Right after my last post, I got fed up with myself and got off my butt (I didn't stop eating bacon though. I might try to survive on watermelon, sweet tea, and bacon this summer. So far, so good.)
I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing this --->
And starting on the garden. Our buddies that we went halfsies on a tiller with last summer aren't doing a garden this year, and they're the ones with the truck to go get the tiller - so we didn't bother with a tiller. Instead, I did it the old fashioned way. And for whatever reason, I loved doing it. I threw on some booty shorts to encourage my legs not to be so embarrassing (I loooove having a private back yard), grabbed a shovel, and dug up dirt in all my free time last week. We live in a river bed, so there were a lot of rocks along the way. I've been needing some to finish another project so I enlisted the girls to pick them up as I dug them out. Every time I got a "big" rock out, Avery would exclaim "Elle, look, a big rock!" and they'd haul them over to the pool to get washed. Good little helpers.
Thursday, I finished turning the dirt and then took a metal rake to it to smooth out the big chunks. Some of the pictures are probably unnecessary, but I'm still digging our camera's capabilities, so bear with me.
I think what I am most proud of is that I did 95% of the work and Justin didn't have to worry about any of it. Now we just have to wait and see if anything grows. And I have my doubts. My friend Emily just wrote about her garden and mentioned how she has a hard time keeping flowers alive - well, Em, I relate. Neither one of my thumbs is green. So I'm a little nervous about what kind of harvest we'll have.
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I might pick up some popsicle sticks to make little signs for each plant. Speaking of which, for anyone wondering, we planted: corn, green onions, carrots, radishes, cucumbers, green beans, spinach, swiss chard, anaheims, jalepenos (if anyone knows how to type "enye" in blogger, fill me in), one big beef tomato, two roma tomatoes, and zucchini. A month ago, I did some pepper starters - jalepeno, sweet peppers, and hot peppers. Avery helped me; we did 3 of each and put them upstairs in the bonus room where there's lots of sun. A couple of hours later, Elle dumped them all on the floor. It was really cool. So I did it again, and have been careful to keep them out of little girls' reaches. Only 2 sprouted - 2 of the sweet peppers. (I'd like to blame it on the 3-year old, but she didn't help me the second time.) So once those get a bit bigger, we'll get those outside, too.
Some of the dug-up rocks got painted and used for this -->
And some got used as the garden's border and for individual borders around each plant's area. We also filled in our fire pit and used its rocks to border the garden. I picked up a fire bowl on Black Friday that we'll use instead.
In April, we finished the garage project. I wish I would have blogged about this at the time, so you could feel the relief and excitement that we felt. Some of the "befores" look like an episode of hoarders. It did sometimes look better during the last year, but it was definitely culminating to its worst condition yet. Don't judge us. We had to wait until Justin had tools to build some proper shelving.
Justin got to relive the excitement last weekend, because on top of all of our other TCBin', on Friday night and throughout the rest of the weekend, he sanded down that door I got from Cat Crap Antiques a few months ago. He took the lap top out to his new man counter and listened to Pandora while he worked. How awesome is that? He did all the hard work, now I get to do the fun part. So maybe by this time next month, we'll have another completed project on the front room wall. Maybe. The garage still needs some bits of organization covered, but we can walk through it now, and find a screw driver when we need one, so we're satisfied.
About the front room - it's coming along slowly. I've done a couple of small things. That door is really going to be the big, main piece in there. Because that's not finished and I want everything else to tie into it, I've had a hard time doing much else in there. Some of you have asked for pictures of the furniture, but I want to wait until the whole room is more complete before I show you. On our list of projects is some kind of hall tree, and I still need to nab a piano, which will be another big project because of course I'll have to paint it. So it'll be a while before the entire thing gets wrapped up.
I know everyone's been on the edge of their seats about the gopher situation. You'll be happy to know that he seems to be gone. I don't know if a neighbor cat ate it or if it just got annoyed with Justin's antics, bit his absence is awesome, because Justin has time for things like sanding that old door and mowing the lawn now.
Still to come this summer: a sandbox, painting/wainscoting/decorating the half bath, replacing a window and some finish work around it, staining the fence, bunk beds...and more. We're going to be busy and broke. It's going to rock!
(Between taking/uploading/organizing pictures, and writing, and being interrupted by what I assume was a Jehovah's Witness, and lots of "Can I have a snack?", and editing, this post took over 2 hours. BLOGGING! However, thank you for the comments on the last post. I feel encouraged.)
