It gets worse before it gets better

Before I get on to today's details, let me take a moment to note that this is our 200th post! Pretty amazing. I had no idea we'd be able to keep it going for this long.

Now on to our regularly scheduled program. The problem with any major project - home repair or not - is that often it take a while to come together. And it usually hits bottom before getting better. We finally decided to tackle the last bedroom in the house (or technically the "not-bedroom" according to the jerk appraiser a few years ago) - what was evidently one of the kid's rooms (complete with height measurements drawn on the wall). For the last few years, it's just been storing random furniture that didn't otherwise have a place. Time for an upgrade.

It didn't look bad but it just wasn't our style. But of course with the prep and painting, it was going to look awful.

First, as we have done in every other painting job in the house, we took off all the switch plates and cleaned down the walls with TSP-PF cleaner. That's trisodium phosphate-phosphate free, to you. And don't even get me started on how name something that includes the fact that it does not, in fact, have the main ingredient in it, which is like milk-free milk or something. But it's better for the environment and still works pretty well. While getting up close and personal with the walls while scrubbing them, we noticed they were in pretty bad shape - including staples everywhere and pock-marked drywall.

Once the walls were clean, we went back around to all those messed up areas, pulling out staples, nails, etc.Then it was time to spackle the damage and calk the edges where there were cracks in the walls. (Of course we thought we had done a thorough job but when we started painting, we noticed new spots that we had not caught the first time - some we spackled and some we ignored.)

Then it was time to set up for the painting. Isn't the room looking beautiful?

But we're nothing if not quick and (more or less) efficient painters. A day later, the yellow was almost gone! Thank you, primer. And this is the last yellow in the house! (For anyone who remembers the early days of this place, almost every room was yellow: the office and main bathroom, the living room, the upstairs hallway.)

So it may be a mess, but at least we are just about rid of the yellow. Stay tuned for our big color reveal.

Undetectable Motion, Etc.

I mentioned last month when we put up our breezeway ceiling fan that we were gathering electrical projects that might require professional assistance. There was one more we attempted to do ourselves before giving up and calling in the experts. We have a security light at the back of our house that has never worked.

We don't really anticipate using it much, but it would be nice to turn on for parties and, you know, maybe scare away potential robbers. The point was that it was there but non-responsive, so we wanted to know what was up with the electricity?

The good news is that it is strategically placed to be accessible from the bathroom and side bedroom windows, so no scary ladders were necessary for us to take a closer look. From the bathroom, we could see the switches and tried turning them to every possible variation. We thought we had fooled the system to believe it was dark out but, just in case, we also tried at night. Nothing worked.

The only obvious part we could fix was the lightbulbs. And, conveniently, we just happened to have some. Unfortunately, that didn't get us very far - still no lights.

Funny enough, we actually own a new motion sensor light kit - well, an old-new kit that my parents gave us when we moved in. It's pretty much identical to what's already there. But the problem is that we don't have a clue which circuit to turn off and we suspect that to really get access to the wires, we would need to get at at the light from outside the house on a ladder. Time for a professional estimate.

The electrician came to take a look and confirmed that the sensor was dead but that we have electricity to the right place. He explained that any lamp we would buy at Home Depot or Lowes would only be guaranteed for 90 days. His lamp would be guaranteed for 5 years. According to the estimate his company provided, the lamp itself would cost $110 plus installation would bring the price to $325. Our electrician also told me, "off the record," that since we were repeat customers he might be able to knock the price down a little. He did mention that it would require ladder access from the back of the house, which is pretty high and scary. However, since this is a light we have never used and will never miss, we're on the fence as to whether it's worth it.

The second project we wanted an estimate on will be a tad more destructive. Somewhere in our lawn and garden escapades, we must have severed the line that runs from the house to our lamppost. One day it worked, and another day, it didn't. We had come across the wire before, just a flimsy white rubber-coated wire, and thought we knew well enough to avoid it. Obviously somewhere, we missed.

