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Showing posts with label Construction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Construction. Show all posts
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Herb Garden Photo~
Cinder Blocks and June Bugs~
We were being lazy on the couch watching Ty Pennington make over houses when I became obsessed with the idea of a cinder block herb garden. As usual, it didn't begin as an obsession. It began as a background shot of a garden wall leading into the house. It wasn't even a main shot or something that Ty pointed out or something the houseowner gasped at...it was somewhere behind what the camera was actually filming. And I didn't immediately want it, I just immediately liked it and was intrigued by it. I mentioned to Jack how cool it looked and he agreed. Then I went home and began to plan. Did I mention it is the dead of winter?
So when I went home, I began by googling cinder block gardens. As always, I needed all the information that my nerdy little heart could find before I planned my own totally better garden. I hit gardening websites and forums and pictures...and I continued to hit them for hours. By the time I feel asleep with my laptop in my...well, lap...I had plenty of information. The next day I made pen and pencil blueprint drawings of different layouts after researching block dimensions. I redrew them over and over, figuring out the best diagram to use for maximum planting while still being pretty. I researched all the different herbs that I would realistically use and found out which of those would grow best in a container garden. Then I created a corresponding map of planting spots, showing exactly which herb would be in each hole. I finished up by summarizing all my diagrams and maps into a shopping list of plants and block so that I could easily amass all the necessary items. Then I showed it to Jack.
This is what I love about Jack. Well, part of what I love about Jack. He didn't laugh, he didn't roll his eyes, he didn't mention the fact that it was five months too early or that I am not a very accomplished block layer or that he has seen me cook with fresh herbs roughly zero times since we began dating. He said he thought we could do it. And last week....we did. And it looks absolutely awesome. And that is me being modest. It really looks even better than that. I will post pictures so you can see for yourself. So check them out and brace yourself for gardening adventure blog postings.
***UPDATE***
Even before I posted this, I had a gardening adventure! Not a great one. Word of advice - when planting an herb garden, do NOT plant directly under a super bright yard light that is activated automatically at dusk and that will attract thousands of June bugs from every direction. If you do...I promise that about twenty of these June bugs a night will commit suicide by flying directly into it, thus leaving gross beetle corpses mingling in your strawberries and rosemary. Yucky.
So when I went home, I began by googling cinder block gardens. As always, I needed all the information that my nerdy little heart could find before I planned my own totally better garden. I hit gardening websites and forums and pictures...and I continued to hit them for hours. By the time I feel asleep with my laptop in my...well, lap...I had plenty of information. The next day I made pen and pencil blueprint drawings of different layouts after researching block dimensions. I redrew them over and over, figuring out the best diagram to use for maximum planting while still being pretty. I researched all the different herbs that I would realistically use and found out which of those would grow best in a container garden. Then I created a corresponding map of planting spots, showing exactly which herb would be in each hole. I finished up by summarizing all my diagrams and maps into a shopping list of plants and block so that I could easily amass all the necessary items. Then I showed it to Jack.
This is what I love about Jack. Well, part of what I love about Jack. He didn't laugh, he didn't roll his eyes, he didn't mention the fact that it was five months too early or that I am not a very accomplished block layer or that he has seen me cook with fresh herbs roughly zero times since we began dating. He said he thought we could do it. And last week....we did. And it looks absolutely awesome. And that is me being modest. It really looks even better than that. I will post pictures so you can see for yourself. So check them out and brace yourself for gardening adventure blog postings.
***UPDATE***
Even before I posted this, I had a gardening adventure! Not a great one. Word of advice - when planting an herb garden, do NOT plant directly under a super bright yard light that is activated automatically at dusk and that will attract thousands of June bugs from every direction. If you do...I promise that about twenty of these June bugs a night will commit suicide by flying directly into it, thus leaving gross beetle corpses mingling in your strawberries and rosemary. Yucky.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Angry Sunflowers~
So I told Jack the next project was at his house. I even specified that it should be his bedroom. We vaguely discussed colors and ideas and then a few days later......WHAM! A gallon of paint, a new border, and a package of rollers are there. Already. Jack is very project focused. I should keep this in mind for the future and make sure to only mention something if I want to spend my next weekend actually doing it. Lesson learned.
In all actuality, I don't mind the bedroom project. One - because it is a relatively easy project and Two - the sunflowers were out to get me. Let me explain.
