That Spring Post

We've been doing this long enough that every loyal reader probably knows what's coming - that post where I go on and on about what we've been doing outdoors to improve our yard and garden. It's that time of year. As spring arrives, so do our big plans and dreams to give our house great curb appeal or create a backyard that's inviting and fun (and then the sun gets hot and the bugs come out and I retreat inside and never get to enjoy it). We've been doing so many of these that I won't even link back to them all. Peruse March, April, and May for every year we've been doing this, and you'll find them.

And so, it begins. First, as a reminder of how much we've done in just a couple of week, this was the first day of spring:

 The blooming trees were quite surprised:

But two weeks later when the weather finally warmed up to about 45 during the day, we got to work. We went to Home Depot to stock up on mulch and, as always happens, came home with a few extra items. Some lavender and rosemary, a tomato plant (we've been starting basil from seeds in our window but weren't planning to do vegetables until we remembered that basil and tomatoes love to grow together)

We also bought some full sun colorful flowers to add to the front garden that we were planning to redo. We got Lithadora and Salvia, which were both very on sale and therefore very tempting:

However, that meant the clock was ticking to rearrange the garden and get these guys in the ground. Our front largest garden bed had been designed so that we surrounded our big oak with flowering ground cover. So it never looked good after we had to remove the giant oak tree. For the first year (when we were told we should not plant anything permanent there to allow the pest that killed our tree to subside), we planted a depressingly small amount of annuals that didn't last the summer. Then last fall when we tried to plant our crepe myrtle there, we found out that the hollowed-out stump area was still too woody to give us the room to plant a tree, forming a solid floor of trunk about a foot below the surface.

Then D had a genius idea last week, after I complained about it for the umpteenth time and debated whether we should pay someone to dig/carve it out. He moved it a couple of feet closer to our lamppost and moved a hydrangea that was crowded in a different garden bed into the shallower hole where the old tree had been. This let us move the crepe myrtle away from being directly under power lines AND allowed us to shrink the garden bed more in line with the more modest plants we have there now that the oak tree is gone.

We planted the Salvia and Lithadora all around the hydrangea and crepe myrtle. It was a family affair.

 Then D uprooted the plastic garden divider and moved it to make the garden smaller.

You can see better in this picture the old bed area and the new one. Obviously we need to turn the soil on the area that used to be garden, uproot any Georgia Blue ground cover worth saving, and then level the ground off and start trying to grow grass.

We just had 4 cubic yards of compost delivered. We better get to work.

Leave a Light On: Outside Edition

If you've been following along for a while, you may remember that we have a security light on the back of our house. It has never worked and we never shelled out the cash to fix it.

And then, suddenly, a tree fell on it. So we asked for a new one - it was broken after all, even more so than before. Fortunately as the 2013 electrician predicted, the light itself must have been the problem because the replacement worked! Let there be light!

The light turns on automatically when it gets dark out and stays on all night, getting brighter when something sets off the motion detector. It doesn't seem to have an "off" switch, as far as we can tell. Which can be fun when you look out the window and realize an opossum is crossing through your yard:

However, the light coming from two halogen bulbs had to add up (we don't have a smart meter anymore to tell us exactly how much it was costing). After a few months with the two 75W halogens, we finally got around to putting in LED lights. The problem was that our LEDs were actually brighter than the the halogen they were replacing.

A quick adjustment and we were all set:

The halogen lights had stayed on low all the time and then brightened when the motion sensor went off. The motion sensor doesn't seem to work with the LED bulbs, but the constant low lighting in the backyard gives us a better sense of security than the pitch black nothingness, so we'll take it. It's also nice to have a little light back there in the late evening just to hang out outside, though we might have to make some adjustments when the lightning bugs start to come out.

By the way, the title of this post refers to a post a few years ago when we bought an LED bulb, a cheap lamp, and a timer and set it up so that there was a light on in the house to greet me when I came in after work for the few months of the year that it was dark.

Family of Four

There are indeed four humans living in our house now but this post isn't about us (this is a house blog, after all). It is about how we managed to acquire yet another vacuum, bringing our total number up to four. Of course, the fact that we also have four humans (including two particularly messy young ones) probably has some connection to our growing family of vacuum cleaners. Though we have struggled to find ways to keep the floors clean ever since we moved here.

Our vacuum family consists of a Roomba that makes its rounds twice a week, a Miele canister vacuum that we rarely take out now that we have a cleaner come weekly, an old Dyson animal that lives in the basement from back when we lived in an apartment with wall-to-wall carpets, and a hand-me-down Black and Decker dust buster that had outlived its usefulness despite being our most used vacuum.

