The Front Yard Garden - Part One

Good afternoon!

Sorry to those who were "anxiously awaiting" more pictures.  Between planning for my work Halloween party on Monday and viciously fighting off a bout of sickness (oh it tried to take over my body!  But with the help of my trusty sidekick Zicam, we triumphed), I was not eager to start a pic-post-athon.  But now I will post pics for you.

Shall we do a before?  Yes, we shall.

From the door, left side



From the door, right side



Right side, palm tree

These were all photos of when we first purchased the house.  After two five months of neglect, it was covered in pine needles and leaves, and a few weeds had popped up, along with an overgrowth of English Ivy that actively tried to strangle the life out of the palm tree.  With the help of my parents, we extricated these buggers, dug viciously, discovered that I had a nice level of moist soil, and deep beneath that, clay.  I didn't realize until after we'd planted that clay was one of the worst soils you could have, and most stuff doesn't survive.  So after all this work, we'll see how the flowers get along.

My husband and I chose six healthy Cast Iron plants, and some purple and white/purple pansies.  However on Saturday morning, the pansies were not looking happy, and next to each other, I didn't think that the mix was going to be a great fit for this area.  A few days earlier, I'd eyed some gorgeous fuschia SnapDragons at Kroger (of all places).  They were a great price and very healthy looking, and after checking out the prices at the discount nursery, I discovered they were actually a really great deal. 

So Saturday, the parents and I drove to Kroger and got 6 Snapdragon sets.  (Then later, at my insistence, we bought two more :) .)  After hours of digging, weed pulling, fertilizing, cleaning, and dirt-transplanting, this was our progress as of Saturday afternoon:

A healthy improvement over Friday afternoon.  

After being such troopers, I blew the whistle and took the parents out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants (mmm, Chuys).  Then we had to part ways, as Husband and I had a Halloween party to go to, and moms had cats to get home to. 

Sunday, after falling out of bed cursing God for the pain he'd afflicted on my body, I dragged myself back outside and kept going.  I started building the garden border (a super cheap but well-made border that I got on Amazon - see here).  They suggested using a rubber mallet, but I didn't have one, so I used a meat tenderizer (the flat side!!) instead.  No one said I wasn't resourceful when needed.

All you had to do was insert the groove for the second section into the first section, and "gently tap in". 

Gentle was a term used loosely, because it is plastic, so it required more "banging" than "tapping".  It was a trial for a set that was really long, because once I got about six pieces together, I'd start tapping in the seventh piece and the first piece would start popping up out of the ground.  I also had to account for the various tree roots that blocked the path of the border, so I have a few spots where there are small gaps.  Luckily the snapdragons hide these so it's not visible.

In the end, it came out looking great.

Next came mulching.  I chose an organic black mulch for many reasons, the highest priority being that black is the best color of mulch in the whole world and it just makes plants POP.  Husband asked why I didn't use red, and I was like, "Because that'd be ugly.  Now go shush and build something."

I used two- to three-inches of mulch all around, and it came out looking great.  Below is a shot of midway progress.  You can see that the right has been bordered and mulched, and the left has been not touched. 

More mulch shots!

I took a break to silently curse my body for hurting (including my head and stomach, which were not garden-work related and should not have been happening - curse you, sickness!  I will have my victory).  Then it was back to work on the second side.  Shots below:

Apologies for the shot - it was starting to get dark and I couldn't see how well the shot was being taken on my phone.

I am particularly pleased with how well this turned out, given that it was my temporary stopping point and I wasn't sure how it was going to look against the stone/palm/ugly dirt.  But I am proud of my work.

And bonus - there were a few huge tree roots that were making my clumsy baby-giraffe self trip every single time I walked on the grass.  Dirt transplant was successful in making this trip-hazard disappear.  No before shot, but it's dirt.  Why do you care about what it looked like before?

Now I just trip on the dirt when my shoe-heels sink into the soft dirt and then make me fall forward.

So here is the shot as of this morning, after I rinshed off the sidewalk as best I could, pruned the flowers, watered, and let them settle for a few days:

 I think we have a winner.  (Ignore the pansies, they are going in the backyard but I wanted them to have sun in the interim.)

Next step: Get more plants, soil, border, and mulch this week, so I can do the same thing all over again this upcoming weekend.  The plan: continue the planting/mulching around the palm tree and across the front yard. 

Can't wait to see the finished product!  And just in time for the cold snap that will make the snapdragons happy.

Dost Mine Eyes Deceive Me?