The electrician confirmed that we had power at the light switch but none to the post itself, meaning that the connection got lost somewhere along the way. We reasoned that if we did most of the grunt work of digging up the wire (and reburying it), that we would save a lot in labor cost. The electrician would run a line inside a PVC pipe, making it a lot more difficult to cut in the future. He'd also add a plug at the base of the post, which would be nice for stringing up holiday lights or anything else we might want to plug in. So minus all the cost of dealing with the trench, this would cost us about $380. If we get it done at all, we will wait until fall after the grass is mostly dead. No sense in digging up all our precious lawn work now.

So now we have the plan and we just have to decide if the price is worth it. What do you think?

Third Time's a Charm

The light fixtures in our basement are just exposed bulbs that screw directly into the ceiling junction box.

This has worked just fine for years. Until a few weeks ago when D, swinging his bike up over his shoulder to take outside, whacked the bulb and it shattered. Right on top of his head. It was a CFL bulb. Filled with mercury powder. So yeah, not so great. After dust-mopping, vacuuming, showering, and checking for symptoms of mercury poisoning, he decided to take action. After hunting around Home Depot for a while, no thanks to some very unhelpful employees, I found these:

Light bulb cages! And for only about $3. They're a flexible plastic so I think in theory it would still be possible to hit the cage hard enough to make contact with the bulb. But it would definitely take more force. Time for an easy install! Or so we thought...

First try - tighten the screws around the little lip in the socket. It doesn't seem particularly secure and the clasp won't shut, forcing us to resort to twist ties to hold the cage together. But it seems to do the trick ok.

Then we noticed some extra pieces in the bag. And the instructions. We decided to actually read them and realized that installing these cages right would take a little extra effort. Little legs were supposed to screw directly into the fixtures, making the cage much more secure. "That makes sense," we reasoned, and started over - loosening and taking the cages down, unscrewing the fixture screws, and getting it all back in place. See the little legs at the top of the cage?

One problem - now the lights didn't turn on at all. Apparently those screws were grounding the fixture and now because of those little plastic legs, they didn't go in all the way or something. Not much good protecting the lightbulb if we can't turn it on anyway.

So it was back to the first system, twist ties and all. In the end it didn't take long except for having to put everything together three times (and, actually, factor in the day and a half in which we temporarily gave up out of frustration). But now it's assembled AND the light turns on, so that's progress I guess.

So much for reading the instructions!

Yard Doctor, Checking in

Wow, I don't really know where May went. OK, I guess I do. A few special events kept us busy and not-blogging, but here and there, we've still managed to do quite a few small projects (and lay the groundwork for some big projects). Before it turns into summer and our yard turns into a singed and dead mess of hay, I wanted to let you know how good it's looking. Those of you following this blog for a while know that we have tried year after year to improve our grass and make our garden look respectable (each of those words is a link to a different post on the topic, so even if you aren't a regular reader you should have a idea by now how much we talk about this issue). And while it's far from done, I'd say this year we definitely turned a corner.

We took your advice in this post to act now and stop the pretty flowery weeds from taking over. D spread weed and feed all over the front and back lawns to clear them out. We do still have weeds and clover, but it looks a little better. We'll do it again in two months like the instructions say. The grass density isn't perfect, but it is a lot thicker than it used to be and a lot happier looking.

We decided after this post that the slacker lilac bushes in the middle of the row had to come out - or at least part of them did. D hacked at the worst of the two and got most of it out of the ground, leaving one section that was still blooming (we'll see how that goes next year). In it's place, we moved the small healthy guy that was temporarily living among the butterfly bushes, so now all the lilacs are back in one place.

We also bought a bunch of cheap additions at Lowes and a recent local market run- a few new azalea bushes to fill in between our sickly looking ones, some salvia (we've planted it from bare root a few times before and it never seems to come up, so maybe planting a full, living bundle will help), and some Russian sage (again, we have some planted already but it's not really doing anything).

Other updates - the thyme at the front of house has really taken off, the clematis got so big that I had to tie it to the lamppost to remind it which direction it needs to grow in (up, not out), and our alliums bloomed (and then died).

