Gardening

The weather is so lovely it's really hard to think about working on the inside of the house. I feel the need to stop at every nursery and home improvement store and cruise for plants! I also wish I had taken the time to dig up every last rose at my old house. Although since at least 1 died in the process, perhaps my estimation that it would be simpler to spend $15 buying replacements was a better use of time and money. But Maggie survived the journey! Actually, until it bloomed I thought it was souvenir de la malmaison. Which means sdlm did not survive the journey!

I learned from the last house that I didn't want to put the vegetable garden at the back of the yard (especially now that our yard is so deep), because it's a pain to water and I'm so lazy I'd think "oh my god there is no way I can walk 50 feet to pick an eggplant." So this year it's right next to the back door! And much smaller, since my vegetable gardening skills are rather weak. Here is a before pic of the garden bed left by previous owners.

Actually, no, here is a super before pic, before we bought the house, featuring our real estate agent Casey:

And here are the afters!

I've got the following herbs:
lavendar
thyme
basil
lemongrass
oregano
rosemary (which I hate)
italian parsley


The following citrus trees:
mexican lime
mandarin orange
meyer lemon
kumquat

The following vegetables:
3 tomato plants (even though I generally have zero luck with tomatoes)
eggplant
jalapeno pepper

Wish me luck. Emmit and Ringo love to eat the lemongrass. That stuff has razor sharp blades, it's got to cut their tongues. I hope it gets a chance to get established before they go to town. Emmit's not so sure he can wait.

Vacation All I Ever Want Is Vacation!

Sorry I've been out of the blogisphere. I've been on vacation. Went to Spain for work and then to Germany for a quick vacation. We went to Berlin, Frankfurt and Hamburg. A highlight was the weekend market in St. Pauli in Hamburg. I scored an AWESOME pendant light for the kitchen.

It's going to hang over the kitchen sink, with an edison bulb! 10 euros!

And we scored some really cool hooks for 1 euro each. When we get the table and bathroom medical cabinet powder coated, we're going to through these in as well.

And the last market score was a 1 euro beer stein with an adorable deer and flowers painted on it!

Painting Update

The dormers are painted! Ready for the new roof. Too bad the roofers weren't. The new roof was supposed to be installed this past weekend. But alas, it wasn't.

Hey our grass looks great, doesn't it? Oh wait, it still looks awful.
While my husband painted and avoided falling off the roof (steep pitch), I painted the trim on the back bay windows. At very long last, that project is finished.

Before: awful windows that went down to the ground and let water into the house when it rained. Many panes were taped together and others had been replaced with plastic.

During:

After:

There is so much hardy board, caulk, tyvec that NOTHING is getting through those bay windows. Unless it's fresh air from an open (double hung) window.

I also finished the kitchen roman shade (which was tricky bc it's 72 inches wide) and a little roman shade for the back door.

Curtains for Little Girls' Rooms

Last night I installed some balloon shades and a London shade I made for a friend. The balloon shade project was actually a retooling of curtains I made for her about 7 years ago. She's since moved twice. The new windows are smaller and so the curtains have become much poofier and very cute. I was also very glad to see how well they have held up. As I told my friend, I was so impressed by the quality of my initial workmanship.

Here is the new London shade for her other daughter's room.