How We Spent Our Saturday

Unlike years past, we've been diligently raking up the leaves this fall, to keep our grass from dying. We noticed that if we removed the leaves weekly, the task didn't seem quite so onerous. That and we have a fancy, new, battery-powered lawnmower that's super quiet and does a pretty good job of scooping up, mulching, and bagging the leaves, making the huge backyard seem a lot easier to handle (oh, and it also cuts grass).

Black and Decker CM1936

We especially wanted to make sure the new grass coming up on the newly defined borders of our flower beds had every opportunity to grow. See that nice pretty green hidden under the leaves?

(Oh, and on a side note, we decided to "mulch" our garden with chopped up leaves, which are supposedly a handy free way to keep bulbs and baby plants warm all winter. Easier than hauling mulch, that's for sure...)

So after all this raking, imagine our dismay to wake up to this on Saturday morning:

You would never guess that we had raked 6 days earlier. But after 2.5 hours of intense raking, mowing, and hauling:

 And just to prove that we did the whole yard and not just the half in the photo:

(We did the back too, but since I didn't get a before photo, I didn't see much point in getting an after one.)

The better news comes from these views:

Not too many more leaves left to fall!!! Hopefully we got the bulk of it and won't have to spend another whole day doing clean up again until spring.

Oh, and for anyone keeping track, after FOUR WEEKS of regular yard waste pick up, we still have a hefty amount of liriope sitting in our driveway waiting for its turn on the curb. But I'm happy to report that now, on the fifth week, it's finally GONE!!!!! Next we just have to bundle up the compose from under the tarp and we'll have our driveway back!

Let in the Breeze

This post is a little overdue because of all the major landscaping and bathroom changes that I wanted to write about, but back in late summer/early fall, we finally decided to build shelves into the bedroom that could hold our window fan, so that we could turn off the A/C pull in some cool outside air and lower the temperature inside. (Yes, I realize now that it's November, this post isn't very relevant.)

Months before that, we bought a 6' by 8'' ash board that would make two equal size shelves with only one cut. D made the slice and the rest was up to me. I sanded everything with medium fine to fine sand paper, wiped them down, and then got ready to coat them with Minwax Polycrylic. I haven't tried many other protective coats but from doing a lot of reading online, I decided a while back that this was probably the best bet for coating light or painted wood because it doesn't yellow. I've also had good luck with wax, but these shelves would rubbing up against our curtains and wax could potentially rub off.

We don't have cable but on the few occasions a year that I visit my parents, I try to pick up lots of home repair techniques. One that I learned last year (discussing how to paint a door) was to put a nail into each side and prop the shelves up on it between two saw horses. This way I could stain both sides at once by carefully spinning the shelf around. The nail holes were barely noticeable when I pulled the nails out.

I put on three coats of polycrylic over the course of a few days. I sanded each layer with very fine sandpaper but was disappointed in the end at the overall finish, which felt very course. After a little research on the Internet, I learned that ash is porous and so its actually impossible to get a fine, glassy finish no matter how much you sand. Oh well--this is one of those things that no one besides me will ever notice. In any case, the wood is protected in case we leave a window open one rainy night and it gets a little wet.

Next came installation. The hardest part was getting the !@#%^%$ stickers off the Ikea brackets. A lot of baby oil and elbow grease!

Unfortunately and despite multiple tries with our stud finder, we couldn't find a place to put the brackets that hit any studs. So we used molly bolts and said a little prayer that our 13 pound cats wouldn't take an interest in hanging out on the shelves. At least not both at once.  In the end, they look pretty good and offer an easy way to pull back the curtains as well.

Most important, it's a perfect fit for the fan! Come spring, we'll be able to circulate some cool air around the room without having to build a tower out of boxes and books (seriously--that was our previous makeshift solution).

Now I just have to find some things to store on the lower shelf to make everything look more complete.  Both shelves are totally hidden when the curtains are closed, so it's a nice place to quickly hide clutter as well.

Meet Our Future Bathroom

You may remember from this post that the bathroom remodel is becoming a reality. This weekend we went on a "shopping" trip with our designer, Francisco, and made a bunch of really scary decisions. All that has to happen next is to put the orders in, wait for the products to be ready, and schedule the up-to-15-day overhaul. Bring back that paper bag, I'm having trouble breathing just thinking about it!

Because of our small budget, we started off the day at Home Depot, where Francisco showed us what was safe to buy and what to beware of. Obviously with word-of-mouth advertising and things like Angie's List, no company wants to install parts with crappy components that will end up leaking or breaking, so he tried to show us where we could save money and where we needed to splurge for better quality.

First up was tile. There were only a handful of choices that Francisco thought were good quality. Most were very very beige. I hate beige. Our bathroom is currently beige, so we are looking for more gray, cool tones.

