The evolution of a garden

My wonderful wife has been wanting a garden to plant flowers and vegetables in since we moved in. We weren't sure where we wanted to put the garden though and it took our green thumb neighbor to come over and offer some advice and design tips on where it should go.

I created a plan in Google's SketchUp (that went through several iterations with the design approval committee). We started last year with a small inner square that was functional but wasn't the final look that we were going for. . .
Step #1 - Kill grass - Somewhat ironic after all the trouble we went through to actually get grass here.
By July of 2010, we had veggies and flowers. . .


This year, we enlarged the garden from 16' x 16' to 27' x 27'.
Purchase five tons of crushed Pennsylvania redstone, 300' of edging material, and add labor. Keeping the edging in place before the stone and dirt were added took over a hundred wood stakes.

How things are currently looking as of this rainy morning.

Front Landscaping

It's been a busy year for me professionally. I received a promotion in the summer of '09 which greatly increased the number of hours I work and consequently put a damper on projects around the house (as well as my blogging).
One of the things at the top of the list this year was to landscape the front of the house. I knew that I wouldn't have the time to do this job myself, consequently we wound up hiring a contractor to put in a walkway and retaining wall.
I gave the contractor some artistic license to define the shape of the walk, which is about 70' long. We gave him less license on the shape of the retaining wall, but he took some there too. . .
Once the hardscaping was done, we took over to create the flower beds. A portion of our septic system is right in the front yard, therefore the flower beds were designed to cover up all but one of system's various covers.
We then hit the nursery sales and got some great deals on plants and shrubs due to the fall closeout sales. With the plants in, mulching was next. Due to 20 cubic yards of mulch required, I rented a Bob-cat to spread the mulch around. My back was happy I did.

The landscape supply house had some great straw netting which is really helping our grass get established.

End of Summer - sigh. . .

Well, it's been a busy summer. I received a temporary promotion about the same time as I installed the kitchen faucet. Shortly after my temporary stint ended, I received a permanent promotion. Consequently, the amount of free time has drastically been reduced. But the summer has not been without it's projects.

The grass growing project went well. We didn't lose any topsoil thanks to the mesh/straw material we purchased at Lowes. I still have some work to do this fall to overseed some small bare areas.
I also finished off the dining room moulding project. It turned into more work than I was anticipating and it didn't help that after painting the walls high gloss, I painted the trim with flat. Grabbed the wrong can of paint and wound up finishing the repainting 15 minutes before company stopped by. Still want to install some crown moulding.

We also just painted my youngest's bedroom. Very girly pink. We're still trying to figure out what to put above the bed.
In addition, she repainted her desk with a slightly pink white. New desk hardware.
This swag light, which was a gift to my daughter from my sister, meant running new wiring through the attic.

More to follow. . .

Our summer vacation

Simply put, our vacation in the Adirondacks was one of the best vacations we've had. The house we rented was beautiful. Three boats on a lake, gourmet kitchen, hiking, fishing. . . It was a very restful time and was the opposite of our on-the-go Disney vacation.

Sometimes it's the little things. . .

My wife had been asking for a new kitchen sink faucet. The faucet that the builder installed, while fine, lacked a sprayer. So for her birthday, I surprised her with a new faucet. Saturday was the day to install it. Removing the old model was simple enough. However I realized that the connections on the new faucet were not in the same location as the old faucet, which meant that I would have to modify the plumbing. Our house has PEX tubing and initially I thought I would have to get an expensive crimping tool. Fortunately Home Depot had special connectors for PEX tubing which doesn't require any special tools.

It's great when a job goes smoothly and quickly.

Yesterday's other task was to reprogram the ceiling fan in the family room. The fan and it's remote control both have several jumpers that can be removed to make them unique to other fans in the area. When I had installed the fan, I had thought that changing the jumpers was unnecessary since our neighbors were far enough away. Unfortunately, the fan started turning itself on by itself. I had to unhang the fan to get to the control module in the ceiling which was a heavy task. Fortunately the fan hasn't started on it's own since then. Woo hoo!

Haulin' some dirt

We had a neighbor in the landscaping business deliver six cubic yards of dirt several weeks ago. Unfortunately, it's been raining regularly here which has been hampering outside work. About half of the dirt was put in the front yard and the other half went in the back.