The bumble bees seem to really like the pink flowers on our spirea (and hopefully on our butterfly bush once they start to flower)

Next up, our hydrangeas are waking up and hopefully our black-eyed Susans will grow this year. We just weeded and re-mulched so right now, everything is looking pretty happy. We have some growths that don't exactly look like weeds but are as-yet unidentified. I didn't pull them up so maybe they'll turn into something too. But it's definitely fuller and happier, even in this sort of in-between stage after the irises, hyacinths, lilacs, and camellias have lots their blooms and it's mostly just green:

And a bit off-topic: someone in our neighborhood has one of these - any idea what it is (google image search isn't working)? The flowers just finally fell off last week in a storm but it was spectacular in bright fiery yellows and orange for at least a month before that.

Some Breeze in our Way

Last summer's pre-appraisal breezeway clean-up stuck with us. First, we never wanted to deal with mice droppings and that much grossness again. Second, we actually liked being able to see a lovely little sitting area from our kitchen. We don't use the space much, but we like having everything in its place and the room looking inviting. Not that it has stayed spotless. It got cluttered again this spring as we focused on gardening, but not to the extent that it was before. And a garden party last month kicked us into gear for cleaning it until it sparkled and for putting some pretty lights.

There was just one problem. This ugly monstrosity:

It wasn't just that it was old and ugly. It also shook and spun whenever the fan was on, making whoever happened to be in the breezeway fear for their lives. Needless to say, we didn't turn it on very often.

We've been "saving up" electrical projects for an electrician and we decided now was the time to work on this project too. That way if we took the fan down and were surprised with what we found up there (you know how the wiring in old houses can be), we'd be within a week or two of professional help.

We decided on the Hunter Allegheny outdoor fan from Lowes, tempted by their free two-day shipping and the cool, industrial-looking light fixture.

 Old fan down! Ew - probably should have dusted up there occasionally...

 Fortunately, the wiring looked ok. No weird surprises here.

We did, however, finally learn the difference between pre-assembled ceiling fans (they say they are 90% assembled already), which I guess is what we installed in our master bedroom, and one that arrives completely in pieces. There were a lot of pieces. We didn't take a picture of all the screws, bolts, blades, and casings. Mostly because we were too busy putting everything together. Attaching the hardware to the fan blades and then those to the base took far more time than the actual electrical stuff. The worse part - the most suspenseful part - was that we had to do all of that before we could turn the darn thing on to see if the wiring was right.

Thank goodness it was! Otherwise it all would have had to have come off again. But fortunately we got it right the first time! The exposed tungsten or whatever it is in the bulb looks really pretty and has a nice effect for an outdoorsy look. Though we did realize that bugs will probably love it as much as we will and so we'll have to take the cover off and empty it frequently. The fan moves a lot of air and doesn't shake at all, so now maybe we'll start sitting out there more often on summer evenings and enjoy the space a little more. (And yes, we did move the strings of twinkly lights so that they are no longer resting on the fan blades...)

Meanwhile, in the backyard...

We've spent so much time gardening in the front yard that it might seem like we're neglecting the back. But actually, it's in pretty decent shape. The lawn looks relatively healthy (though the ratios of weeds to grass is about 1:1).

Our back patio is more or less free of debris and inviting. We liked the little flowers poking out between the brick, so we didn't bother to use Round Up to kill them off. They are all over the grass too, but again, I guess "weed" is in the eye of the beholder and these are pretty cute, so we'll keep them around (who am I kidding? we're keeping the weeds around too, this year).

Last week, I even enjoyed an hour relaxing in the hammock, enjoying the lovely spring weather. I haven't actually "enjoyed" the outside (read: not forced myself out to garden and weed) in a long time. And I'm hoping that we might enjoy the outside even more this year. We splurged and decided to hire one of those monthly pesticide services. The repeated use of chemicals made me nervous, but they claim it's safe and non-toxic. And frankly, dousing myself in strong Deet-based mosquito repellants just to take out the trash or water the lawn didn't seem all that healthy either.

But no rest for the weary. While cleaning out the backyard to get ready for a big party we were hosting, we were reminded of a few other projects for later this spring.

