The Liriope Massacre of 2011

Ding-dong the witch is dead! And by witch I mean liriope. And by dead I mean dug up. Out it went!

Sure it looks pretty, with its dainty purple flowers in the summer and deep blackish berries in the fall. It's even sold as "ornamental" grass at nurseries. But it apparently likes our yard a little too much and had taken over. It crowded out all our plants and spread well beyond its borders.

So we decided to take action! We started clearing it out every chance we could and then recruited my parents, who actually like gardening and know what to do, to spend a long weekend with us to revamp our front yard.

It came up  a little like sod, but heavy and deep-rooted.

In just a few hours, we created so much waste that the public works people who pick it up left us a note in our door yelling at us that we made the buckets too heavy!

So after that scolding, we decided to start piling it in our driveway and leave out more reasonable amounts every week. We also managed to pawn some off on our neighbors, who actually wanted to plant this evil, vile weed!

After three days of intense labor (plus a few days extra beforehand to start the clearing process), here's what we were left with. Prepare yourself--the change is pretty dramatic:

Here's the first before and after:

In addition to ridding ourselves of the liriope (I'm sure we'll have some poking up in the spring that we missed), we planted bulbs, mums, Magic Carpet Spirea, Red Weigela, May Night Salvia, edged the garden with hostas and an actual border. We pulled out an old azalea, replaced it with a camellia from another part of our yard, and pruned back and trimmed leaves where necessary. We shrank the garden edge a little (back to where it probably was pre-liriope) and planted grass seed.

On the other side of the house:

Again massive quantities of liriope removed. Then we completely reshaped the border, pulled out a lot of pathetic-looking azaleas, a shrub, and a camellia, and pruned up the rest. We added hostas and May Night Salvia along the edge. We left a space near our stoop for some spring planting, when our Spirea Vanhoutti arrives.

Moving on to the front beds now. We dug up yet more liriope, pruned our little "tree-shaped" shrub, cleaned out the random ivy and grass to the right of the tree and divided and spread out the hostas.

We put in mums, some bulbs, and Verbena, which should spread out and give us good ground cover (right now they look pretty pathetic):

On the other side of our walkway, we didn't have to remove grass but we did need to give it some nutrients (in the form of compost and a little rototilling) and a trim. We put some more Verbena, mums, and bulbs there as well.

More than three days and massive amounts of work, but the grass is gone and, with luck, some pretty (and non-invasive) plants should take its place. And we got a good workout in the bargain--all those calories burned just in time for the Halloween candy!

Top-Dressing and Over-seeding

Wow, doesn't that title make it sound like I actually know what I'm talking about?

If it's been a little quiet at Brave New Home lately, it's because it's been exactly the opposite in our lives. With the weather cool and fall landscaping season upon us, D and I have been spending every weekend outside working on some project or other.

Our first project was to try to make grass grow on our front lawn. I realized that I forgot to take a "before" picture but just imagine sparse skinny green grass with a lot of dead beige grass, moss, and bare patches. Not a pretty picture.

After reading that mid to late September is the best time to "top-dress" (i.e. treat) and "over-seed" (i.e. plant grass seed on top of an existing, if pathetic, lawn), we went to work. We thatched out the crud, just like we did back in March and aerated the lawn thanks to some hilarious spiky shoes and a super slow walk around the yard.

We knew thanks to our soil tests that no particular compound was really lacking (we need some nitrogen but it's bad to fertilize just before or during new seeding and the lack wasn't so bad as to need major treatment that would delay seeding). With the ground prepped, we took advantage of our local public works center, despite its limited operating hours, and went one day fill up our car with discounted compost. If we were 10 years old, this would probably have been the most awesome thing ever--a giant pile of dirt:

We filled the car with as many rubbermaid boxes as it would hold (thank goodness for hatchbacks!) and went on our way. It seemed like it would definitely be enough to spread but of course when we dumped it out, we realized we'd have to lay it more thinly than we would have liked. I think it will still have a positive effect on the soil, though.

After that, it was just a matter of putting down the seed and raking gently on top to cover it. Then lots of water (the weather obliged, fortunately, and we had to resort to the hose only occasionally). Here's the view of our strange-looking, dark, composted lawn:

Did it work? I think so. There's definitely some improvement, even if it's still not as dense as we'd like. Also the clover seems really happy and spread everywhere. It's not grass, but it's not that bad either. At least it has a root system that will absorb water and stop soil run-off. Weeds are better than nothing!

