Garden Update
This last weekend I did take some time to do some planting.
I got in the order from Burgess that I talked about in this post. It was GORGEOUS out this weekend. 60 degrees and sunny and clear. It was great to spend some time outside digging in the dirt.
I ordered: Hostas, lavender, lilacs, peegee hydrangeas, vinca minor, creeping phlox, cinnamon ferns, Arborvitae and strawberries.
The plan is to grow a nice big peegee hydrangea in the front bed surrounded by foxglove and other part-shade perennials and filled in with the vinca minor. I’m thinking of edging the sidewalk with hosta that will hang over the edge and soften the ugly sidewalk. I’ve got a bunch of iris along the fence along with some ferns farther back. I’m also going to sneak in some morning glory to see if we can cover that ugly fence but the neighbors are a little anti-vines so we’ll see if they last long. I may put white picket in front of the fence one day to cover it up.
I planted a bunch of hosta in the side yard. I also put some lily of the valley in around the Weigela I planted last fall from the Arbor Day foundation. Once everything sprouts, I’m planning on mulching this bed to get rid of all the grass.
I also started the great neighbor-blocking wall of 2013. Three little arborvitae. We’re planning on building some lattice style fencing panels between them. I’m planning on 3 lattice panels so I need another arborvitae on the far right. Then I think we’ll tightly space arborvitae up to the AC units and up to the Spirea bush.
You can see the arborvitae are small and a little brown-tipped. The ship from Illinois so I think they’re just winter-burned. I hope they come back! I got all three for $4.99 from burgess. I can get larger stock (1′-2′ for 3/$6.99) They are $6.99 each from Home Depot but they look better and are easily 2′ tall. For $70 I can get 10 good looking trees. Or for $26.50 I can get 12 unknown looking trees. I’m leaning towards HD but I’d love your opinions.
I ended up with 2 peegee hydrangeas so one is in a pot for now. I’m not sure what we’ll do with it. I’m hoping that maybe it’ll do well in a pot on the deck. There are plenty of other places it can go as well.
The creeping phlox is currently hanging out in pots on the deck. I’d like to put it in the area on the right side of the yard but we’ve got lots of trash and scrap metal there right now!
I also got a Bargain Bag of strawberries. 25 strawberry plants of an unknown variety. I ended up getting Festival strawberries which is great. They are June-bearing and supposed to be vigorous producers. I have them set up in my pot. I’m planning a squirrel-proof cage for the strawberry pot. I’ll be sure to share when I figure out the details.
It’s been a long winter but the bulbs are finally starting to show themselves.
I can’t wait for spring to be in full bloom!
Any landscaping plans for this summer? Want to come help me with mine?
Sarah
House Update – Pre-drywall
The pre-drywall phase is taking longer than I had hoped but I always hope too much. We’ve still got another weekend of work but it’s definitely looking good.
We have the durock backerboard up for the shower.
The plumbing supply is 99% done with just a bit of clean-up left. The 3rd floor floor is down.
The big things left are replacing a window, framing in the “microwave closet” and pulling a couple wires in the kitchen ceiling
and a whole lot of cleaning:
To get us started on the clean-up phase, we got one of those bagsters. It was the least-complicated way to get rid of everything. It’s pricey at $39 for the bag and another $160 to have it picked up but you pay for convenience.
I spent a bunch of time hauling piles of trash in the backyard into the bagster since we are finally snow-free!
It’s the “little” things that are killing us right now. The final bits of tacking up wire, stripping wire, tacking up wood here and there, put the last light box up, pull an extra ethernet etc. We have a list 50 lines long of little things we need to do. Not very satisfying and not very blog-worthy.
Sarah
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Pre-Drywall Update – April 6&7 | | Craft, Decor, Art, Garden, and Dessert
[…] devoted to plumbing and clean-up. Clean up goes much better in the daylight since I have to arrange the bagster that I talked about last week. I’m hoping we’ll also get the conduit done. That just […]
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Den Lighting
As we are getting closer and closer to the decorating stage of the house work, I’ve realized I need to got on the lighting search ASAP. We are going to want to put lights in sooner rather than later so that we can have some light to work by. I’ve had the dining room lighting in the back of my mind but I’ve neglected the second floor which is our primary living space and the more vital lighting areas.
I’m starting with the Den. If you recall, the den was once 2 bedrooms. You can see where it sits in the house on the floorplan page. We have 2 overhead lighting fixtures to decide on: one over the sofas in the living room half and one over the center work table in the office side. We are planning on built-ins on the north wall of the den and built-in desks on the north and east walls of the office half.
To get me started, I found some inspiration images.
This room has some of the awesome Boston library lamps that swing out from the wall. I do believe these will be making an appearance in the den but it doesn’t solve my overhead lighting situation.
This room
This room has the rich wood paneling that I love and a single semi-flush tiffany style lamp. I can see how this would be an appropriate look for the den side. It doesn’t look too dark in this room but I’m concerned that the light won’t put out enough light to get on the Recline Chairs and read. I do love the shelves and the oriental rug.