I have a small utility trailer for my riding mower which works out great to move the dirt. Unfortunately the dirt delivery guy dumped the dirt in the wrong spot which meant that not only did we have to move it further but it wound up on the an area that actually had grass. Oh well.
My wife and I both feel that we could get sixty yards of dirt and cover the whole front yard and still not be done. Our soil has a lot of clay which gets really hard during the summer months. I have no plans to get more dirt this year though. Our main goal is to get grass growing in the major erosion areas and work the small sections later. If I can eliminate some of the clover and thistle in the yard, that will be a plus.

After we spread the soil around, we rolled out erosion control mats over the new soil and seed. The mats come in 4' x 50' rolls and have straw wound in with the netting. We wound up needing twelve rolls for the front and back.

Some of the first sections we did are showing signs of grass growing which is good to see. Both my wife and I have black thumbs, so anything green is a blessing.

For the sake of free flowers

One of our neighbors gave us some day lilies. The only problem is that we don't have any flower beds right now. My wife thought it would be nice to create a small bed around the mailbox. What turned into a simple job turned into a headache when I started to turn the soil over. Two inches below the soil was a foot of crushed rock for the road. Back to Lowes for more bags of soil. What was going to be a quick project turned into a half day affair.

The first major project for this year is establishing a lawn in the front. Our developer last year graded and seeded on May 27th. Twelve hours after they did this, a major thunderstorm rolled through and washed most of the seed and a good portion of the topsoil. We've got large ruts that have exposed rocks and hard soil that won't take seed. While we spread soil and reseeded last fall, it didn't take. Six cubic yards of soil are coming to fill in the washed out areas in the front and back later this week. I'm also going to use a large roll of landscape fabric to try to limit the amount of washout.

To get an idea of just how much water flows through our yard during a rainstorm, watch this video.

I recently received a temporary promotion at work. Just after getting done with long hours there due to a special project, I'm back at it again. While I'm excited about this new position, the longer hours it brings is going to severely limit the amount of stuff I can get done during the weekday evenings.

Busy, busy, busy

Sorry for not updating my blog lately. Over the last two and a half weeks, I've worked over 200 hours at work. It's been crazy and exhausting. Fortunately, things will be slowing down soon and I'll be able to get back to some sense of normalcy. My son and I made it down to a pre-season Phillies game last Saturday (where they lost) on my day off. Go Phillies!

Projects that are underway:

Dining room moulding - I've cut all the moulding to the proper lengths the other weekend. There are 96 individual rails and stiles that will form the faux panels. Once I get back to normal life, I plan on jumping back into this and finishing this project.

New projects:

Outside - Preparing a garden for my wife.

Trying to grow grass and kill weeds, particularly thistle. Thistle is a noxious weed in our lawn that is keeping us from walking barefoot out back. I'm declaring war.

Installing an invisible dog fence. I'm going to need a quarter mile of wiring!! yikes. . .

We just started the process of refinancing our mortgage. My new rate is 1% lower than my present rate, which will result in some substantial savings to my pocketbook once done.

Updates soon, I promise. . .

Progress, finally

This past weekend, we picked up where we left off, getting my eldest daughters bedroom painted. I tried out Lowe's Valspar paint and was very pleased with the results which was in stark contrast to Home Depot's Behr paint that we used in the half bath. I don't think the picture accurately reflects the paint color and we are hard pressed to give the color a name. It's not yellow, it's not tan, it's not quite gold. Sherwin Williams calls it Cupola Yellow, so we'll stick with that.

We have more work to do in here however. We're going to move the bookcase and headboards out as they don't go with a sixteen year olds room. I made the headboards and bookcase, so sentimentality dictates that we'll hang onto them. I'll replace the bookcase with a simple night table and taller lamp. After I have the table, we'll hang the artwork. My wife is also going to make some curtains.

We've been debating about what projects to tackle this summer. Part of the reason that the work slowed off during the winter is that our basement is so cold due to no insulation. I'm kicking around whether I want to stud it out and insulate.

Sickness strikes

The day after my last blog entry, everyone in my house except me got sick. The flu, strep throat, bronchitis. It's been general hospital here so projects have once again taken a back seat. Fortunately, everyone is on the mend. We have a pullout sofa bed in the family room that when someone is sick, the tradition has been to pull out the bed. It's been open since last Tuesday. I'll be glad when it is folded back up.

