All the News That's Fit to Print!

I'm back! I promise I have a really good reason for being gone so long. It looks something like this:

 

Yep! A new addition to our family, due March 1. 

So I apologize for the break, but it's been crazy around here! On a good note for this blog, we have been doing some serious nesting! I made a pre-baby list and it looks something like this: 

• Finish stripping front window
• Finish trim in bedroom
• Paint trim in bedroom
• Finish unfinished side in pass-through
• Get porch floor down
• Paint the house
• Make curtains for bedroom and bedroom door
• Touch up paint in kitchen and bedroom

Check it out, we have some major progress! Last time y'all saw the exterior of the house, it looked something like this:

 

The back of the house, new siding and shingles, but unpainted. For the front of the house:

 

Well, this photo is a little dark, but true to life! I called this color "Cellblock 9". The bushes are overgrown but truly the color is depressing. The sideporch view:

 

Oh sexy, Cellblock Grey on top of Primer Grey. 

So, we finally found a painter and picked a color. (In the interest of complete honesty, we picked out a color, had two entire sides of the house painted, HATED it, picked a new color and had it repainted. Home renovation isn't for the faint of heart.) Without further ado...

Before:

AFTER!

Yes, we chose blue. Hamilton Blue by Benjamin Moore, Sugar Cookie for the trim. I know blue is kinda safe, but we tried to choose a non-pastel blue to go as bold as possible.

The front of the house BEFORE:

After!

 

Cell block gone! Yay!

Side porch BEFORE:

Side porch after!

Most notable in this photo is probably the Victorian shingles up above. Yes, they're original (112 years young!) and Cellblock Grey really wasn't doing anything for them. The new shingles on the back of the house got the same treatment.

We're SO happy with the color. The blue is perfect, not too bright but not boring. Not depressing! No more Cellblock! I love the way the trim works with the blue. This photo is a little blown out but isn't it sweet?

It is AMAZING what a new paint job can do for a house. It makes me happy every single time I walk up the front steps. Both the husband and I are happy to get it buttoned up before winter and it just feels like such a huge thing to cross off the list.

Here we go:

• Finish stripping front window
• Finish trim in bedroom
• Paint trim in bedroom
• Finish unfinished side in pass-through
• Do something with the nasty floor in pass-through
• Make dining room functional
• Get porch floor down
• Paint the house
• Make curtains for bedroom and bedroom door
• Touch up paint in kitchen and bedroom 

(I also did the touch-up paint but I won't bore you with the photos!)  Onwards to the next thing on the list! Yippee!

 

 

The Garden Progress!

Well, summer is definitely here!  The garden has been going in fits and spurts and I've been too busy to report.  But here it is, in all the I'm-still-an-intermediate-at-this-aren't-I glory.

My favorite development so far is that my fabulous husband hung the vintage fountain that I lugged home from my vacay in North Carolina.  This this a beaut and it looks just exactly as wonderful as I hoped it would!  I had fantasies of using it as an ice bucket for parties, so of course the hubby made all my dreams come true.

Squee!  So happy.

The roses actually grew!  I planted four bare root roses and they all grew.  The Nicole rose got the worst spot in the yard, but is somehow flourishing!

They look beautiful as cut flowers too, my favorite way to arrange them is just a couple in a tea cup!

The Peace rose was the last to bloom, but it made some gorgeous blooms and is now in its second set of blossoms of the year.

Look at that color.  I feel like such a pro.  I don't have any great pics of the Joseph's Coat or the Dreams Come True yet, but they have each made some blooms.  The Joseph's Coat seems to wimp out against the heat, but the Dreams Come True reminds me of my grandmother.  Petite, controlled and well-organized blossoms only!

The front bed had some ups and downs.  The snapdragons grew HUGE and luscious:

Huge.  Everyone said they were the largest snapdragons they had ever seen.  The front bed shaped up nicely in spring.  The snapdragons did exactly what I had hoped the hollyhock seeds would do (#fail, not a single one came up), and covered up the fence nicely.  Edging closer to my english-garden-cottage ideal, non? 

Nicole rose back there in the corner, snapdragons, purple love-in-a-mist, blue delphinium and white alyssum.  But as summer wore on, I wanted to let the snapdragons self-seed, but they got yellowish and reedy.  What to do??  I'm now attempting some mid-summer additions to help camoflage.

Added a dahlia in front of Nicole, and I don't know what these colorful annuals are, but they're gorgeous.  Got them at the QFC while shopping for dinner and I could only carry two, but clearly I need more!  Go mystery plants, go! 

Also, the hollyhock that I made my husband drag back from Whidbey Island for me is looking beautiful.  Double hollyhocks in the palest peach.  So pretty!