Thanks to a toddler who likes to walk around with bowls full of cereal, crackers, goldfish, and other small things that go crunch underfoot, the dust buster has become our go-to floor cleaner. Step on an oatmeal sure? Go grab the dust buster. Ride-on toy scooter roll over some cheerios? Time to dust bust. But that thing did not have the suction power, nor was it doing our backs any favors bending down to the floor cleaning up the crumbs.

And so, a couple of weeks ago, we acquired a refurbished Dyson V7 Motorhead vacuum, also known as a stick vacuum.  It lives in the hallway right near where we had parked the (now departed) dust buster. It's not that noticeable from the living room (second picture below) and is very centrally located to all our usual messes. I am also partial to what Dyson calls purple and I call magenta color.

It comes with a few attachments and the stick feature means no more bending down to vacuum. The fact that it has an actual motorized brush bar means it can pick things up from carpeting pretty easily, and it has two power settings depending on how much needs picking up (plus a "trigger" button that somehow is much more intuitive than having to switch something on).

It is so thin that I had high hopes it would fit under things like this sofa, a home to dust and crumbs (and toys and plates??) that get kicked or brushed under  while the kids are playing. Alas, it does not.

Nonetheless, in the two weeks we've had it, we are finding that we love having it around. Here is the haul just from this morning - crumbs, cat hair, dust, and play-doh.

It's not what we would use for when we have to vacuum the whole floor (that's what the Miele is for, or the Roomba if we can wait an hour for it to do its thing). But it's great for the almost constant little messes caused from a house full of people.

Spring Beckons

Punxsutawney Phil may have predicted 6 more weeks of winter but with temperatures bouncing from freezing to 70, we wanted to get our hawthorn tree transplanted before growing season really began. We felt like we had to race the clock.

As you may remember from this post, we had a new maple planted very close to our hawthorn, planning to "get around" to moving the hawthorn later future back towards the house. Well this weekend the climbing temperatures and the very damp weather (meaning that the ground would be soft) made us think we could put it off no longer. First we dug a hole where we wanted to move the tree, to minimize the time the tree was out of the ground. We had, as you may notice, some assistance from smaller members of the family. Even the baby wanted to help until we feared she would tumble into the hole and hurt herself.

Second, dig up the hawthorn. This was no small feat and we were lucky that our two very knowledgeable gardening neighbors were around to provide moral support. We had started digging up a circle that was much too wide until we learned we could get by with a smaller hole and still catch most of the roots. (Side note: that maple tree looks drunk. The gardeners who installed it gave us some excuse about it self-correcting towards the sun or something...more on this in a moment.)

 Our neighbor also suggested using a tarp to drag the tree to its future home. Brilliant!

And here it is, ready for its new home:

Ta-dah! Closer to the house (and further from the maple), in a way that frames our house between the cherry tree we inherited and this one (both will grow to be relatively small trees). Note the creative use of snow from earlier in the week as an aid to keep the tree well-watered.

Our neighbor also suggested giving it a trim by taking all the larger branches down by about a third, to give the tree less work this spring above the ground and more time to regrow roots below. So it got a bit of a haircut.

And finally, the last piece of advice from our neighbor - don't believe the gardeners who planted the maple. It needs some help to start growing straight instead of at an angle. We found the perfect, very random stretchy band in the garage (Seriously, we have no idea where it came from. Maybe we also could use a perfect few million dollars lying around? Hint hint, magic garage...). Maybe in a couple months, we will have trained it which way is up.

 (Baby for scale.)

An Office Once More

When last we left off on the office, it didn't look much like an office, there being no more desk. So my preschooler could be forgiven for calling it "her office" when giving newcomers tours of our house. This is the picture we posted here last February.

Since then, we cleared out and got rid of the tall cabinet that you see on the right, and the vintage desk chair (that one was a little painful to part with). We bought a storage bench from Ikea, another Stuva, like the system up in the kids' room - it has the Folja drawer since that was all that was in stock at the time (and anyway, the colorful handles are cute). Apparently I never got a picture like that before we moved on to step 3.

Step 3 entailed the big ticket item that lets us reclaim this room as a proper office - a new desk. D, who actually does work from home sometimes and has been just sitting on the sofa with his laptop, thought it was finally time to get a proper place to do work. After some research on the Wirecutter, our constant source for shopping recommendations, we bought the Jarvis sit/stand bamboo desk from Fully.

That prompted us to do a little more rearranging of the cabinets and....voila!

A real office again! Just ignore all the toys...

Playground

Almost a month into the new year and I'm still telling tales of 2017 - in late November, we took the plunge and bought the kids a real swing set. After spending weeks reading reviews, we picked the McKinley model from Cedar Summit, taking advantage of some shipping discounts from Home Depot. It got good reviews for being sturdy but perhaps more importantly, it got good reviews for coming in large pieces and being relatively easy to build.

