Garden Check-In

As of June 24th!

Why One Should Check the Gutters

You could have a clogged up downspout (not me, a friend...) that was so full with dirt, leaves and moisture that it starts to grow it's own plant.  INSIDE THE GUTTER.

Night and Day

As I mentioned briefly in this post, one of my goals for this summer is to remove the mess of landscaping rocks that live next to our deck.  It's unsightly!  I really dislike it.  I wanted to turn it into a beautified space--so I did!

True to form, I didn't take a proper "before" photo--but here is the area after we started, and I think it gives an idea of how ugly it was, and also the enormous task at hand.

The landscaping fabric underneath the rocks was so old, weeds thrived between the rocks; many of the rocks somehow slipped underneath the fabric, so when we pulled it up, there was a whole other layer of rocks to deal with.  Also, after the all the changing seasons and rains and snows, the rocks were mostly dirty, making this space appear far from clean.

Ryan and I managed to clear the area of rocks in one afternoon--it was not easy, but we did it.  The top layer of rocks, the ones most becoming, we hauled in one-bucket shifts to our shed, and laid them as a small border around it.

It might be hard to tell from these pictures, but the shed looks really cute with these rocks around it.  It's a small border, so it will be easy to maintain.

Once just about all the rocks were removed, we found several stepping stones buried under the landscaping fabric.

I LOVE finding stuff like this--it's a boon to find things that we can use.  We put one of these stones in front of the shed as a front step, and stored the rest inside the shed after hosing them all down.  I'm sure we'll find a use for them at some point.  They are nice, heavy, concrete stones--they could not have been cheap.  

Rocks--be gone with you!

A couple of days later, I picked up some forsythia shrubs and catmint--all perennials--from Home Depot, trenched a new bed, and prepared to plant:

I did this on a Monday evening, and it was literally a race against the setting sun!  The sun had already dipped below the horizon when I finished, with barely any light to admire my work.  

A couple of days after that, we bought some sod, and hurrah!

I'm very proud of the transformation.  It looks soooo much better.

Garden Check-In

Our garden as of June 8th:

Our sunflowers and corn are thriving!  Especially our tomatoes and zucchini.  It's been raining a lot, and I kid you not, these plants get noticeably bigger every day.  I have only used Miracle Grow twice in the weeks since I planted.

We also got a fancy hose stand for the vegetable garden:

We try to water the garden primarily from the rain barrel, and with the frequent rain we've had, there's been no shortage--the other night it rained so much our rain barrel overflowed!

So, this happened yesterday.

We installed a rain barrel.  Hooray!

The Hidden Treasures (and/or problems) of Rehabbing

See the cabinet to the left of the stove?  It's GONE.  

We found things when we pulled the cabinet out.  We found a spatula!

What appears to be a flattened penny:

And a perfectly preserved prayer card.

So, here's the problem, or problemzzz.

When our current cabinets were installed, they didn't install the hardwood flooring all the way to the wall.  So the floor isn't level.  Thanks geniuses!  

I mean, it's cool seeing the original hardwoods underneath our current flooring, but why did they do this?  What were they thinking?  As a temporary solution, we cut pieces of the old cabinets to fit and make the floor a *little* more level.  

There's also the problem of the window that used to be in the kitchen:

It's a bit of a mess, and will need to be re-sealed.  Also, it appears the current walls in the kitchen are plaster (our house was built in 1911, so this is not surprising), and we're not sure what to do about that. Do we knock down the plaster and replace the drywall?  Do we dry wall over the plaster?  

Also you'll see an outlet to the right of the old window.  It's too far for the new oven to plug in.  So that will have to be addressed as well.  Thank goodness my brother is an electrician.

Finally, the gas line is too tall for our new oven.  The main line will need to be turned off, and the current pipe replaced with a shorter one (as well as a new shut off and flex line put on).  Thankfully my dad know how to do this.  

Yesterday I had some time to kill so I worked on removing the tile from the backsplash:

Some of it came up very easily, and others were one-tiny-tile-at-a-time, hand-cramping sticklers.  I made a small dent.

I also poked around the soffit.  I've been very curious to see if they drywalled over the woodwork of the door to the upstairs, or the other way around.

Disappointingly, they chose to cut the wood to fit the soffit.  Dammit.

This can be fixed, we can have a piece cut to fit the part that's missing, and stain and secure it to the wall, but still.  It's a bummer.

But it's not ALL bad news, guys!  We made progress, which is good.  We identified problems, which is good.  We are devising solutions, which is good.  Aaaand, we bought another cabinet--this time the big pantry cabinet from Ikea, which will go right next to the stove.  Yay!  We only have one cabinet left to buy, the small one that will fit over the microwave.  We have just about all of our major purchases complete...although I should probably look into how much drywall costs...and figure out how to install it.

Garden Check-In

We are going into week 4 of our vegetable garden, and true to form, I have been neglecting to document it's progress.  Everyday I can see the progress of our plants.  I need to get better at documenting it!

