Painting and Weeding

Forced to stop due to the rain, this seems as good a time as any to give an update. Last weekend was busy with Patrick pushing me much harder than I prefer to work. But as long as he's working, I feel bad to relax. Right now it's a bit different though, while he finishes the final touches in the closet, I'm resting my back. I guess I pushed myself too hard and have had a horrible back ache since Wednesday.

So yes, we're finishing the closet now because last weekend we got a bit distracted and painted the kitchen.


Now we finally have a finished room. We even put up our first picture frames. The light yellow makes the room feel so wonderfully warm and cheerful. Patrick has had breakfast in there a few times now, despite the wobbly table and ugly cabinets. Now it's about the nicest looking room we have. We also spent a large chunk of our time, most of Sunday, creating a frame on the wall above the washer and dryer so that we could put up shelves. We attached the frame to three vertical studs and then were able to attach the shelves nicely in the middle of the nook. I helped draw up the design and find the correct dimensions for everything, but mostly this project was Patrick's. He's clearly very proud of the job he did.



Those three pictures took all our time last weekend and shockingly, even though we were so close to finishing the closet we didn't work on it at all. We just can't focus. The closet is finished now though. We sanded down the new plaster and painted yesterday and Patrick has been in the bedroom most of the afternoon assembling the closet organizer.


The rest of this weekend, I got out into the garden and finally put in some good time pulling up Oxalis.


Actually, this one isn't a before picture, these pretty flowers are still taunting me in the corner but here is the nice stretch of ground that I worked on.


I cleared out everything around a bunch of irises that we apparently mowed over last year, not being able to see them under all the weeds. They're badly in need of dividing which I'm sure I'll get to eventually...

But the irises that I divided last fall and moved to the back of the garden look wonderful and now that the lavender next to them is in bloom, I really love the contrast.



Everything is finally starting to come up, even the bulbs that I planted far too late in the season. And I can't really be bothered to think of transitional phrases etc. so here you are.


Our Dark Star Ceanthonus, still only partially blooming.



Grape Hyacinth growing around some of my roman chamomile. The chamomile helped while I was picking out the tiny clovers in and around the grape hyacinths, the smell was absolutely wonderful. I'll be putting many more of them around the garden.


The daffodils in this group will be opening any day. Two have already opened in a slightly more sunny spot.


There are two left over tulips in front of the group. Then, the same tulips, just plain red ones, in the front have opened on each side of the front stairs.


Not quite up yet but looking promising are the Hostas I had in pots last year.


Other things coming up aren't so welcome. I have slightly fewer onions spread throughout the yard than Oxalis and their pretty white flowers are starting to emerge.



I quite like the flowers but the leaves are pretty ugly, besides the fact that these are weedy. The blackberries are also coming back.


And I guess that's about all.

Paint and Plaster

During the past three months or so, we've worked on and off, little by little, on the front room walls. The front room more than any other had very bad paint, not color, although I can't stand any of the colors the house came with, but the paint was dimpled and cracked on all the walls. It wasn't peeling or falling off but it wasn't good. I decided that I'd scrape the paint off the walls, around the cracks, at least, but found that all the imperfections we were seeing in the paint were not coming from the plaster. The plaster is wonderfully flat and strong away from the cracks that actually were telegraphing through. So I decided to scrape all of the front room. Took forever and was quite dusty, but it's done now.


We've repaired all the cracks on this side of the room and skim coated the wall on the right of the picture and one more across the way. We won't remove the paint above because when we first started to scrape in that area we found that there isn't any finished plaster up there. There used to be a border all the way around the room and above it there was just the rough scratch coat and it's really hard to peel the paint from that. So we'll just plaster over it all around and put up a new border. You can also see to the right a paint sample! I want one more, slightly lighter but this front room will be green.

We went a little paint sample crazy last weekend. The front room has been our focus for months now but actually the kitchen and bathroom have been ready for paint for a while. The bathroom will probably be bluish but I'm not happy with the samples I put up. The kitchen , though, will be yellow (with white cabinets and wood countertops) like the picture below.


I'll pick up another yellow sample slightly darker to see if it works better but this might be the right one. I also put up a very light purple before but it doesn't work, the room will need a warm color with all the white, stainless and fluorescent white lights.

This last weekend, we also finished replacing the missing shelves in our kitchen built-in. Inexplicably, when we bought the house, there were these wire shelves resting on the remnants of the solid shelves that were cut out of the built-in (and not cut well either).


But now we have pretty primed pine shelves. Still need to paint them with glossy white but we also need to use the shelves.


Then there is the big job we took on this last weekend, the first Patrick and I have done together for a while. When we first bought the house, the closet in the back room which is now our bedroom, was big (about 7x2) but it had a regular 30 inch door. So you could step into the closet, turn and walk three feet more into the closet. Very strange and not very useful so we had our contractor make the opening wider.


They widened it quickly enough but they didn't finish the framing and drywalling until last month... not really excusable in my mind. But it's done now.


You can see the purple paint sample that I bought to try in the kitchen in the middle. I like it in the bedroom but it's a bit too light. Anyway, super eager now that the closet was finished, we bought this simple closet organizer.