Many of the wall panels were already on the frame, though nonetheless there were so very many small pieces. Fortunately, it was easy - but more fortunately, we recruited friends to help!

In one weekend, they had it almost completely assembled. The roof had arrived with some wood slats broken, so we had to wait until Cedar Summit sent us a new one.

Fast forward one week (well, fast forward two months until I took this picture) and we have a well-loved play set, with a swing for each kid, a play kitchen and mailbox, and a speedy slide. We also still have the tiny Little Tikes set on the side for bonus play.

Here's the view from closer to the house for context - it will be a long time before we let the kids play outside alone, but one day, we can let them frolic in the yard and see them from the kitchen window. But for right now, the little one is still trying to throw herself headfirst down the slide, so that may be a while.

New Year, New Goals

It's 2018 and it's time for my annual look backwards and forwards at what we accomplished last year and what we plan to do this year for the house. And so without further ado, here's 2017 in a nutshell:

Last year, we had a pretty modest list of plans, with a small baby still needing constant attention and with a major renovation recently under our belts (breezeway to sunroom conversion).

So mostly, we needed to organize our lives. How did we do? Well I had three spots I wanted to clean up - the office, kitchen, and linen closet. The office closet got addressed last January and, more importantly, has largely held up to the chaos caused by two children. Here it is today, with only minimal staging:

The rest of the room remains in progress but we are just waiting to purchase the last piece of furniture and buy some more toy bins. We've also tried to thin out what we have and started what I hope will be a lasting tradition of asking the kids to pick out some toys that they no longer play with to donate on Christmas Eve. The problem of course is that incoming toys still surpass outgoing ones, but it's a start. I'm marking this one as "accomplished" (or as much as it can be with two small ones in the house).

The kitchen also stayed organized as we continue to use the system suggested by our professional organizer. We moved on to tackle the pantry last month and will continue that one over the next week or two (update to come). So check the box on that one too.

The linen closet - well, we decided we just don't care. We have a plan but the truth is that even though it's a disaster in there, it's a contained disaster made up exclusively of sheets, towels, and pillows. The ones we swap out regularly are to the front and for now we are willing to ignore the rest. It will be a pretty space once we fix it up, but it is low on the priority list and doesn't even make this year's to-do wish list.

Next up - automation: this was more about learning how to live with the Roomba and force it to do our will. I'd say we managed pretty well, learning where to place the electric fences and even managing to have it clean around the Christmas tree skirt full of toys without disaster. Most days it runs, it completes a full circuit and collects a bin full of cat fur, cheerios, various other crumbs, etc. I barely ever vacuum these days so YES, another box checked.

Finally the doorbell - that's a resounding nope. We tried a couple more times to fix it ourselves whenever a friend said they had an idea of a solution, but since this one requires a call to an electrician, I suspect it will wait until a more pressing electrical problem that can't be ignored and then be lumped into the same professional visit.

And no, we still haven't replaced our basement door (a goal for 5 years now)...

Unplanned major updates last year were the tree-related repairs, the new washer/dryer combo, and all the new trees.

Onwards:

I think we've finally mentally and financially recovered enough from the tree damage and the previous year's remodel to put some big projects on the list.

1. First up, my goal to replace the counter and add a backsplash to the kitchen:

There's a pretty big crack in the piece on the right and it's always felt like a cheap choice given the lovely cabinetry, so it seems like a good time to replace it. Plus I've craved a fancy backsplash for a while now and switching both at the same time makes sense. We'll also probably repaint so that the whole kitchen/dining room space gets a makeover. There will be much more on this later as I brainstorm exactly what to get (I have absolutely no idea what colors I want).

2. Organize the basement closet. This one is more of a mishmash than the linen closet and so I can never quite find what I'm looking for.  I'm trying to figure out exactly what needs to go here and what doesn't and use the space better:

3. Move/take down/rearrange trees and shrubs as laid out here.

4. Reach goal: have a deck installed over basically the same footprint as our brick patio. While the kitchen counters are my idea, this belongs to D. He thinks we will get much more use out of a patio level with the house rather than the steps down to a dirty and weedy brick patio. I was unconvinced it was worth it, since I hate the outdoors once the bugs com out - until a neighbor told me that raising up our hang-out space a  foot or two off the ground would significantly reduce the impact from mosquitoes. So maybe we'll at least get some estimates and plans.

5. And lastly - that darn basement door again.

What about you, loyal reader? Any plans for your home this year?

Happy Holidays!