 

Yum.  Don't stop now, hollyhocks.

 

They're like ballerinas made into flowers!

I've really been crossing my fingers for some dahlias and so far we have two!

We have two more starting to bloom, a pompom style purple one and one that I hope will turn into a giant peachy-yellow one.  I'm practically getting out my pompoms to cheer them on.

Lastly, but most importantly, we grew some of the absolute harbingers of summer:

 

I KNOW.  Shut up.  I grew that in dirt.  It grew while I was away on business and when I came home my husband brought it to me in one of our sterling silver nut dishes.  (Because we are the oldest young people I know and we own stuff like that.)  But look at that photo.  Yay for July and all the good things that come out of gardens.  Including moments like this:

 Thanks garden!!

Peonies of Amazingness

Holy cats, Batman!  Peonies have invaded my little corner of the earth and I couldn't be happier if I were twins.  I'm going to bore you to death with the following photos.  Just sit back and let the pale pink fabulousness wash over you.

I GREW that.  In dirt!

In the evening:

And in the morning:

The bed is resplendent in these beauties:

The one below is my favorite.  It was from root stock from the peonies used at our wedding.  It's called True Love, naturally.

Squee!  I'm like a proud parent.

The entire garden is looking charming and peaceful in the evenings:

And even after rain they are so beautiful.

It's just some grass and some blue chairs:

But it's home.

Hope you're all finding beauty in your corners of the world.

Spring Slides into Summer

This is the blog post where I should be talking about the garden but probably I'll wind up talking about how amazing one's social life can be when it is nice out!

Minor improvements have been happening all over the garden.  Like this schlubby patch of weeds underneath this ancient honeysuckle vine:

 

Added some compost and some low plants and voila:

 A slightly less schlubby bed. 

And these rosemary topiaries in their uggo red and green pots from Christmas?

Finally transferred those guys into some real pots!

(Ignore the porch flotsam, it was a long weekend of working hard.)  I realize this is incremental progress, but that's how it seems to roll with the garden tasks. 

While I'm definitely learning to appreciate gardening for gardening's sake, I still mostly do it for moments like this one:

A lovely spring evening.  Or this one:

 A great dinner with hilarious friends.

We've been enjoying spring all over the city, not just in our backyard.  There's not a lot to report on the homefront because we've been busy making pictures like these happen:

Croquet in the park! 

And the ever popular Madras Monday:

Complete with gin and tonics... in the park!  (Only minorly illegal!)

This month feeling very lucky to live in such a beautiful city.  Raise your glasses to spring into summer!

Classy, or Trashy??

This is the blog post that could be otherwise titled "creativity". I spend all day harnessing my creativity for my projects at work, and I often forget to apply that on the homefront. Sometimes there is a project on your list that bothers you.  The elephant in the room. Sometimes it's right in the middle of your living room! But the effort it would take to finish it correctly means that it will get done at some point during the next ice age.  It was time to remember that when life hands you lemons, you should make a cocktail!

Our living room is shaping up nicely:

We actually got drywall and paint up on that last bare wall, we found some china storage, all good things...until you turn around...

Blam!  Unfinished-tastic.  This pass through used to have a door covering up the below-stairs area.  The husband tore it off and threw it away when he put in the new floor in this area.  Yay for no more crappy door.  Boo for a gaping hole and ugliness.

The bare studs are hein and from the far side you have my favorite, jagged drywall. 

Pretty sure everyone on Apartment Therapy is a week away from embracing jagged drywall as the latest trend.  Yeah, you saw it here first.  Feel free to pin this last picture, you know you want to.

I started brainstorming (with myself, ahhh the skills of an only child) about how to cover the door and the ugly ceiling area.  What do I have in abundance?  Shoes, sass, back issues of Domino, and fabric.  Lots and lots of fabric. Cue the lightbulb.

I started with a piece of fabric a friend lent to me that I think started out as a bedsheet.  A few thumbtacks later, and voila!  A door/curtain!

Next up, I cut a rectangular piece of ecru canvas.  I tucked the edges under all around and stuck that sucker to where the ceiling would be if we were normal people who didn't like it to rain 100 year old dust on us all the time.

 

Practically looks like drywall!  OK, only if you squint, but hey, it's like a Monet?  I haven't figured out how to get around the rough drywall edges yet but it already looks better from the far side:

 And from the near side?  Before and after!

I can't decide if this is the best idea I've ever had, or if Martha is rolling over in her grave with the trashiness.  Either way, not having ancient dust bunnies divebombing us is the jam so I don't regret it, even if it is only temporary.  You get to vote, classy or trashy??  Can we get away with it for a couple months?