The key to a good ceramic or porcelain tile apparently is that the color is sustained throughout. Many tiles we saw had a gray or beige layer on top of a brick red tile, which means that chipping or scratching or even cutting the tile to get it to the correct size can make it look awful. We found one that fit the quality test in this one. It still had hints of beige, but was definitely mostly gray and very in our price range, so we bought one piece to carry around with us, sort of the equivalent of a paint swatch.

Next it was on to fixtures! Kohler Forte is probably what we will be getting, because Francisco has had very good luck with the Home Depot version of it (and it's about 30-50% cheaper than the fancy designer store version). We originally planned to get brushed nickel but chrome is significantly cheaper, so the company is going to price both and give us a comparison. It's so strange how different the prices are (in some cases, there's a $70 difference between getting chrome or nickel for the exact same piece). Since we have a lot of fixtures, this could end up adding up, and we need to figure out if it's worth it. What do you think? Chrome is actually really pretty in my opinion, but it looks dirtier faster and isn't as modern looking.

This represents only a component of our shower package, because we are going to do a hand-held shower on a slide bar:

Then to toilets! A Kohler Cimarron two-piece comfort height elongated seat toilet. After sitting on a bunch of toilets, we realized that comfort height is what we have in our house already, so it's what we're used to (I had no idea--it's not like I ever measured my toilet before). It's pretty compact and has a high-powered flush without using much water. Originally we thought we'd go with a rounded seat, but Francisco tactfully suggested that guys might prefer the elongated shape...

For bathtubs, Francisco recommended the middle one, a thick porcelain on steel tub. It won't retain heat as well as cast iron but it's much cheaper and still pretty sturdy. The tub is tiny and shallow anyway, so won't really be used for taking soaking baths. It's better than acrylic, at least. The cast iron tub next to it by Kohler looks ok, but it is suspiciously cheap (most cast iron tubs cost thousands and this one is only $320) and is even shallower than the Bootzcast porcelain on steel. Plus it has a gritty sandpaper non-stick bottom (I hate those! It's so easy just to use a suction cup non-slip pad that can come out when necessary).

We left Home Depot and went to another design store where we bought a medicine cabinet. While there, I fell temporarily in love with this deeply discounted sink (after additional discounts, it was only $220). D was not convinced, however, and Francisco took us to our next stop, a rock store, to look at possible tops for a much better quality, much more expensive custom vanity.

 We wandered around the remnant granite. It was rather surreal.

D found one that he really liked, called "Blue Pearl." It's hard to tell from the picture but it's a dark gray with whitish veins and light iridescent blueish chips. Francisco cut off a little piece for us to take along with us. If we got the cabinet, it would be a dark blackish red finish with simple lines from Merillat. It would be made of real wood instead of the MDF piece I liked (though I made sure that the MDF wouldn't start to peel, because at no price point was I willing to have to replace it in after few years of steamy showers), and for not much more than the already exorbitant price of a regular two-door piece, we could get drawers. Nice, dovetailed, sturdy drawers. We'd also get the granite installed so that there was a back and side splash to protect our walls, and a nice sturdy under-mount sink.

It was an expensive decision. But D won, so no cheapo tiny pre-made vanity for us. I finally admitted that he was right, anyway. If we were going to spend all this money remodeling our bathroom, we might as well get really good quality stuff.

So armed with our swatches, we hit our last stop, The Tile Shop, for our accent piece. I looked around for a grayer/whiter main tile as well, but after a few half-hearted tries, became convinced that the Home Depot tile really was the best bet for us. We picked a glass tile that played off the blues in the granite and the black undertones of the wood stain. And so I present to you the look of our future bathroom:

Now we just have to make a decision on chrome vs. brushed nickel, and pick out a few more details before all the orders get placed (Francisco suggested a Panasonic vent fan over Broan or NuTone, but those suckers are expensive, so we still have to figure that out too). Once everything arrives, we can figure out when to schedule the work. I am still in shock! So is my bank account!

Home, Defended

This is a random post that I actually started drafting almost two months ago, but I waited to post until we could assess the results. At least sort of.

We started getting so many spiders and creepy crawlies in our house in late summer that in mid-September, despite my aversion to pesticides and chemicals, we decided to follow my parents' advice and use this:

It comes with a little hose that you use to spray the solution all around the foundation area of the house, as well as cracks along windows and doors--anywhere something can get in. We did our whole house and still have over half left in the jug.

Did it help? Well, it's hard to say. At first, I saw no change at all. I figured that's because the buggies and spiders had already gotten inside before we sprayed. After a little while, "sightings" did indeed begin to taper off, but was it the Ortho or the cold? Who knows. We'll have to try it again in spring and see if we notice a difference.

On an only slightly different note: what's the word on drain pipes? I'm pretty sure a lot of spiders came up through the shower and tub drains, because I kept finding them in the bathroom, in the tub, and in the shower (that made for one horrifying cleaning experience!). Is it just that they gravitate there from elsewhere because it's cool and damp, or do they really get in that way? Do I even want to know?