What we planted:

Cucumber
Marion Tomatoes
Grape Tomatoes
Yellow Pear Tomatoes
Red Pepper
Yellow Pepper
Green Pepper
Zucchini
Sweet Basil

And from the seed:

Sweet Corn
Mammoth Sunflowers
Lettuce

As I noted in this post, we broke down the raised garden bed and expanded the area for planting this year.  We have more than doubled our garden space as a result.  My dad, who maintains his own summer garden every year, suggested we plant corn, and I said, really?  Can we do that?  And he said, absolutely!  Why not?  So we did!

Look at how our little seedlings are growing!  So well!

Baby corn stalks!

Baby sunflowers!

Baby lettuce!

And here's the rest of the garden, as of May 26th:

The corn is growing along the back fence; the sunflowers to the right, the lettuce up front.  Soon we'll need to put up the chicken wire, to keep the critters (and our dog) away, but for now, this will do.

Memorial Day Weekend, Volume 2

There's been more progress on the kitchen front!

On Monday we went to Sears and bought this microwave.  It was marked down from $249 to $174, and then we had $72 in rewards points from our oven purchase, so we only paid $112.  We saved $137 from the original price, y'all.  Can I get a high five?!

We went to a BBQ, then I spent the evening watching Jean-Claude Can Damme and Sly Stallone films while doing this:

I assembled the frames for the kitchen cabinets.  They were very simple.  Hopefully the rest of the assembly will go so smoothly!  

Tonight we are supposed to get a quote from Sears for countertops.  I expect we'll shop around a little bit.  We are having the countertops professionally cut and installed because it's the one thing that we feel we don't trust ourselves to do on our own.  I mean, I'm sure we could do it.  But there's more potential for error and we'd rather pay someone to get it right the first time rather than spend time and money to do it ourselves when there is a chance we might mess it up and we'd have to start all over again.  That would really suck. 

Memorial Day Weekend, Volume 1

I had a three day weekend and it was very, very productive!

I *finally* finished beautifying the front yard:

And some beautifying in the back yard:

(These perennials were all transferred from other spots around the yard last year.  They came back pretty strong this year, but there are still a few fledglings in the middle.)

 Two projects I would like to tackle this summer are landscaping in front of our deck and removing the rocks and planting grass alongside the deck.  There's a mess of landscaping rocks on the side of the deck and it's u-g-l-y and I want it to go away.  Here's a hot tip: don't use landscaping rocks.  If you ever want to get rid of them, you will have your work cut out for you.

But, other than those projects, which I don't see as urgent and can even wait until next year if needed, I am done with summer planting.  Yay!

Let's Garden

We spruced up our front yard over the weekend.   From this (imagine all the daffodils and tulips dead and sad looking):

To this:

Then lots of planting in pots for the front porch and back deck:

I used different flowers and accent plants than last year, so we'll see how they all turn out.  By the end of last summer, the plants were so full and beautiful.

Kitchen progress!

Good news.  We bought some cabinets!  We went to Ikea on Monday and bought 3 base cabinets and a new sink.  Yippee!  We only have two more cabinets left to buy: a wall cabinet for over the (yet to be purchased) microwave; and the large pantry cabinet.

Also remaining on the list:

Countertops (Sears is coming on Thursday to give us an estimate)
Backsplash
Knock down the soffit above the current wall cabinets
Open shelving for plates and glasses
Pendant light above sink
Replace current (beige) outlets and switches with new white ones

The list is deceptively short, but Ikea cabinets require building and then there's all the work of removing the old cabinets, dealing with any problems that reveal themselves as a result, installing the new cabinets, electrical/plumbing work...everything takes longer than you think it will.

Further down the line, we will get a few more base cabinets for a small island in the kitchen.  But that's more of a long-term goal.

Also, we removed our old countertop stove last night.  This is how it looked with the lid popped up:

Go ahead, take a closer look:

SO GROSS!  I have been very anxious to dispose of this thing.  I cleaned this stove A LOT.  For NAUGHT.  It has been a pointless exercise.

The worst part?  When we pulled the dang thing out, there was this:

A filthy ring of thick disgusting grease that has been festering for God knows how long.  But the WORST worst part?  When I cleaned that stuff away, and I was using a scraper and all-purpose cleaner, it smelled like POOP.  I kid you not.  It stunk like fecal matter.  And while I tried to focus on the task and not let the smell overwhelm me, I knew we were doing the right thing by rehabbing this kitchen.  Because before we moved into this house, this kitchen was not cared for, was not cleaned EVER, and dirt and grease and filth has a way of embedding itself, to the point where some things, like counter top stoves and whole kitchens for that matter, are beyond saving.

It's better to begin again, wipe the slate clean, and rebuild.

Goodbye, old stove!  I don't miss you one bit.*

*Within a few hours, the stove was gone from our curb, picked up by a junker.  I'm surprised even they would want it!