The pink wall looked like it was in good enough condition. The back baseboard was rotten on one side so we would replace it but after that just a bit a plaster repair in that area, paint and install. Finally an easy job.

...But when we stepped into the closet to check out the baseboard, I noticed a very straight line down the middle of the back wall. I pick at it a little with my finger and some fell off. Damn. That pink is paint on top of green paint on top of 80 year old wallpaper.


So a bit annoyed, we went off to Home Depot again and got a wallpaper scorer and a spray to dissolve the glue, then scraped late into the night determined to install the organizer tomorrow. Most of Sunday, I plastered over the wallpaper we couldn't scrape off and the holes from the plaster that was pulled away with the wallpaper until it got to whitish yellow state above. Sunday, we also wrenched off the baseboard and about 5 pieces of lathe that were also rotten in the area and maybe half a square foot of plaster. Before screwing in the new baseboard, we sprayed in a can and a half of spray foam to stop the strong draft that had been freezing me since the moment I knelt down to do the plastering. Seems to be working. After spreading on a second layer of plaster Monday night, the bottom corner looked like this.


With the third coat at the bottom yesterday, the area is almost flat. This weekend I'll sand down the plaster repair and the top of the baseboard which has gotten its own accidental coat of plaster, then we'll paint and Patrick will be able to finally install the closet organizer.

Eight months without a working closet has certainly been long enough, I'll definitely be posting a finished picture after this weekend.

Finally Emerging

I've been horribly negligent about the bulbs that I so badly needed to buy over the last few months. Not on the buying side, I bought lots of bulbs but never got to planting them. Not until past all the recommended planting dates. On either January 8th or 9th, can't remember, I planted the Muscari I bought back in November. While I've already seen pictures of other people's gardens with emerging Muscari flower buds, mine are just getting started. But I'm very very glad to say that I didn't plant them too late! It's been just under two weeks but the tops of the leaves are starting to emerge.



I was trying to count up the emerging tips but kept getting lost and seeing more where I'd already counted. There are at least 30 already coming up.

And on to the bulbs in the front yard, I discovered three days ago that my tulips are also starting to pop up. Does anyone have tulips coming up already? I thought I waited too long to plant these too but it was still in early December. Much better than my other bulbs. These are on either side of the steps to our front porch.



You can probably tell that I didn't amend the soil as much (as well) with the tulips as I did with the Muscari. I think I'll work some more compost into the soil when the bulbs die back next year.

Like the bulbs, everything else in our garden just now is in the development stage. There seem to be just two plants blooming just now, the breath of heaven shrub in the front and the ground cover Gazania next to the street tree.



I'll just have to do my best to add more plants that will give winter interest before the next one comes around (shouldn't be difficult as I have so much to add). I've already taken one step in that direction by finally planting one of the barberry 'red glow' shrubs that I bought, again, ages ago. It looks small and pitiful with only a few leaves remaining but those leaves are gorgeous.


Then there's the Dietes or fortnight lily that I planted a few weeks ago which is finally starting recover some of its darker green coloring. It had been going slightly yellow in its pot but this year will be a better one for it. (This is my baby of two and a half years now, I'm determined it will be happy this year and bloom abundantly).


Last, on the topic of my developing plants, the newly planted Ceanothus 'Dark Star' that I mentioned before has little buds meaning I can be sure that it's happily developing in its new home.


Last of all, I just have to post a few pictures of the new exterior of the house. The better lighting in these pictures is just begging for me to post them.



And I told you, see? The back porch, though still with ugly siding attached to it, is straight and level.

Ours is the Most Beautiful House

...at least, on the street, if not farther out. To say the least, that Robin's Egg blue isn't on our house anymore. The painter's finished the day yesterday sooo close to being completely finished with the house and for the first time this week, we came home before sunset and were actually able to see their work. Two days ago, we gathered up all the paint samples that I'd left out on the porch and put the one we'd chosen on the porch rail for the painters to see. But silly me, of course, even though I've been viewing the color choice as an extremely serious decision, I was less than serious when I was quickly moving the samples about before work on Monday morning. I believe I accidentally left the second choice color for the house on the porch. heh. heh. Luckily, choosing between those last two colors was very difficult and I really loved both of them.

Soooo... It not like I'm narrating this in person and you haven't actually seen the final pictures yet but~~~ *drumroll* Ta~dah






Even our garage with its tiny little window looks beautiful.


Maybe you can see (but probably not) that there are a few spots that need some corrective painting . We're not complaining though since it free and goooorgeous. We'll want to paint the trim white around the two back doors, and that small spot on the middle pillar blue. Then, just two harder ones, that we might not do anyway, the top of the chimney wasn't painted for some reason, it's still quite pink but we might be getting the chimney rebuilt anyway, and the rafters on the side of the porch and house would be better white, not that they stand out strangely for being blue. Then, that back porch, ick. But really, in person, you can see that once the siding is taken off it will be fine and it is straight and level, as well, though for some reason it doesn't look it in the picture. Probably because of that siding.