Our garage door opener died when it tried to open while being iced shut. Apparently snow that was on the cars melted, then refroze when it hit the outside air. Repair parts are on the way.

New Painting Project

We started a quick project this past weekend, which is painting my eldest daughters bedroom. The room is pretty small for the two twin beds we have in it, so to get everything away from the walls, we had to push everything into the middle.  I wound up finding a number of screw pops in this room that needed spackling, so between that and my son's basketball game, it wound up being a preparatory weekend.  We're planning on working the painting several evenings this week.

Vacation - check. Wood trim for dining room - check.

Well, we've solved our vacation problem.  After trying to find a beach vacation on the east coast, we changed our direction and instead have rented a waterfront camp in the Adirondacks for a week this summer.  

The camp is about two and a half hours north of where we used to live.  We spent many weekends in the Adirondacks hiking and camping when we lived in New York.  We are all looking forward to returning to a place that holds a special place in our hearts.

The camp is 8 years old and comes with a canoe, row boat, and a small sailboat.

In other home improvement news, I just received the picture frame moulding for the dining room . . . All 210 feet of it.  The trim work will start in a couple of days.

Getting back to work soon

We've been sluggards round these parts lately and I haven't been doing any projects.  That's about to change however as I special ordered my trim for the dining room project.  It should be in in about a week.

Right now we're entertaining friends from NY who will be here through the weekend.  Hopefully my trim will be in by next weekend, so stop back in a week.

Vacations anyone?

There's been no work going on here at our house lately, hence no blogging.  We just de-decorated the house this past Tuesday and I'm feeling like I need to get back to work.  .  .

I've been trying to figure out the family vacation for this year.  We sorta want to do a beach vacation, but finding the perfect place has been eluding me so far.  I totally get people who go to the same place every year.

Back to Work

We wrapped up painting the half bath this past Saturday and put the bathroom back together on Sunday.  Home Depot's Behr paint was very very thick, similar to the consistency of maple syrup and didn't go on very smoothly.  We'll try Lowe's next time.  

We received the mirror as a Christmas present which replaced a builder's grade oval mirror.  

The new exhaust fan is extremely quiet.

Nothing too exciting, but we're on the one room at a time phase at this point.  I've gotta get out to the store to purchase the moulding for the dining room soon.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year.

I've had the week off from work and have generally putzed around the house.  My wife and daughters have been fighting a cold this past week, which has limited our mobility.

Today I started prepping the half bath to be painted tomorrow.  There were eighteen nail pops that needed to be spackled which is kinda high.  Some probably didn't need to be fixed, but when I saw several obvious ones, I got out the flashlight and went to work.

In between coats of spackling, I also replaced the bathroom's exhaust fan.  The fan that the builder installed was extremely loud and would wake us up if it was running as it is below our bedroom.  The new one is nice and quiet.

I've also been starting to think about what I want to do with the basement.  I don't have a workshop right now, just an area where I have my workbenches and tools laying out.  The basement walls have no insulation and consequently it gets pretty cold down there.  Getting some studs and insulation up on the walls will warm things up, however I'm still in the mulling phase of this project and am not sure I'm happy with what I've come up with so far.

Merry Christmas!

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

From my family to yours, may you have a wonderful and blessed Christmas!

Tis' the season

I haven't been blogging recently because I haven't been working on the house and life has been busy. That being said, I thought I'd take a minute to keep things current.

Thanksgiving went extremely well. We wound up having twelve people over between my wife's family and some neighbors. The dining room was back in shape.

The day after Thanksgiving, we went and purchased our Christmas tree and decorated the house. Nothing makes a house feel like a home like Christmas decorations.
The first Monday after Thanksgiving is deer season in Pennsylvania. My nephew went for the first time with my Dad and I to hunt land in central PA. We had a great, albeit cold, time hunting the elusive whitetail. This was the first time in 13 years that I hunted with my dad. Unfortunately, we're eating pasta this year because one of us missed a shot. I won't say who, but my nephew was carrying around an empty shell casing afterwards. . . 

This past Saturday, my wife's entire family traveled three hours west to meet up with extended family from Ohio at a Bed and Breakfast. We exchanged presents, ate a lot, and had a good time catching up. My sister in law gave me a Porter Cable pin nailer to work the moulding in the dining room!

Coming home from this trip, another snowflake shut the roads down. I miss upstate NY.