We've continued to over-seed when we see sparse patches and keep it mown and free of leaves to encourage growth. Hopefully this spring we'll see a nice, lush lawn...

Hey, a girl can dream!

Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Oh My!

So we have two simultaneous big projects going on here chez Brave New Home. The first, of course, is the research stage of a giant (and gi-normously expensive) bathroom remodel. The second, is to make our front yard look less of an eyesore to our neighbors and get some curb appeal going. It's a huge task, involving reseeding the lawn (and actually getting the seeds to grow) and ripping out and replanting all our gardens. This then, is step one: testing the soil.

Rather than send our soil out for professional testing, we decided to try an at-home kit, for the impatient and cheap (it's not actually that expensive to send out soil, but there is some shipping and fees involved; a test kit only costs about $10 and is even better if it's free because your parents give you theirs).

So first we dug up a few samples from both sides of our front yard and mixed them in a bag. We only dug to about 3 inches because that's the depth that the grass roots go to. If we were testing the areas where we have shrubs and trees, we would have dug deeper. Then we laid them out on a towel, crunched up the bigger pieces, and left them to dry for the night.

The next day, we were ready to test. First up, ph levels. Mix one capful of soil into the test tube filled with water and a ph testing tablet (for anyone who grew up with pet fish, this is remarkably similar to testing their water ph).

Vigorously shake, then compare the resulting color. We assessed our soil at about 7.5 (both sides came out the same). We realized afterwards that we should have used distilled, filtered water, so to be safe, we checked our tap water ph level, which was about 6.5-7, so it wasn't anything too crazy that would impact our results.

Next we followed the instructions for testing nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, which all involved essentially the same concept (there was one more additive, but you get the idea). Here they all are (both sides tested about the same):

It's probably a little hard to see, but the results are that we are medium for phosphorus and potassium, but very low for nitrogen. Nothing too groundbreaking (pun intended...). But now we know when we pick out our fertilizer that we need one with more nitrogen than anything else, maybe a 15-5-5 blend (even more awesome: now we actually know what those numbers mean--the relative rations of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium in the fertilizer).

But for now these results are just "interesting" and don't really impact us much. You can't fertilize before you plant, because it's too harsh for new baby grass. So stay tuned for our next post for what happened next: thatching, composting, and seeding.

Here we go...

We're about to embark on a new adventure: a complete bathroom remodel. It's a scary prospect and we're doing a lot of research and getting a lot of quotes to find exactly what we want. It will definitely be the most money we've put into the house in one go. If we go through with it, that is. As a reminder, here's what our upstairs bathroom looks like now:

Beige and pink with a cheap vanity, teeny tiny tub, a more-or-less dysfunctional toilet and all manner of ick. In our New Year's post, we talked about trying to decide whether to do a full scale remodel professionally or attempt a do-it-yourself version. Well we saved a little money and started figuring out what we want and decided that total gut and remodel was the way to go. We're hoping to not have to move any electrical or plumbing, though while the floors are exposed, we may decide to replace whatever piping is down there with PVC, depending on the condition.

So what are we looking for? Here's our wish list:

• rip back to the studs, subfloor, etc, insulate outer wall and window area and install backer board
• install neutral, non-porous, large tiles to ceiling in shower area
• new water-efficient toilet (white--none of this cruddy pink stuff anymore)
• new, larger tub
• deep sink on a vanity (need the extra storage space)
• built in shelves in tub area
• grip bar in tub (who knows? might come in handy)
• recessed medicine cabinet
• new ceiling fan and light
• new lights over sink
• hand-held adjustable shower

I want a door rather than a curtain but if this eventually becomes a children's bathroom, a door might be too hard to maneuver around (though we also have a full soaking bath in the main floor bathroom)...What do you think? Also we decided against a "comfort height" toilet for the same reason--not very child-friendly.

A picture in a recent issue of Lowe's Creative Ideas magazine had a picture that sort of exemplified a lot of what we want:

I think I'll probably stick with gray on the walls too, but otherwise, this is a fairly good idea of our ideal style.

We've already had two estimates so far and plan to get a lot more. We've gotten some contradictory information (one guy thought they might be able to save us some space by installing a pocket door but the other guy doesn't think it's possible given the location of our studs; one guy suggested we automatically replace our original pipes with PVC but the other didn't think we should bother unless the pipes look corroded) but are getting a fairly good idea of what's possible and--more importantly--what it will cost. Usually I don't like to discuss price but this blog is a good place for a sanity check, so I'm just going to throw it out there: it looks like we can expect to pay approximately $10,000.