This room is a bit more vintage glamour. I love love love the combintation of the white and wood-tones. The chandelier is certainly glamorous but our ceilings are tall but no that tall. We would need a much smaller fixture and it would need to be hung very close to the ceiling.
This room has the oriental rug and painted shelves with some kind of ornate three-arm Viribright UFO highbay lighting fixtures. I love that the shelves are painted a muted green color. I am torn between splurging for wood cabinets and just going for painted in a non-white color. Then again, white shelves with antique books can look great as well.
Can you tell I’m having a style crisis? I like everything and I just have a hard time figuring out what I want. I think a simple lighting fixture will be what we need. This room will shift and change in style as I work on defining my own and I don’t want to splurge on something I’m going to want to replace. You can view a collection of lighting I’ve considered on the Lighting Collections page. I’ve gathered what I think is a pretty decent collection of traditional lighting options. I hope you’ll take advantage of it!
Some of my favorite options for this room:
Mission style chandelier would go with wood cabinets and a more mission style room. I think I’m going more victorian naturalist than mission style but I think they can certainly blend.
This is a more modern style fixture. Simple but with a bit of an industrialist edge. I don’t think it would detract from the feel of the room but I don’t know if it will add either.
This fan is just really cool. It’s a bit pricey but I think it would be AWESOME in that room. Having a ceiling fan above the couch seems like a natural to me. It’s not always the most aesthetic but in my mind, they never look out of place. Sure they don’t look magazine worthy but my living room rarely will.
As far as a simple fan goes. I like the looks of something like this perhaps with a school-house shaped globe in place of the round one. I think it has an industrial edge that makes it appropriate for a naturalist study. I think what really makes this fan look so good is the blades being the same color as the rest of the fan. Something to consider as a coat of paint would take any cheapy fan and unify it though this one is reasonable priced.
Click on any of the above fixtures to go to the sellers website.
What do you think? Leave me your ideas in the comments. I’d love some help with this one!
Sarah
Sarah
Estate Sale Finds
Last weekend we swung by a George Estate Sale. It was in Chelmsford which is a little bit of a ways but it was a great sale. I wish we had gotten there earlier.
I had to wrestle with some ladies upstairs for vintage Christmas ornaments but I managed one pack:
And a great little purse:
I also got 2 great baskets. One picnic basket and one laundry basket.
I’ve been looking for a picnic basket so I can make this cute end table:
And I bought books! I have a serious love of etiquette books. I have a large collection and I hit the etiquette book jackpot at this sale.
This one is my favorite:
But I got a whole ton!
I even got this awesome small book on men’s etiquette.
You can still buy it on Amazon.
The copyright date is 1897 but I’m pretty sure that it’s not a first edition. It’s in too good of shape though I suppose it is possible. I need to do some more research to accurately date it.
It’s also free on Project Guttenburg Here. If you’ve never heard of Project Guttenburg, I recommend you check it out. It’s how I read most of my favorite books. It’s books that are out of copyright available online. It’s a great resource.
I also got this great little book from GE.
There’s also a memo inside from the president saying that this book was for all of the employees. It’s very cute. I’m thinking it needs to be framed ASAP. I love it.
If that wasn’t enough junk, I also got a handful of national geographic magazines from the 30s and 40s for the back cover ads. Some great coke ads. I figure I’ll cut out all the ads and toss the rest. Those books are a dime a dozen.
This one’s my favorite but thee christmas ones will be cute framed for Christmas.
There were also a bunch of national geographic maps. Only a few really cool ones but I figure I’ll photograph and add them to the sell on etsy pile. I’d really like to get back into that especially for “envelope” items that are easy to pack and mail. I’ve got a neat 40s era southwestern US, a neat greater NYC region, a beautiful DC Metro one and a really cool UK one. Let me know if you’re interested. I can send more pics!
It was a fun sale. George is the best. I try to go to all his sales. We’re buddies. In fact, just the other day we were walking to get dinner in Arlington Center when we hear a “HEY” as George makes a right hand turn. He must have been in the area and recognized us on the street. You may think, well yeah, he probably doesn’t have many regulars but let me tell you, that’s not the case at all. Everyone who’s anyone in the re-sale estate sale community north of Boston raves about George. Except maybe black haired lady who is a competing estate sale lady but she’s mean.
Here’s his website: georgecoestatesales.com. If you’re in the greater Boston area and looking for someone to do an estate sale, you can’t do better than George. He’s honest to a fault and the sales are a family endeavor with both his wife and daughter working the registers. He even hires his teenage daughter’s friends to help be car loaders and general security. Definitely the kind of operation I’d support and not just cause I want to buy your cool stuff 🙂
P.S. George, I want you to get the estate sale for this house:50 Wendell Rd, Newton MA
Awesome!
