Craft Room
I scraped the popcorn ceiling about a year ago, and have been looking at the splotchy gray and white ever since. So... why not make it an annual thing? I spent my Christmas stay-cation determined to finish what I had started.
Behr Oslo Blue
(PPU13-13)
Entrance Lights
The entrance lights were mis-matched and falling off the wall. Out they went.
This light was loosely attached, and too wide for the narrow space between the door frame and the corner. I also found that the junction box was placed on the outside of the house, and the Romex for the driveway light was tucked under the siding. That’s a project for another day.
The carport light is a nice dual-bright fixture, but it was wobbly and didn’t match the other fixture.
I picked up a matched set of sharp black wall motion-sensor sconces with seeded glass. They’re not dual-bright (i.e., the light is dimly on all night long, and then brightens up when it senses motion), but they’ll do.
Portfolio 11.5-in H Black Motion Activated Outdoor Wall Light
The junction box tacked onto the outside of the house will be a project for a different day. The hanging wire gets hidden behind the batten and then drapes loosely underneath the front door before disappearing into the dirt to power the driveway light. (Ten guesses why this circuit has a habit of tripping when it rains heavily. Related: Solar Driveway Light)
Hall Light (Part 2)
[Prior Post: Hall Light (Part 1)] After searching around for a while, I decided that I needed a light that would stretch down the length of the hallway a little better than a single pendant, but still only require one electrical mounting point. I tried a few different models, including an ill-fated attempt at track lighting. This one seems to do the trick, although I’m not so in love with it that I won’t keep my eyes out for something else.
23 Trees and Hopefully Done Counting
First there was the small birch just behind the shed that leaned at a 45-degree angle right through where I was installing my fence.
Then there was the dead tree that had been strangled by wire.
Then there was the tree that fell on my fence during the Thanksgiving 2014 snow storm. It became one of the 18 trees I had removed earlier this year... I thought I was done.
Nope.
This fir was one of three in a small stand, so of course when it toppled in a wind storm (core rot), I didn't like the bare look of the two remaining, which probably also had core rot.
The advantage is that I now see a lot more sky when I sit on my deck and look at the stars. And my vegetable garden will get more sun.
Bird Feeders
Miss Sadie, Protector of the Realm, Defender of the Bird Feeder, and Chaser of Squirrels
Guest Bathroom
A quickie makeover with fresh paint and peel-and-stick tile flooring.
I decided to give the guest bathroom a quickie makeover.
I was never really a fan of the speckled blue tile, so I jumped at the bargain bin floor tiles when I found them at Home Depot. I laid out all the full-size tiles, and managed to make a few straight cuts with scissors. I'm ready to upgrade to an exacto knife. My biggest challenge so far has been determining what line to use to define "straight". Nothing is perfectly square, so i figured I'd start with the angle you see first when you walk in.
I also picked a few paint samples. I went with the medium gray, since the dark gray looked too dark when backlit by the window.
18 Bags of Poop
A big steaming load for my new flower garden.
Well, manure. I loaded up the front garden with dark black yummy compost soil, rather than more mulch. It already has too much wood debris from the stump grinding... I figured this would be better for the plants. Now I should probably Preen the crap out of it.
Before
After
Basement Shelves
Installing shelving just inside the basement means that everything is close at hand for outdoor entertaining.
Wisteria
Adorning my front garden with the lovely and fragrant wisteria.
The catalog image... but of course, it doesn't look like this when it arrives.
I wanted to punch up my front garden bed... a small showy tree with fragrant flowers. Our neighborhood has plenty of lovely magnolia, cherry, and dogwood trees... I wanted something unique. Enter: Wisteria Longissima Alba Tree Form.
A few weeks later, I found myself planting what looked like a dead stick. (Am I being punked? Hey... look at the neighbor watering her pet stick!)
But sure enough, signs of life emerged, and now I have a fuzzy green tree living in my front garden.
My baby tree has arrived. (01-JUN-2017)
Dormant, not dead... so they tell me.
Signs of life! (24-JUN-2017)
One month after planting. (01-JUL-2017)
UPDATE: Crazy thing still doesn’t look like the catalog picture, but it is healthy and happy. Reminds me of a Chihuly sculpture. Sometimes it blows over in a harsh wind storm… not pulling the roots out, but just bending because the trunk is so flexible. I gave it a bigger stake and some tie-outs, and it seems to be staying put now. The rest of the garden is growing in nicely, too! (12-SEPT-2019)
UPDATE: First buds have appeared! I’m excited to see it bloom. (21-MAY-2020)
Garden Irrigation
Installing drip irrigation in the garden was like playing with Legos for grown-ups.