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I picked this headboard up at a "Swap
and Shop" that a local church did last
year (for freeee!) Thinking I'd paint it and
use it for our guest bed. But that kind of
headboard is obnoxious to lean against,
so we used it for garage shelving all year
until building real shelving, and then turned
it into this outside shelf. I think I might paint
over the words and just do more flowers, cause
eventually something (probably with words)
will get hung above here. This thing is pretty
handy though! I like having it out there for
sunscreen, hose nozzles, the sprinkler, side-
walk chalk, etc.
|
And starting on the garden. Our buddies that we went halfsies on a tiller with last summer aren't doing a garden this year, and they're the ones with the truck to go get the tiller - so we didn't bother with a tiller. Instead, I did it the old fashioned way. And for whatever reason, I loved doing it. I threw on some booty shorts to encourage my legs not to be so embarrassing (I loooove having a private back yard), grabbed a shovel, and dug up dirt in all my free time last week. We live in a river bed, so there were a lot of rocks along the way. I've been needing some to finish another project so I enlisted the girls to pick them up as I dug them out. Every time I got a "big" rock out, Avery would exclaim "Elle, look, a big rock!" and they'd haul them over to the pool to get washed. Good little helpers.
Thursday, I finished turning the dirt and then took a metal rake to it to smooth out the big chunks. Some of the pictures are probably unnecessary, but I'm still digging our camera's capabilities, so bear with me.
Saturday, we (went garage saling, of course, and) did yard work. I planted most of the garden while Justin mowed and weed-eated. I think once things start growing, I'll be more excited, but the planting part of gardening is not my favorite. For whatever reason, focusing on how deep to sow the seeds, how much space between rows, strategizing on which things should go where - I'm just not good at it and it was sort of overwhelming for me. I should have just switched Justin chores, but I hardly had any hand in the garden last summer, so I wanted to contribute this time.
 |
| Dirt turned over |
 |
| Dirt turned over, up close (this is where the photo overage starts) |
 |
| Raked over |
 |
| Raked over up close |
 |
Planted. You might notice that before this photo, there was a
patch of green onions that we never tore out last fall. I wanted
to keep them but Justin insisted that they'd be too tough, so I
tore them out right before planting new ones.
|
.JPG)
I might pick up some popsicle sticks to make little signs for each plant. Speaking of which, for anyone wondering, we planted: corn, green onions, carrots, radishes, cucumbers, green beans, spinach, swiss chard, anaheims, jalepenos (if anyone knows how to type "enye" in blogger, fill me in), one big beef tomato, two roma tomatoes, and zucchini. A month ago, I did some pepper starters - jalepeno, sweet peppers, and hot peppers. Avery helped me; we did 3 of each and put them upstairs in the bonus room where there's lots of sun. A couple of hours later, Elle dumped them all on the floor. It was really cool. So I did it again, and have been careful to keep them out of little girls' reaches. Only 2 sprouted - 2 of the sweet peppers. (I'd like to blame it on the 3-year old, but she didn't help me the second time.) So once those get a bit bigger, we'll get those outside, too. |
This pot came from that same Swap and
Shop that I got the headboard from. It had
a fake tree in it and the pot was a brushed
bronze color. I spray painted it (not very well)
and tried to put flowers in it. Twice. They died
quickly (twice.) This is my solution. The pot
needs a redo, I think.
|
And some got used as the garden's border and for individual borders around each plant's area. We also filled in our fire pit and used its rocks to border the garden. I picked up a fire bowl on Black Friday that we'll use instead.
In April, we finished the garage project. I wish I would have blogged about this at the time, so you could feel the relief and excitement that we felt. Some of the "befores" look like an episode of hoarders. It did sometimes look better during the last year, but it was definitely culminating to its worst condition yet. Don't judge us. We had to wait until Justin had tools to build some proper shelving.
Here's where it gets better.
 |
| Some random garage sale finds laying out - will be finished projects soon. |
Justin got to relive the excitement last weekend, because on top of all of our other TCBin', on Friday night and throughout the rest of the weekend, he sanded down that door I got from Cat Crap Antiques a few months ago. He took the lap top out to his new man counter and listened to Pandora while he worked. How awesome is that? He did all the hard work, now I get to do the fun part. So maybe by this time next month, we'll have another completed project on the front room wall. Maybe. The garage still needs some bits of organization covered, but we can walk through it now, and find a screw driver when we need one, so we're satisfied.
About the front room - it's coming along slowly. I've done a couple of small things. That door is really going to be the big, main piece in there. Because that's not finished and I want everything else to tie into it, I've had a hard time doing much else in there. Some of you have asked for pictures of the furniture, but I want to wait until the whole room is more complete before I show you. On our list of projects is some kind of hall tree, and I still need to nab a piano, which will be another big project because of course I'll have to paint it. So it'll be a while before the entire thing gets wrapped up.
I know everyone's been on the edge of their seats about the gopher situation. You'll be happy to know that he seems to be gone. I don't know if a neighbor cat ate it or if it just got annoyed with Justin's antics, bit his absence is awesome, because Justin has time for things like sanding that old door and mowing the lawn now.
Still to come this summer: a sandbox, painting/wainscoting/decorating the half bath, replacing a window and some finish work around it, staining the fence, bunk beds...and more. We're going to be busy and broke. It's going to rock!
(Between taking/uploading/organizing pictures, and writing, and being interrupted by what I assume was a Jehovah's Witness, and lots of "Can I have a snack?", and editing, this post took over 2 hours. BLOGGING! However, thank you for the comments on the last post. I feel encouraged.)