So, dear readers, here's where I ask for your help! I know some of you out there read and never leave comments but we want advice and opinions, so please send us a message. Have you done a remodel and what do you wish you had known? What features would you add to your bathroom if you could? What features should we add/remove to make it more child-friendly? What kind of design elements and colors would you recommend? We need ideas!!!

Stay tuned while we get a few more estimates and report back with our findings.

Honeymoon's Over

Our second anniversary is upon us. Two years ago today, we committed to this house. It hasn't been all fun and games, but I think the marriage is going strong.

According to "The Newlywed Game" rules, we are no longer honeymooners in this adventure of homeownership. The shine has worn off just a little, the excitement has died down and we've settled into a pattern.

Unlike last year, we're not going to bother doing a year in review because, well honestly, this year wasn't as exciting as last year. But that's not a bad thing. We continue to make progress, but now the projects are either smaller and less noticeable or really major/really expensive. So we're spacing them out and seeing fewer drastic changes.

But never fear--we have some exciting new posts coming soon. Two people have come by already to give us estimates on totally remodeling our upstairs bathroom and we've got plans to overhaul our front yard landscaping (the honeymoon really must be over--we're looking into the house equivalent of face lifts and boob jobs...).

Fiber Snob 3

Here we are at the third post in our trilogy (here and here) on fancy schmancy textiles.

WARNING: This post is not for the squeamish (which I am, so why am I even posting this...). No seriously. Stop reading if bugs gross you out.









No really, last chance.













OK, don't say I didn't warn you...

Moths are not particularly scary, as insects go. But to a knitter--or really anyone who values animal-based fabrics like wool and silk--they are pure evil. Because moths love to eat these fabrics for the protein.

So you can imagine my concern when we started seeing little beige moths that may or may not be these flying around our living room:

All my precious winter knits were already in vacuum bags on the very wise suggestion of my friend and fellow knitter, as was my "stash" (a common knitting term for all the as-yet-unknit yarn). Our food was also stored securely as Fort Knox, because a moth infestation in our previous apartment has made us lock up everything in jars and tupperware. It was summer and the house was generally full of bugs (more on that in a future post), so despite a nagging worry, I didn't think much of it.

And then one day a few weeks ago, while searching for a travel umbrella, I opened up a cubby in our Expedit and found the source...

It was just a tiny thing. One little moth fluttered up at me when I pulled the seagrass basket out:

That's when I remembered all the hats, mittens, and scarves that we store right there, near the front door. I had completely forgotten about them all spring and summer!

Needless to say, I shouted for D and he took care of the rest (including taking all of the following pictures). The inside of the basket was basically a nest of moth larvae:

We threw that right into the trash.

Our knit goods fared pretty badly as well. Here's a (store-bought, thank goodness) scarf covered in larvae. They made their home on the side made of fleece:

And ate their dinner from the side made of wool:

They particularly enjoyed feasting on my (again, store-bought) cashmere scarf:

The only really tragic victim was one hand-knit scarf. My favorite (of course...). It was too badly injured but there were a few holes and, frankly, who wants to wear a scarf that was covered in moth larvae?! Even after a thorough cleaning. So this beauty went into the trash as well.

I should be grateful. The moths hadn't found the other cubby full of mittens and hats (which are now freshly washed and wrapped up in ziploc). There were a few other casualties--cheap acrylic scarves that didn't hold up well in the scalding hot wash cycle I put them through. The moths didn't eat them but they sure set up residence on them, so the only way I would ever consider wearing them was if they survived several loads on high heat. Some didn't make it.

There was really no way to avoid it, except obviously to be better about wrapping up our woolens. But seriously, how do these things get in?! Nasty!

So have you had any unwelcome and unpleasant critters hiding in your home and eating your food or knitwear? How have you dealt with infestations and what do you do to prevent them?

Fiber Snob 2

A continuation from this post about fibers (I did warn you that it was a trilogy).  Today I'm not going to talk much about home decor or maintenance, but a cool housekeeping gadget I found. It's all house-related somehow or other...

Because I love natural fibers that don't take kindly to the high temperatures and tumbling of a dryer, I've been forced to find other solutions. Dry cleaners are expensive, time-consuming, and just plain gross (not to mention bad for the environment). Plus natural fibers like wool and silk have been around a lot longer than dry cleaners. So regardless of what the tag says (and this goes for clothes as well as pillow covers, blankets, duvets, etc.), I just use a gentle detergent and a tub or sink of water. Works wonders...