Doesn't this look like something you'd buy at Toys R Us? I'm totally into it. Each of my garden beds is now equipped with a series of small drippers to keep my plants hydrated without soaking the leaves. For now it's on a battery-operated timer, but when I install an irrigation system in the yard, this will tie into it and be its own zone.
Kitchen Drywall and Tile
After a suitable amount of procrastination, I got help with the drywall and tile. It's nice to no longer look at studs and a hole in the floor.
Over-sink Light
Using smart bulb technology to overcome bad wiring configurations.
The circuitry over the sink was wired in such a way that either a switch would control not just the sink light, but the Keurig and carport light (um, not happening), or the sink light would be on all the time. At least I can get around that with a smart bulb. Since smart bulbs aren't as stylish as the decorative ones out there, I picked an opaque sconce that would hide it.
As with the strips of under cabinet LED lights (installed when I changed my kitchen colors), the switch for this smart bulb is a Lutron Pico remote that sits right on top of the drywall.
Diggin' Dog
I added a special dirt-box to my yard so the girls have a place to get their digg on.
My girls Sadie & Maddox like to eat dirt. They find a really good patch of dark, organic, earthy goodness and bite right into the ground... it's pretty funny to watch. Their bowels are now part of the geologic process, pooping out little rocks.
The trouble is... I don't want holes in my lawn. I got this idea from my Aunt Betty when she lived out in Sequim, Washington. If your dogs have an insatiable urge to dig that can't be trained away, the next best thing is to give them an appropriate spot to sink their claws. Make it neatly edged, loaded with a mix of clean pool sand and yummy dirty organic topsoil, and be mindful (if it's near the fence, like mine) that they can't tunnel underneath. Throw in a few fun finds (Kongs, bones, etc) for your inquisitive friends to unearth. Every time they start to dig in an undesirable place (like under the barbecue), redirect them to the digging box and praise them when they start to dig there.
Mine is a simple 3x5' box made with pressure treated wood. (If your dogs chew on wood, you may opt for a non-PT option.)
The digging box sits at the edge of my yard, in the semi-circle of mulch designed for the dog agility equipment & other play things.
Happy girls going to town in their new digging box!
18 Trees
More sun, fewer acorns, and less scraggly dead junk.
I'm biting the bullet and having trees removed. EIGHTEEN trees. And the thing is... this won't even make a dent in the forested sanctuary of my back yard. The biggest difference will be to the front yard, where 4 out of the 5 trees will be removed.
I feel somewhat guilty about the oak... it is a nice tree. At least, it's nice until early November, when I start to curse its name. The leaves of my maples fall politely all at once, and I dedicate one afternoon to mulching them for my garden beds. The leaves on the oak, on the other hand, start falling around Halloween and continue to fall until March. And then there's all the other droppings... the tree is always pooping sticks onto my yard. It's also decorated with widow-makers: giant broken limbs hanging 60 feet up, just waiting for the perfect storm to knock them loose.
And then there's the ACORNS. Millions of them. The yard becomes like the ball pit at Ikea, if the balls were marbles with tiny sharp prongs that stab the bottoms of bare feet. I swear the squirrels throw them with force... my bedroom is a percussion instrument. I *!@%$* hate acorns.
Giant oak and three dying firs... these are on my top-ten list of trees to remove.
Then there are the scraggly ugly trees in the back yard that are irritating to mow around and add no beauty. There are a few crowded fir trees that are becoming weak and attracting carpenter ants... they're dead vertical fire starters. A couple others have made sport of dropping onto my fence.
Above: One of the black birches in a small stand decided to let go one winter storm. Just as well, since I keep having to rip out the root-runner babies.
Left: A storm in December 2014 snapped this leaning maple in half. I'm not sad to see them go, since its brother is bigger, and leaning farther onto my property. It worried me that someday they'd hurt more than just the fence.
Sadie surveys the wreckage.
Loam spread in the front yard.
The yard before, with 14 trees scheduled to be removed.
The yard after, with plenty of trees left.
Master Bedroom Light Switches
Perfect indoor project for a cold spring day... rewiring light switches! The old switches worked just fine, but I had to get out of bed (*groan*) to operate them.
These new switches are connected via wifi to a hub that I can operate from my phone... anywhere in the world. I know if future generations read this, they'll roll their eyes and wonder how humanity survived with such medieval technology. But for now, I think it's pretty cool.
Guest Bathroom Tweaks
Just a few updates... the bathroom previously had a bare bulb suspended in a rusting metal box. The new light and fan combo isn't sexy, but does the trick. The components are wired together, so I added a timer switch to turn the fan off after a short while.
For some reason, no one (including myself) can ever remember how to work the guest shower. (In fact, during the home buying inspection, the inspector, the agents, and everyone in the house failed at this... we had to call the seller.)
Simple solution: computer graphics and laminating plastic.