No, they don't.  I'm actually posting!  One for an official "here's something we did" thing, and another will just be a little sneak peek. 

First, if I didn't say so already, the kitchen is completely unpacked and is in full use.  Pantry is cleaned out and sorted (or "sorted"); cabinets are full of utensils (except when Husband unloads the dishwasher and doesn't remember where I told him that the stuff goes, so it just sits on the counter until it magically disappears into its proper location.  Or, more accurate, just gets used and put back in the sink again); and I'm always cooking so the stove looks like a food bomb went off...every day.  Poor Husband (for he is House Husband).  I try, but most of the time, I'm like, "Eff it.  I'll clean it later."  And then later it's just magically clean again.  Must be the gnomes.

The master bathroom has received no actual renovation.  We haphazardly moved the stuff we needed from the living room into the bathroom (towels, bathroom products, etc), but it just ends up finding its resting place on the toilet we have yet to install upstairs.  The master vanity was used as a holding place for renovation materials, bathroom storage, and probably rat skeletons (I call him Skippy), while the very small powder room was being used as our primary getting-ready area.  However, given that the powder room is a) small and b) also contains the toilet, I got fed up a few weekends ago, and cleaned off all the crap items crap off the counters in the main area and decided we'd actually use the master vanity for its intended purpose: Having two people able to use an area at once to get ready.

There's not much to show, really, since this is just a temporary situation.  However, I took the mirror that is supposed to go in the powder room and gave it a temporary home in the main bathroom area.  I cannot describe to you how much that small of a mirror opens up this area.  (It's actually a large mirror - the mirror we will have to buy is going to be around 5 feet wide.)  Then I just cleaned up the rest of the area and moved our daily toiletries to the main area. 

Tada, or whatever.

It's a huge improvement over how it used to look, trust me.

In other news, Husband replaced the door to the bedroom (if by "replace" you mean, remove the door that was leaning up against this area and blocking it from our path, and actually installing a new door that wasn't falling apart).  We already had to remove the trim to put the granite in, so it's not that pretty.  Sigh.  But it will make it easier to paint this area without having to worry about painting around the trim, so I am Ms. Bright Side!

However, while this is technically considered a progression in renovation, installing this door has actually set us back.  Because installing the door meant tearing off the trim to the bedroom side as well, and motherf#$!, because I just painted it.  Grrrr.

I will attempt to maintain my calm.  Not successfully.

...

Onward to part two of my post: SNEAK PEEK!!!

Let's pretend that the area around the new (waiting-to-be-planted) pansies and Cast Irons isn't horrifying.  It will require extensive pruning, sweeping, and digging.  But I will have a SUPERAWESOME DUO helping me out!!!!!

I hope they're not looking at this picture, because they may rescind their invitation to help. 

Gulp.

But (hopefully) seriously!  I have the parents coming into town this weekend, and I'm totally going to put them to work.  Muhahahaha!!  They have offered to help me "plant some stuff in the front yard" which in their language probably meant "plant some stuff in the front yard", but to me meant "pull weeds, dig up gross ground, pour new soil, plant, and mulch." 

Moms can't read the internet, right?

Crap, I think they can.

Aaand we're back!

Yes, this is true.  It's been a couple of weeks since we've done anything on the house and yes, it's been because we have been exhausted.  In addition to Husband catching up on the work front (since he spent the majority of 6 weeks working on the house) and me decidedly choosing not to do any work on the house (because work has been picking up and I've been mentally exhausted, in addition to physically lazy exhausted), we've spent the last four weekends doing something.  We went down to Corpus Christi and slept on the beach one night (OMG. Epic.), surrounded by shooting stars, galaxy bars, and too many stars to count, then went to Texas State Aquarium the next day (an amazing rescue aquarium where i got to pet a baby alligator and a stingray!).  The next weekend we got to go to New Braunfels and stay in a vacation home all weekend, then spend Saturday and Sunday floating the Guadalupe River.  Fun times, but not exactly housework-time.
Last weekend we had a friend in town and we went down to Kemah and visited the boardwalk (yay rollercoaster), went to a concert, and Sunday we lazed about.  We did do four loads of laundry, which was an official housework accomplishment.

