrick. Finally, we were ready to start priming and pried open the paint can lid.... and found the paint completely separated... I guess paint shouldn't be an impulse buy that you get on clearance in Sears. Well, we shook and mixed it up as much as we could and put on a few coats. Here's a picture of the primed doors against the yet untouched cabinet.

I think no one will disagree with us about which looks better. I think since the primer was probably still not mixed thoroughly enough, the paint was a bit watery and the doors need another layer or two before we put on the semi-gloss finishing paint.

But once we finish these doors, we'll move onto the shelves we need to replace below:

I mean what the heck were they thinking? Why in the world did they cut out the original shelves and put in these chicken wire ones? And we know they cut out the original ones rather than properly removing them because these wire shelves are being held up by the wonky one inch remains of those shelves. Should be super easy to get new pieces of wood cut to replace these shelves. But when we get to that we'll also have to remember to ask our contractor to fix these holes:

See, there are four holes in the back of this cabinet section because of these screws that are kind of holding in our electric panel.... so it seems that the old plaster might be all that is securing the panel to the wall, but then, maybe not. Just have to remember to tell him, I completely forgot this past week.

Anyway, let's move on to more interesting and pretty pictures.

Here is that back planting bed that we carved out just before we moved into the house a month ago and the little plants are filling in very nicely. When these coreopsis plants were in their 5-inch clay pots they were wilting every couple days from my lack of a hose - watering cans just don't carry enough water (for me). But I haven't seen the slightest sign of wilting since.

My little seedling Agastache plants have been blooming now for nearly 3 weeks, looking weak at first, but adding more and more sideshoots and flowers everyday. They're not quite what I was expecting but they've grown on me now that they've gotten a bit bigger. The seed packet showed pink flowers, which would have probably looked better but then, purple is great too.

But just as a reminder of how much the yard is not finished, see this view from behind the flowers.

But nothing much will happen until the garage is finished - we wouldn't want the men to destroy all the work we do.

On a different subject, I wonder if anyone out there can answer a question for me. Take a look at this Coreopsis flower:

It's a bit hard to see, but there's a bug in there that I'd like to try and identify. Not the cucumber beetle, that one was easy enough and we do have a bit of a problem with them. They seem to be in just about every flower that I look into. But not them, there's a tiny nearly transparent little caterpillar or centipede creature. Does anyone know what that might be? The flower looks fine from a foot away but up really close it is actually a bit wonky... maybe that's because there is some kind of problem pest feeding on the bud? I have no clue and haven't had any luck researching it so I'm throwing it out to you.

Okay, last update to give, I talked last time about how the porch was finally getting started and after a week I can't quite step on it but it's looking good. As a reminder, we started at:

Then, we backstepped a bit to a nonexistent porch for a month and a half.

Then, this week, the carpenters started again and built the concrete forms on Monday.

Then, they poured the foundation and removed the forms.

And finally yesterday, we came home to something a bit more substantial, a bit more porch like.

We might have had a platform to stand from by now but Abel's given his men a full three days off for the holiday weekend so probably by the end of next week, I'll have pictures from that perspective. Can't wait.