Jack has done some type of work to almost every room in his house. His bedroom is the glaring omission. I don't know if it is a boy thing and he doesn't appreciate the wonder of a bedroom sanctuary or if it is just that no one sees it so why bother, but the bedroom was just left to its own devices. Which meant that about three quarters of it was bordered with these very aggressive sunflowers. Now I have nothing against actual sunflowers, but these ones are big and bright and angry looking. I know that sounds weird- but these sunflowers are right in your face with all their ugliness, daring you to say something. They are rogue, bully sunflowers that have been around since 1982 silently glaring off that wall in mute protest of the endof Milli Vanilli. They need to die. So I will happily be digging out my painting clothes again today and murdering sunflowers.
They will be replaced by pinecones that at first glance appear much more peaceful. I take no responsibility for the pinecones, Jack picked them out all on his own. Because he deprived me of shopping for borders with him and just did the boy thing and went out and bought one at the first store he went to, I am withholding judgement and/or approval until I see it on the wall. I can't endorse something I did not specifically organize or pick out. It is against control freak dogma. So if you thought the home repair blogging was at an end because my floor was done.....no fear, there is lots more to come.
In all actuality, I don't mind the bedroom project. One - because it is a relatively easy project and Two - the sunflowers were out to get me. Let me explain.
Jack has done some type of work to almost every room in his house. His bedroom is the glaring omission. I don't know if it is a boy thing and he doesn't appreciate the wonder of a bedroom sanctuary or if it is just that no one sees it so why bother, but the bedroom was just left to its own devices. Which meant that about three quarters of it was bordered with these very aggressive sunflowers. Now I have nothing against actual sunflowers, but these ones are big and bright and angry looking. I know that sounds weird- but these sunflowers are right in your face with all their ugliness, daring you to say something. They are rogue, bully sunflowers that have been around since 1982 silently glaring off that wall in mute protest of the endof Milli Vanilli. They need to die. So I will happily be digging out my painting clothes again today and murdering sunflowers.
They will be replaced by pinecones that at first glance appear much more peaceful. I take no responsibility for the pinecones, Jack picked them out all on his own. Because he deprived me of shopping for borders with him and just did the boy thing and went out and bought one at the first store he went to, I am withholding judgement and/or approval until I see it on the wall. I can't endorse something I did not specifically organize or pick out. It is against control freak dogma. So if you thought the home repair blogging was at an end because my floor was done.....no fear, there is lots more to come.
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Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Floor Plans: The Last Frontier
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Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Floor Plans 3
The saga continues....
So once I had established that my floor was more work than one woman could handle, I did the sensible thing and appealed to my handy boyfriend to help bail me out. He was glad to help (I think he is secretly thrilled to have a project to play with, but that could be my imagination) and has vast more amounts of knowledge in this arena than I do. Here is the only thing...
When you ask someone to help you that actually knows the right way to do something - all of a sudden there are many more steps to a project. And by many more steps, I obviously mean more work. Doh. Unexpected physical labor. Oops.
So what I thought was a quick sand 'em up, slap on a coat of poly job now has evolved. Jack convinced me I needed to pull off baseboards, then I had to repaint them - which meant unearthing old cans of dusty paint. Which then lead to painting the bottom edge of the wall where it wasn't painted. Now I feel like since I have the room empty and the paint out I might as well fix the stripes on wall that have needed touch ups since right after I moved in, so I spent my morning taping off stripes. This afternoon I will be filling in cracks with wood putty and hopefully rocking out one of the stripe colors on the wall. Tonight after Jack joins me we have an hour of sanding to do and a coat of stain. Tomorrow another coat of stain, more stripe painting, and reapplying baseboards. I would like to believe that is it, but I am not getting my hopes up. Hopefully I can have furniture back in there by the weekend. Pray for me.
So once I had established that my floor was more work than one woman could handle, I did the sensible thing and appealed to my handy boyfriend to help bail me out. He was glad to help (I think he is secretly thrilled to have a project to play with, but that could be my imagination) and has vast more amounts of knowledge in this arena than I do. Here is the only thing...
When you ask someone to help you that actually knows the right way to do something - all of a sudden there are many more steps to a project. And by many more steps, I obviously mean more work. Doh. Unexpected physical labor. Oops.
So what I thought was a quick sand 'em up, slap on a coat of poly job now has evolved. Jack convinced me I needed to pull off baseboards, then I had to repaint them - which meant unearthing old cans of dusty paint. Which then lead to painting the bottom edge of the wall where it wasn't painted. Now I feel like since I have the room empty and the paint out I might as well fix the stripes on wall that have needed touch ups since right after I moved in, so I spent my morning taping off stripes. This afternoon I will be filling in cracks with wood putty and hopefully rocking out one of the stripe colors on the wall. Tonight after Jack joins me we have an hour of sanding to do and a coat of stain. Tomorrow another coat of stain, more stripe painting, and reapplying baseboards. I would like to believe that is it, but I am not getting my hopes up. Hopefully I can have furniture back in there by the weekend. Pray for me.
