Details

So what's been happening on the DIY front these days? Not much. But we've done a few little projects.

-Last weekend we officially called it quits on the quest for a Japanese maple. Our second try did not survive a late freeze last spring. Instead, we planted a purple leaf sand cherry.

-Over Labor Day we sanded and painted the garage. A tedious job, even with a borrowed orbital sander, but it looks much better than it did.

-We solved one of the issues that has been bugging me, which is our house numbers above the front door. The previous owners installed new flashing (and for that we say thank you) and the flashing is low and covers the house numbers. This created an interesting problem. House numbers generally come in two standard sizes: 4" and 6". The space above the door is 3".

Thus began the search for custom house numbers. The appropriately-sized choices I found fell into two categories: ugly and no way I'm paying that much for house accessories. That is, until I found Horton Brasses, Inc. Horton Brasses is a fourth-generation family-owned and operated business, specializing in brass and iron hardware reproductions. Check 'em out if you're in the market for hardware, from what I've seen, they are great products and it's not just brass. And although these house numbers were not cast by the Horton company on site (they import them), many of their products are.
And here's our new 2 3/4" brass house numbers, at a cost of $3 per number per shipping. Looks good, although the pizza delivery guy probably disagrees.

-Have a mentioned I dig found objects as art? I can take very little credit for this little project, I mostly nodded and encouraged. Uncle J. found this (oh, help, I going to mangle this) rotary cultivator disc (?). He gave it to Dad who, in a way that I lack the imagination to visualize, removed it from the axle. Dad was also tapconned the disc into the bricks outside our backdoor.
Looks nifty, I think, like a very spiky dangerous sun.

-And last, a new addition to the castle. Mom and Dad visited in August to help during my Sweden trip. One of Dad's project was to add a roof to O.'s castle. The frame for the roof was complete (the photo show the topmost beam) and the idea is to install a tarp for the roof.

But try explaining this to O., and here goes the logic: the roof of the castle creates a ceiling. What goes on a ceiling? Why a ceiling fan, of course. Lately, he's become a bit obsessed with them, and building fans of various shapes and sizes out of legos, tinker toys, sticks found in the yard, flatware, you name it. And because we are those parents who encourage these temporary fetises, of course, he had to have a fan.

The Front Door

I finished painting the inside and outside of the front door this weekend. We chose Valspar exterior latex paint, "Betsy's Linen" for color, with a satin finish. Truth be told, I don't think I matched the whites quite right. The new color looks more creamy in comparison to the white in the trim and the white in the storm door on the outside. But the color is a better match on the inside, where the trim is a bit creamy in color.
Another project, mostly finished. A few details remain. We'd like to replace the numbers above the door with ones that actually fit the space (I need to order some non-standardized sized numbers, the space is only 3" high). And someday, we'd like to replace the hardware, but since that's a minor aesthetic issue, we'll hold off until we're ready to re-key a couple of other doors. On the inside, where the door leads to the foyer, I'd still like to replace the overhead light and the linoleum (that fake red brick pattern isn't my favorite). Then maybe add a side table to add a little storage-and-bric-brac space and a lamp for more light. The trick will be to find one that's narrow enough for the entry way. Or maybe not, maybe it's better as is.

By the way, this painting project represents the last of the interesting color choices made by the previous owners. (The door, prior to painting, was an off-lime green, which can be seen here and here. ) It took two years and too many gallons of paint to mention to come to this point, but having the walls and doors colors we chose, for better or worse, makes it seem like home, finally.

In other news, potty training is occurring in the house. I'll spare you the details, but it's safe to say that we now need to find other uses for diapers. Enter Princess Diaper Head:

Ceiling Fan Accoutrements

Because every ceiling fan needs something to make it feel special and unique.

This was a fun little project. See those little baubles hanging ceiling fan #1? That's the project to which I'm referring. Those little baubles hanging from the pullchains for the light and fan motor control. Ever since we've installed this fan, it's lacked the pulls. Not a serious issue, obviously, but chain pulls do make it easier to pull. So J. and I decided we'd buy a pair for each fan.

The pulls for ceiling fan #2 were easily enough to find at Lowes for a few bucks each. The chain for ceiling fan #2 is not like the other two fans; it's silver in color. We thought that silver or gold pulls on black chains look strange, so that cuts our selection at Lowes by 95%, and the remaining 5% of the in stock selection were not good matches for our house.

Google was our next option. And here's where we become very cheap. We found lots of "that's cute but it costs HOW much?" and several "that's....interesting" and several "no way, not it my house."

But then, while roaming our local Hobby Lobby, it came to me: beads. (Bees? Beads.) A few dollars in beads plus some wire from home, and voila: custom ceiling fan pulls. It's like earrings, for inanimate objects.

This is the bauble hanging from ceiling fan #3, in O.'s room. O. was impressed at least.

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We're in the swing of summer now. Air conditioning, popsicles, drumming up excuses to douse my head in the hose, and the daylilies at their best. And in other news, O. has decided to climb the castle and slide down the slide without adult involvement. It happened one day when I was busy and couldn't help him climb when requested (demanded). The next thing I know, I hear "I did it!," look over at the castle, and see O. at the top.

Ignoring as a parenting device: genius.

A Little Landscaping

For the past year, we've had an empty space in the rock bed on the front of the house, just below the office window. Two of the bushes in that bed died, finally, although they were probably on their last legs when we bought the house. I dug out the bushes last year and then was too busy/indecisive to replace them. For a few months, I was looking for a spirea of the right size and able to take some shade. Then I was concerned that this is really a hot spot since although this is a shady spot, it is the West side of the house and receives a few hours of direct afternoon sunlight. Finally, I decided to wait for inspiration to strike.

Three events coincided this weekend which enabled us to finally fill in the empty space on the West side of our house: 1.) a relatively quiet weekend, 2.) a drop in the relative humidity, and 3.) a 40% off plant sale at our local hardware store. The two shrubs on the sides are leptodermis, a flowering shrub that matures to about 2'x2'. The middle shrub is a hummingbird sweetspire, which should mature to about 3'x4'. I hope we've made good choices.

I also hope that the leptodermis doesn't live up to it's name ("thin-skinned" if I'm interpreting the Greek roots correctly). This spot has the worst soil for digging in our yard. It's all hard-packed clay, and there's rocks from previous application, plus the usual tree roots. A shovel gets you absolutely no where, and we dug these by hand spade instead. There's no way we ever want to dig holes here ever again.

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O. Photos

O. is posing for the camera these days. Here he's doing his best (and unintentional) Home Alone impression.

What's with the blue and yellow shoestrings on his feet, you ask?

These are laces from a lacing set. He wraps them around his feet and calls him his "beautiful princess shoes."

Those laces come in handy for other accouterments. I call this photo "I love belts, Momma!" (actual quote from this morning).
Yeah, I don't know what he's doing with his leg in that pose either, but he was insistent that that was how he wanted the photo to look.

One more photo, and this one is future blackmail: O. in his "beautiful princess dress." The dress is the table runner that Mom quilted for us. He likes to spin and twirl around in it.