We have an elaborate network of drip drying racks, flat net platforms, and other contraptions in the basement to air dry these things, but it's pretty awkward. Enter my new best friend:

The most awesome part about this is that it seems to average about $50 online at places like Amazon, but I got it, of all crazy places, on sale at CVS for $5. Yes, FIVE. Not fifty...OK, it doesn't come with the clothes hanger. But still.

So basically the contraption has four net shelves (which alone would typically cost about $5-10 a piece) and a fan that blows air across them to dry everything more quickly. Sorry I'm only showing two, but imagine two more stacked on top:

It is also a new favorite kitty hiding place.

Just pretend it has clothes or pillow shams on it. (It was actually drying some bras, i.e. just not something I wanted in the picture, which is why it's bare.) And it collapses into practically nothing.

I figured even the net racks alone were worth the $5 but I have to say, the fan is really helpful and will come in especially handy this winter for big bulky sweaters, which always take days to dry.

Worth $5? You betcha! Worth $50? Well, actually, I think, surprisingly, yes. And of course, I'm not being paid by Hamilton Beach for the endorsement (though I wouldn't mind a little compensation, hint hint :) ).

On a totally unrelated note, please do leave a comment on our sump pump post if you have any advice whatsoever. It seems like the only solution out there is to add a complete battery back up pump system, which means having a whole new sump drilled. No thank you. I hope we're missing a different, cheaper solution!

Pump That Sump!

We interrupt my planned trilogy on textiles to bring you this update in the wake of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene. Besides about 9 hours of power outage and a lot of yard debris, we were incredibly lucky and sustained no damage. We were, however, reminded of how awesome our mostly unappreciated sump pump is.

We lost electricity at about 1am after quite a few hours of sustained rain. The sump pump had been working all Saturday evening, reliably pumping every 15 minutes or so. When we finally got up at 9 the next morning, we took a deep breath and went downstairs to face what we feared would be a totally flooded basement. By some miracle, we were dry! But we figured we should start manually pumping out the sump just in case, because of course we had no idea how long we'd be without power.

So we drained...

 And we drained some more....

(Note the snazzy head lamp. It was dark in the basement!)

The weird thing was how, because of the magical way a sump system works with pressure and water tables and whatnot (you can tell I really did my research here...), we kept draining water but the water level in the sump stayed totally the same! It seemed like something out of a crazy fairy tale! In the end, we drained 100 gallons of water in a little under an hour by hand! It looked like by the end of it that maybe, just maybe, the water level had gone down about a centimeter. Fortunately when we went upstairs to take a break, the lights came back on and the pump could get to work without our manual labor.

And yes, we know we need to install a battery back-up system. But they are really intimidating! We looked into one more than a year ago, expecting to find some kind of mini generator we could plug into our existing sump pump. What exists instead, it seems, is a complete system that would require a total overhaul, like this:

Picture courtesy of Lowes

Totally scary!! So if you have any advice (along the lines of "no really, it's very easy to install") or suggestions for brands or installation techniques, please share them! We don't want to risk a flood next time there's rain and a black-out at the same time (because guess what? those things usually happen at the same time...).

Fiber Snob

I love to knit. And not just with anything. Only the best yarns appeal to me: fine and exotic wool, silk, alpaca, mohair, linen, cotton. Basically, something that actually exists in nature and not just in a chem lab. (More on this theme in a couple of other posts over the next few weeks.)

Why does this matter on a home decorating blog? Because my love for fancy fibers bleeds over into my decorating. We've been on a quest to find some pillows for our sofa. We found one pair many months ago from Pottery Barn that perfectly complimented the blues and reds of our decor. And better yet, in a linen/cotton blend! They live on our leather sofa and are oh so comfy for a mid-afternoon nap, being perfectly stuffed with just the right amount of feathers. That's right, no polyfill for me! (At least not when I can help it.)

The gray sofa did not get such special treatment, and kept two pillows on it from our old apartment made of blues, browns, and greens. It didn't clash, but it just didn't look right. Here's an old picture, just to show you the pillows I'm talking about. See? Kinda blah. (The red/blue one is on the left.)