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Saturday, January 15, 2011
Floor Plans 2~
Today was the first serious day of floor work after my evening of demo. I built up my motivation, which took awhile, changed into destroyable clothes and stepped into the room. Then.....I immediately injured myself. I was using these scrubber things (the official term) to clean up all the crap on the surface if the floor and immediately shoved a sliver the size of a ballpoint pen into my finger. It hurt. I screamed. I pulled it out, sucked it up, and perservered. Unfortunately, I didn't learn anything and ten minutes later I put another sliver in - except this time I put it in so far that there wasn't an end left so I could pull it out. And it bled, and I cried, and I bandaided it up while whimpering like a baby....and then I sucked it up and perservered. Again. Despite my non-life-threatening injuries I managed to successfully clean all the guck (another official term) off the floor so it is smooth and clean - and I used my uninjured hand to pull up all the inside carpet staples. And that is all I got I got done. I still have crazy stains and spots everywhere BUT....I am making progress. This promises to be a lenghty project. Doh.
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Thursday, January 13, 2011
Floor Plans~
So from time to time my brain snaps and I believe that I am adept at all things construction. Never mind that I have zero experience in anything that requires manual labor or that my avorite kind of project is one that is neatly wrapped up in four hours or less. However impractical, I have random moments of grandiose dreaming where I believe I know all.
Prime example. When Leah and I first moved in together we were sitting around - at like six o'clock in the evening mind you - when we decided we should paint our bedrooms. Not one of them, but both. Painting party! So we got on painting clothes, headed up the road to Menards where we spent at least an hour debating colors, came home and moved all the furniture and started painting......at eight o'clock at night. And not just plain painting - we got creative. One whole wall in my room is striped four different shades of blue - which looks really cool if you stand far away and ignore the fact that I freehanded it so I could do it all in one night instead off taping it off and being patient like a normal person. Leah painted her room green with drawn on circles and stencils. We were up for a very long time.
We get this trait from our dad. The entire time I was growing up my dad was always into some kind of project. These projects almost always were a surprise to my mom, who would come to find a random wall demolished or her cupboards all ripped out, the dreaded drop clothes spread out. However, my dad probably knew what he was doing most of the time - where I just think I do.
What prompted this blog? I ripped out my bedroom carpet last night at around seven o'clock. I was certain there was beautiful hard wood floor underneath so for three hours I moved furniture, yanked up carpet pulled upholstery nails, tore up padding, and generally made a mess. Underneath was a beautiful, old wood floor.....littered with spots and stains. Perhaps it was overly optimistic of me to assume a gorgeous floor was just sitting there waiting to be revealed, but now I have no carpet and a wood floor that requires more loving care than I think I am qualified to give. So I am going to give it my best shot - possibly rent a sander and play with it over the weekend. Perhaps try and shanghai Jack into helping me by offering up my body for the good of my floor. And if all else fails....I will shopping for area rugs Sunday night.
Prime example. When Leah and I first moved in together we were sitting around - at like six o'clock in the evening mind you - when we decided we should paint our bedrooms. Not one of them, but both. Painting party! So we got on painting clothes, headed up the road to Menards where we spent at least an hour debating colors, came home and moved all the furniture and started painting......at eight o'clock at night. And not just plain painting - we got creative. One whole wall in my room is striped four different shades of blue - which looks really cool if you stand far away and ignore the fact that I freehanded it so I could do it all in one night instead off taping it off and being patient like a normal person. Leah painted her room green with drawn on circles and stencils. We were up for a very long time.
We get this trait from our dad. The entire time I was growing up my dad was always into some kind of project. These projects almost always were a surprise to my mom, who would come to find a random wall demolished or her cupboards all ripped out, the dreaded drop clothes spread out. However, my dad probably knew what he was doing most of the time - where I just think I do.
What prompted this blog? I ripped out my bedroom carpet last night at around seven o'clock. I was certain there was beautiful hard wood floor underneath so for three hours I moved furniture, yanked up carpet pulled upholstery nails, tore up padding, and generally made a mess. Underneath was a beautiful, old wood floor.....littered with spots and stains. Perhaps it was overly optimistic of me to assume a gorgeous floor was just sitting there waiting to be revealed, but now I have no carpet and a wood floor that requires more loving care than I think I am qualified to give. So I am going to give it my best shot - possibly rent a sander and play with it over the weekend. Perhaps try and shanghai Jack into helping me by offering up my body for the good of my floor. And if all else fails....I will shopping for area rugs Sunday night.
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