Time to retreat the wood of our railing, which we just noticed was badly molded (we last treated it in March 2010, so I guess it's about time):

This sand box, inherited from the previous owners, has got to go:

Plus we have some more yard clean-up. The back fence line could make a really good area for shade plants, but is still overgrown, so we want to rip it up and turn the soil and actually make an effort there. And we want to maintain the controlled wild area in this back corner, so that it doesn't get completely unmanageable again.

Turning our attention back to the front garden again, I noticed that they already desperately need weeding. The problem is that I threw down a lot of mixed wild flower seed last month, in an attempt to fill in the bare patches. So now I can't really tell what is a weed and what is a growing wild flower. So I think the weeds will free reign for a while - I don't want to pull the wrong thing!

And it's a little off-topic, but check out our clematis!!!

Gardening baby steps

After our massive efforts to remove our invasive border grass and really clean up our gardens, I hoped that one day it would be easier. That blossoms would magically spring up when the weather warmed and the plants would spread out and fill in the empty space. We haven't actually become green thumbs yet, but this year I started to see the light at the end of the botanical tunnel.

Spring started off with leaves covering our flower beds "for warmth." Each weekend in March, we picked a bed or two to clear. We picked up the leaves and weeded. I tried particularly hard to remove lingering liriope plugs.

They were cleaned and ready to go. So when the compost and mulch were delivered in early April, we spread it down and crossed our fingers.

Our efforts started to pay off. Anemones that we planted last fall are blooming. Our irises, the one flower that seems to have loved our garden from day one, look even happier than usual. We even had hyacinths starting to bloom until I accidentally stepped on them when spreading mulch, severing the flower and ending its too-short life (oops!).

 

I'd given up hope on the clematis after last year when it seemed to fail to root. But this spring it couldn't be happier. Stay tuned for more pictures soon when all these buds should turn into brilliant pinkish purple flowers.

Even the spiraea vanhouttei, that looked exactly like a twig in the ground for two years, sprang to life and even flowered (it's about 20 inches high, so it's still pretty pathetic - do a google image search for spiraea vanhouttei and you'll see truly how pathetic, since these plants grow up to 6' tall).

Our phlox doesn't look thrilled, but finally some started flowering. The others aren't quite dead...The thyme is very happy and has even started flowering pretty white flowers. We also planted a few other things in this bed this year, since the phlox were taking a while to spread out. So they've been joined by Blue Star Creeper and Veronica peduncularis "Georgia Blue".

Our lilacs continue to do their thing as well. They've lived here now for two years but, annoyingly, have not grown evenly. The white-flowered one on the right is producing a lot of blooms.

 The new white-flower one on the other end, brand new as of last fall, also looks happy.

The purple-flowered ones in the middle don't seem to be doing well at all. They produce blooms, but only a few each.

I can't decide if I should uproot them and plant new baby lilacs, but then they would take a long time to grow and provide height to our garden (and privacy to our guest room). Having one big bush and then a bunch of teeny ones, especially given how slowly plants grow at our place, doesn't seem like a great solution either.

But either way, I'm calling this a success because this is what I see (and smell) when I step outside, right outside my front door.

Now I just wish I could make my plants flower with better timing. Some of our plants are in full bloom, others are about bloom, and still others are past their prime. Our camellias were colorful a few weeks ago and now all their pretty petals are dying at their feet (our neighbor's camellias still have flowers on them, so maybe we could have done something differently to make them last longer?).

We're really striving to have a yard as colorful and filled in as this one nearby. Isn't it beautiful.

We're still waiting for some things to come up that should technically be "spring blooms." Last fall to prevent the squirrels from eating the fruits of our labor, we tried to surround our plants in chicken wire (we're never doing that again - it was such a pain, both literally and figuratively). The May Night Salvia and verbena we did that for still haven't woken up. Hopefully the Black-Eyed Susans will, later this summer.

Stay tuned as the weather continues to warm up. Hopefully the things that are alive now will continue to spread out and fill in the gaps. And new things will continue to come up.