But all that changed last week when I was bargain hunting on Pier 1's website. A teal mongolian wool pillow (still on sale! snap one up now while the link still works!) Made of real wool! (You laugh, but Bed, Bath, and Beyond and Target were both selling Mongolian "wool" pillows made of 100% polyester.) Be still my heart! Suddenly in the mood to keep hunting, I also found a beautiful red silk pillow, also on sale. So I submitted my order (they do a nifty in-store pick-up kinda thing) and then, in store, found some beautiful citronella lamps in the exact same shades (they'll live indoors when not in use, but obviously will only be lit out on our porch).

Aren't they pretty!? In addition to being a soft, comfy place to rest my head, the teal pillow makes a wonderful cat substitute if I need something to pet when no one's around. And the colors go perfectly into our decor.

Last year we also invested in a beautiful Jacob sheepskin--yes, it looks like a cow hide, but it's really sheep--which we thought would look nice in back of the sofa and would be a nice place for the cats to lay. Well the cats couldn't care less but we think it's a nice textural accent. So here's the sofa now (complete with kitty--must have felt jealous of the pillow).

Reclaiming Our Land

Let's review where we're at with our backyard ivy project. I'm just a little late getting around to posting everything because once the mosquitoes came out in full force, we haven't touched the yard at all. So we stopped work by early June and the latest picture below is from late June, once we got the grass to come up. But it's still impressive, even if a tad delayed.

First, a refresher on last fall:

By October, we had ripped out about 50 square feet of ivy and managed to get grass to grow in its place:

The leafy trees in the foreground are lilac bushes that were really languishing from lack of sunlight and invasive ivy. Since they weren't happy there and I wasn't happy having them there (they were right in the middle of the area I wanted to clear and open up), it was time for them to go.

Here's a better picture so you can see them (you can see that these pictures are all from very different seasons by the flowering tree on the right, which is totally bare in the pictures above--it's in the top left--and full and leafy down below):

My parents and D got the lilacs moved to the front while I cleared a giant swathe of ivy from where they used to be. Then it was time to plant grass seed. Meanwhile I kept working at the ivy--you can see below that we got some new grass but there are still some bare patches where I continued to push the ivy back.

Here's the final picture for the year: no lilac bushes, no bare patches, lots and lots of grass where the ivy used to be. Of course the rest of the yard is a mess and we still have a lot of work, but I'm proud of our reclaimed land--probably about 200 square feet that we didn't used to have!

There is still a little ivy under the tree but that will be easy to remove come fall. And all without weed killer!

Quikrete Quick Fixes

We noticed that we had a lot of ants crawling around the edge of our house and when we traced their path, we saw that they were passing through tiny cracks in our concrete near the garage. Quikrete to the rescue! Do you know about this stuff? (Editing to add: this is Quikrete Hydraulic Cement, specifically. Not some other kind of variety of goop made by Quikrete, of which there are several.)

Quikrete is cool. My parents showed us a while back how awesome it is at fixing mortar and paving work but we never had a chance to get back out and try it for ourselves until recently. All the work we did with this (well, mostly D; as usually I just took pictures) only took about 20 to 30 minutes and was dry to the point of invisible by the next morning (probably sooner, but I didn't go back out and look). All it takes is a disposable cup, a stirrer of some sort (we use twigs, kabob sticks, popsicle sticks, etc), and some water.

The work we did to fix the ant problem actually didn't come out well in photos, so I'll show you another problem we solved thanks to Quikrete. While we had it out to deal with the ant holes, we decided it was about time to fix the mortar around our stone walkway, which had a lot of missing pieces that accumulated water and grime. Here's a couple of examples:

So we got down to work. The hardest part about Quikrete is figuring out how much water to add to get to the right consistency (it probably says so right on the bucket but where would be the fun in that?). So we took a little mix and a little water and mushed it together. We added a little more of each as necessary until we got a nice putty. Then it's time to act fast, because Quikrete, like the name implies, dries really quickly.

The key, as my parents taught us, was to work in small batches. So we didn't mix all of it at once, just enough for each crevice.

Here you can see the wet Quikrete right next to some of the broken up pieces that we managed to pry out:

Here's some more:

The color was a little dark because the Quikrete was still drying, but as I mentioned above, by the next day I couldn't even tell the difference between the new stuff and the old stuff. We had a lot of success using Quikrete on the mortar between the bricks around our basement windows, too, though I don't have photos.

OK, I'm done extolling its virtues. I promise I wasn't paid or anything. But yeah, this stuff is pretty great!