A little late for many of the December holidays but still in time for New Year! We added to our outdoor decorations this year at the request of the pre-schooler, and Mother Nature contributed to making this a cozy wintery scene. Intentional or not, we ended up with a very candy cane-themed yard, thanks to some hand-me-downs (the hanging candy canes and the large ones nearest the house) and some new purchases (the walk way lights - these were by far the cutest inexpensive choice). Our icicles don't twinkle but they do have a white or a color lights setting. The whites, being cool LEDs, just do not seem festive enough (yes, I know they are "ice" but they still need a warm holiday glow). Plus they were so bright that they shone too brightly in our windows after we put the kids to sleep. So we went with rainbow lights - the first choice of said-pre-schooler anyway.

Because only the front two large candy canes actually still worked, we thought that looked weird also so we unplugged them and added them to the candy cane chain lining our flower beds against the house.

We probably should turn the lamppost bulb so that it doesn't stay lit, as I think it was so bright it distracted from the holiday decor. All the new lights definitely lowered the effect of the red and green laser lights - it's so bright around our house that they are barely visible (can you see them in the picture below shining on the house front?).

And an indoor picture - this year we didn't have a chance to get a shot until Christmas Eve, so here is the decor after Santa already paid us a visit. Good thing we remembered to unlock the child-safe fireplace lock so he could get in and leave us presents:

Humidity or Fire Hazard?

In 2010, we bought a Frigidaire dehumidifier for the basement. We started using it in earnest for the last two summers, after realizing that running it constantly set to about 55-60 percent humidity really kept our basement from becoming damp. Add to that a cat that decided to make the entire basement carpet his litter box plus the necessary subsequent cleaning and the basement was damp and stinky without it.

We alternated between putting in the finished part of the basement and emptying the bin and putting it in the unfinished part of the basement and hooking up the hose so that it drained directly into the floor drain. Either way, it ran for a large chunk of the time and we watched our electric bill go from a rating of "great" in comparison to other similar homes to just "good." It was worth it for the fresher basement.

Until last month when a visiting friend happened to notice it and told us that our dehumidifier, which ran all the time including when we were out of town, had been recalled A YEAR AGO because it was a FIRE HAZARD.

Yikes.

So we cut the cord, literally:

The way to get either reimbursed a paltry $90 or so (we don't remember how much we paid but think it was closer to $250) or accept a new dehumidifier of their choice was to cut the cord, write our name and date on the thing with permanent market, and then send in a picture. We chose to take the dehumidifier because even if it's awful, it will probably last at least a couple of years.

It has a comparable tank size and is even energy star, so who knows - might even be an improvement.

We won't know for a while though, since now that it's winter, we're more in the season of humidifying than dehumidifying. Our two humidifiers in the bedroom are running all night trying to keep us from waking up with dry, scratchy throats and stuffy noses. So stay tuned for spring when we turn this bad boy on and see what it can do.

Siding Sighting

Back in May, we had our siding power washed because it looked a little dingy:

 But then this happened in July:

Interior repairs were done a little after Labor Day but you may remember a hint from the end of this post that there were still some exterior issues. Between September when the contractors "finished" their work and November when we made them come back to fix something we weren't happy about, the exterior looked like this. Can you see the problem? It's pretty subtle, which is why I'm posting a bigger-than-usual picture:

Can you find the problem? Does this remind you of those Highlights magazines from when you were 8?

How about now?

They used different siding than what we already had - instead of just coming down just shy of vertical, it comes out at a sharper angle and then goes to vertical. They warned us that they couldn't find identical siding "anywhere" but that they would be able to blend in the replacements. We didn't feel like they blended in well enough and we were pretty annoyed.

So after a bit of finagling with our insurance company and then some scheduling difficulties with the contractor, two months later they were back on the job, to replace all the siding in the whole cut-out area so that it matched.

 We still aren't really thrilled with the results. At least it all matches on all three sides. It doesn't match the siding anywhere else on the house, but there isn't too much and it won't typically all be in view at the same time (remaining siding is on both sides of the house plus some outside our sunroom).

It looks much better than during the two-month interim, and we think that one day we'd like to replace the whole thing with Hardie Board. The thing that made us most mad was this: We didn't actually discuss with them in advance what kind of siding they would use (besides that it had to be white), assuming they were making the closest match they could given the age of our home.  But after they were done the job (which took a whole day, surprisingly) we did a little research of our own and found Home Depot sells siding identical to ours, in shape, if not size (we didn't actually measure). It's just order-only and not in stores. When we mentioned this to the contractors, they made some kind of lame excuse about it not being in stock when they stopped there that morning to buy it. But they knew for at least a month that they would be doing the job.

Well at this point, we're done for now. I don't really want more people wandering around on our slate roof and it looks better than before. But we certainly won't be using the same people again for future repairs. They were nice enough and did an ok job, but just had no eye for detail. At least finally, four months after the tree hit our house, the repairs are done. Now we're just still wrangling with the insurance company for our final pay-out!