This week, I'm determined to get moving on the house.  I want to finish unpacking the kitchen tonight.  I'm definitely not tired of laying around (it's soo nice to just lay in bed, veg, and cuddle while watching Psych or one of our myriad other Netflix shows), but I am tired of dodging boxes every time we turn around.  I still have the same list I had two weeks ago (when we decided to go to Corpus instead):

• unpack the kitchen (so that one room in the house can be nearly complete...and we can actually eat on real plates)
• paint the two doors for the downstairs (so we can have actual doors that are complete that lead us to the bathroom, rather than doors that are haphazardly laid against the doorframe and falling apart)
• install aforementioned doors and put on handles (so we don't have to walk through the powder room to get to the bathroom, and can actually enjoy our new dual-sink-awesomeness)
• belt sand and paint the upstairs bedroom ceilings (so we can finally move the mattress upstairs and make a real semblance of a guest bedroom)
• paint the trim in the upstairs rooms
• move all the upstairs stuff upstairs
• Organize the bathroom stuff (right now we're using bathroom stuff out of plastic bags and boxes.  It's not that awesome)
• Organize the closet (again, because Husband had to remove everything to have the carpet put in and then forgot where everything went, so my work clothes are mixed with my going-out-on-the-town clothes)
• Clean
• Laundry

Item 1 (kitchen) is halfway done.  I got a good portion of the unpacking finished, but then I got tired of cleaning out the inside of the kitchen cabinets to remove layer upon layer of silica dust, then putting liner down, then cleaning the dishes by hand because the dishwasher is in use (and even when it's not, the dishes are still getting white stuff all over them.  Sigh.  Thoughts on why?)  But we've run out of the dishes I have unpacked, so I need to unpack the rest of it.  Now.  Here's a visual of what I've done:

Unpacked in all its glory

 Which you may find to be normal, until you see what it used to look like (and what the other side looks like):

The other side looks like an accomplishment now, right?  Right.

The pantry is possibly the worst part, because there's a lot of food to put in there, and not a lot of storage.  The top two shelves are pretty narrow, so you can't put much on them.  I think I'm going to need to enlist the help of Husband Helper to build me better shelves.  And move them farther apart, so there isn't a cavernous area of space not being used up top and below. 

And there's still a whole new box of stuff to unpack.

We also already put the mattress upstairs because our friends came into town and we didn't want them to sleep on the air mattress again.  Of course now I'll have to move it out into the hallway once I start working on the ceiling.  Le sigh. 

But despite how little work we've done on the house recently (and being hampered by monetary limitations to continue), it's still so nice to walk into our kitchen or our shower (or heck, even into our bedroom) and just see the improvements. 

So, more to come!

A New Look

I have no updates on the house, because Husband and I are still recovering from 6-Straight-Weeks-O'-Heck.

However, my awesome Photoshop-loving buddy at work has worked magic on my header, so now I am starting to look like a real blog!

And because I love you all, here is a picture of a bunny with a pancake on its head.

So...*twirl*  What do you think?  (Of the new look, not the bunny.)

Preparing for the Weekend

Clearly, this upcoming weekend is going to be a long one. Not in the "UGH MAKE IT STOP!" way, but in the "I get three days off" way, which, IMO, is way better.  Even more awesome is that I will most likely actually get to enjoy it, since times are slower at work and I won't be hounded all weekend by people wanting to do work stuff.  I hope they're all drunk or on vacation this weekend.  :)

This is good because that means I have three whole days to tackle the house! There is a growing (and growing) list of items that need to be completed:

• unpack the kitchen (so that one room in the house can be nearly complete...and we can actually eat on real plates)
• paint the two doors for the downstairs (so we can have actual doors that are complete that lead us to the bathroom, rather than doors that are haphazardly laid against the doorframe and falling apart)
• install aforementioned doors and put on handles (so we don't have to walk through the powder room to get to the bathroom, and can actually enjoy our new dual-sink-awesomeness)
• belt sand and paint the upstairs bedroom ceilings (so we can finally move the mattress upstairs and make a real semblance of a guest bedroom)
• move all the upstairs stuff upstairs
• Organize the bathroom stuff (right now we're using bathroom stuff out of plastic bags and boxes.  It's not that awesome)
• Organize the closet (again, because Husband had to remove everything to have the carpet put in and then forgot where everything went)
• Try very hard not to buy stuff for the house that we desperately need
• Clean
• Clean
• Clean

This is all the stuff I want to do just this weekend.  But what I really want to do is go have a triple-feature at the movie theater and then laze about the rest of the weekend.  But alas, no.  We have done that all week and cannot do this anymore.  We have got to tackle this house.

The great feeling is that it's gorgeous.  The house is already starting to just be amazing.  There's just so much more to do and it all feels very overwhelming at times, particularly when I wish I was much richer than I presently am.

SO...what are you planning for July 4h?