MEMORIES and Driveways

One year ago today our new house came onto the market! WOOOHOOO!
821 Janisch
We didn't win the bidding war the first time (ps have I ever mentioned the selling agent was terrible and broke about 23094823094832908423 real estate laws) but were successful when it went back on the market in July after the initial buyer and two other back up offers backed out. The agent never contacted our agent about our offer but WHATEVER we ended up with the house.


We have to get a new driveway, which we knew when we looked at the house. And it's a big expense and sort of an annoying one since a driveway isn't really that exciting. But I walked around Rice's campus today and there are a lot of gravel driveways that are really pretty. We've decided to do a mostly gravel driveway to improve drainage (if it ever rains again in Houston), allow for tree roots to expand, and to reduce the concrete eyesore effect.

I love this house and their yard and driveway

I super love this gate and the globe behind it.

And here's a whole bunch more!

 I like how the gravel meets the concrete in this one. We'll still have some concrete poured when we put in the new driveway.

Antique Rose Emporium San Antonio, Texas

We went to the Antique Rose Emporium in San Antonio this weekend. It is SO LOVELY. And provided great inspiration for our garden beds. I bought:
Souvenir de la Malmaison
The Fairy
I had both in my old house and loved them. Sdlm didn't make the trip to our new house and the Fairy ended up getting swallowed up and eventually killed by neighboring plants. I know better this time around and will give both plenty of their own space.
Here are a few photos from the weekend:

The roses for sale.

 A far away shot of a really cool plant bed.

 Another one. We really liked the mix of roses and native grasses and agave.

 I want to get some of those tall yuccas!

 I wish this was my backyard!

 The gorgeous vegetable garden.

Kitchen Cabinet Paint

Great news everyone, I'm now the proud owner of the most expensive paint in the world:
$$$$$$$
It was $50 for a gallon. I hope that when I open the lid that it just jumps onto the cabinets! After the the tacky adirondack chair debacle I decided to go to professionals and ask get professional advice. Can't wait to try my hand at oil paint.

Adorable Little Girl's Rooms

These are somewhat terrible photographs, but last night I installed the final set of balloon shades at my friend Lynn's house. Lynn has great style and the three little girl's rooms in her house are so cute.

 Ack how scary is that babydoll laying in bed? Sorry for the dark photo, it was quite bright outside!

Tacky Paint!

ACK, the big project this weekend was painting a pair of Adirondack chairs. But I fear the entire thing was a bit of a waste. It appears that the stupid satin finish paint isn't going to try, but stay tacky. Perhaps forever, if what I've read on the internet holds true. UGH.

 Primer Coat!

 1st coat of teal.

Finished chair! Maybe tonight when I go home they'll be dry. But yesterday morning I sat in one that had been drying all night and the button on my sleeve wanted to stick to the arm rest.

Wrought Iron Table

We have a wrought iron table that needs a facelift. The old chair seats totally rotted (they were just plywood covered with batting and fabric). So yesterday I used my Christmas cordless jigsaw to cut some new plywood. I'm sure I did everything just the way Bob Vila would do it. He uses a step as a base to hold the wood and then stands on it to brace the plywood and doesn't wear safety glasses, right? He also has to cut things like 3 times to get them to fit and has wavy lines, right?

Good thing is that once it's wrapped in batting and fabric, you can't see the wavy lines.

I did one test cushion yesterday, but the fabric was just regular indoor and so today I went to Glick to look for some nice sunbrella fabric. Here were the top 3 choices that I found (notice the black and white theme):

The real decision was between the first and last choices. I went with the first. I like how the floral is such a large print. I went with that one. Hurrah! Only $10 for one yard.

Here's the finished product!

Countertops

YIPPY! We finally completed the countertop purchase. I had to stalk Ikea's website to determine exactly when they would have the missing countertop size we need (extra wide because it creates an eating space). Got it today! HURRAH. In my mania I was also searching every single Ikea nationwide and became concerned when it appeared that no Ikea in North America had said Numerar counterop in stock and began to worry that we'd have to return the other pieces and figure out some other (not doubt much more expensive) solution. We can't keep the hideous blue laminate.

Gross!

So this weekend, we continued operation work outside. My husband scrubbed the brick (just the bottom portions that had grown a bit of algae or mildew or something). Then the big project: take down the chain link fence. Like so many projects, I started out thinking it would be super easy. Snip Snip Snip and down the fence comes. But no. In the four inches between our neighbors nice tall privacy fence and our crappy cyclone fence 249082049823 weeds and weed vines and weeds that turned into trees (not before TOTALLY becoming enmeshed in the chain link) had grown with no way of pruning them until they emerged taller than our 4 foot fence. Not to mention the fact that the bottom of the fence in places was concreted in place. It took over two hours to get it down.

YIPPY!

New Roof

I really didn't think getting a new roof would be as noisy as it was. It was like being held hostage for two days. Of course we could have left, but with the dogs and wanting to be on hand in case questions came up, we stayed. I went for like 4 hours worth of dog walks. Here are a few boring in progress photos.

 And the finished product!

 Now onto really pumping up the landscaping. Last night my neighbor gave me a few plants, namely a yesterday, today, and tomorrow and bridal bush. YIPPY! She also offered that her son could bring us a truck load of dirt from the cemetery he works at. I think we're going to pass on cemetery dirt. She was filling holes from rotted out tree stumps with her cemetery dirt.