The only thing lacking now is the landscaping and now that the painting is done I can finally plant around the foundations!! Not that I have any money hah.

So to finish...
Come on Google Street View!! I'll let you retake the pictures for our street now.

Paint-tastic

So wonderful news, we're getting a New Years Gift from our contractor! He's painting our house, completely, instead of just priming it like he's required to. So no more pink house! He told us this last Thursday when he came by in the evening and they started painting on Friday. We had already been thinking about the colors we wanted and had grabbed some paint samples from Home Depot probably over a month ago so we gave those to him since he wanted to use a tinted primer. Fine with us, though we did make sure to tell him that we don't know the final color yet. Good thing too cause the colors we pick out were UGH Ugly! Take a look:


Easter candy blue, don't you think? Quite a shock to come home to. Apparently, choosing lighter colors than you would guess you like is something you do for inside paint colors, NOT outside. So over the weekend we went back and forth to Home Depot two times before we had all the paint colors you can see on the front of the porch. But I wasn't really satisfied yet, so I went back one more time Sunday afternoon and pick out three more (total 12 samples = about $48, I think worth it for an exterior color choice) and applied them to the other side of the porch.


Love, finally I'd found the right shade and saturation. I was crazy for both of these colors so spent a ton of time making large swatches to compare. And then, I just couldn't decide. I made Patrick, who was getting quite tired of the process and seemed a bit convinced that I was trying to get the house painted teal, go outside and look at the colors twice before he finally convincingly said that he would like either one of them. So.... I decided as I was going to sleep that the brighter blue that I do very much love might not be acceptable to enough people, or me after it was on the entire house so the one of the left it is.

While I write this now, the men have probably finished spraying the correct color on the house and should be painting the rails and trim the whitish color we chose. Also, today, the men should be taking down the ugly metal awning over the front window. Seen here along with one other dramatic front yard change:


Do you see it in the shadows? No?


No more Port-a-Pottie!! That wonderful surprise greeted us about a week ago. Also, quite a few other things have been completed in the last few weeks. The regrading, new drainage, and concrete around the chimney is finished. It started out like this:


This picture was clearly taken on a dryer week and the problem isn't so obvious but just out of the picture is our chimney - our water trap. One morning after a rain, we took a look at this area and saw puddled sludge, because the water was just collecting there, trapped two inches below the concrete drive, and over the past century slowly making the chimney sink along with the rest of the living room. But now the foundations are a bit taller and the downspouts lead into a buried pipe diverting all the water down past the chimney. And to block any other water from pooling there anymore, we have new sloped concrete over this area.


It doesn't look obvious from the picture but the new concrete is nicely sloped and water won't be collecting there anymore.

Now walking up the drive in to the backyard, we finally have a back porch again!


...it isn't quite what I was expecting... but this is my fault for not drawing up plans for what I wanted. I was pretty much thinking that a small back porch is a small back porch, there's nothing really to explain. Well except the landing, I wanted that to be brick so I did talk with Abel about that and the men built it to the pattern I wanted using the extra bricks that we'd found around the yard. I'm happy enough with that. We'll have two planting beds on either side of the landing so the rough concrete underneath won't be visible. Now the siding however... Don't know why they put that on there. But then I didn't specify that I expected the lower part of the porch to just be open. I thought that later I might add lattice to it the open porch but of all the problems that have come up due to bad communication, this is one of the smallest so I didn't complain. All the side pieces of the porch are just screwed on so we'll just take off the siding sometime on our own.

So anyway, next, to the lemon tree at the back of the garage.


And yes, I know it looks like I just weeded a spot next to the tree but I actually finally planted some of my suffocating bulbs. This patch has about 50 little muscari all over and 5 lily of the valley towards the right side. Then I took my ailing chamomile from the tiny pots I should have removed them from months ago and put them on top for a pretty, mossy cover growth (eventually). Also, good to note is that the muddy pit just visible below isn't full of pooling water anymore, after the week of dry weather, all the standing water has finally drained away and even better, despite all the water clearly flowing down the trenches to the bottom of the yard, the bottom area was dry after only 2 days (not so for the top half of the yard, we still need to do a little digging but we can only do so much on our weekends).

Our last bit of progress is in the back corner of the yard. Here's what the blackberry patch looked like in spring before we had the house, before we'd even been able to cut down the weeds.


You can just see a red spot from a rose buried inside it and an orange spot from a nasturtium. Well, we took down the pear tree the first weekend we had the place because it honestly had no roots and was obviously dieing. But it took until the weekend before last for us, that is to say me, to cut through the rest of the thicket. It took two weekends but now it's almost gone.


Sorry for the bad lighting but then the picture wouldn't be very pretty even in the best lighting. The lump towards the left side is apparently a bush that the blackberries engulfed and I assume, killed from keeping light off it for two or more years. Next to that is the pretty rose that had been throwing up reddish purple flowers during the summer and that now had bright orange hips, looking very healthy despite the brambles. Then, there are the three volunteer trees that I'll just have to get to later... when I've gotten over this cold.