A Tree Surprise

We have a dwarf/ornamental-type tree on the southeast corner of our house, outside of the master bedroom. I had assumed it was a crabapple tree from the shape and size of the branches and from the fruit that Owen enjoyed hurling at the fence last summer. I have been looking forward to seeing it bloom all winter, partly to see what it would do.

The tree bloomed today, and this is no crabapple.


Dogwood, maybe? There are lots of dogwood in bloom right now, but I haven't seen one like this yet.

Flowering Quince

According to Grandma B., these shrubs are only worth having during the spring, as they are messy and ugly the rest of the year.

So I thought I'd better photograph it while it is in its prime.

We will rock you

All of the flower/shrub beds outside of our house are covered in black plastic with rocks on top. When we bought the house, J and I didn't love the rocks, but they promised to be a low maintenance form of weed control, so we called it good enough.

Rocks are not as low maintenance as we'd hoped. They collect leaves and twigs. We've tried rakes and leaf blowers but there is no efficient way to keep the rocks from looking junky. And we were constantly picking rocks out the grass. Plus the grass and chives grow through rocks regardless.

J and I hatched a plan to spiff up the shrub beds, and mulch is the answer. With this, we'd be at least maintaining a bedding material that we like to look at. We also learned that mulch is not advisable next to our house, due to termite issues. And since we wanted to put in beds for shrubs on the southeast and southwest sides of the house (underneath the bedroom windows), we decided to save to rock for those areas. J was jazzed to start this project, and we decided we'd start on the area closest to the patio first.

Please note that the record shows that J's comment prior to the de-rocking project was "Oh, it'll only take a couple or hours, and it'll be fun!"

Ha. Well, fun is relative term. And it took the better part of Sunday. But we have completed this much.



Hmm. This project definitely has a high tedious and sweaty work to landscaping impact ratio.



Here's where we stopped. I buried the cable/internet/phone line (apparently Medicom does not bore through rocks) and put in the stepstones, with the hope that this will remind me not to dig there.



But we have a long way to go. The rocks go to the fenceline.

One last photo.


This is where one of the new flower/shrub beds will be. I put in a snowball viburnum, which is supposed to grow 10 ft x 10 ft and cover the brick between the two windows. We plan to put in an edge border with some artistic swoop to accent the viburnum.

Oh, and it was 80 oF and sunny here this weekend.

Spring Break at Home

Mom and Dad visited last weekend. They helped us paint (and/or entertain O. long enough to enable the painting) the laundry room. It's a sunny yellow color called "linen napkin." Sorry if the photos are framed strangely. I was shooting from odd angles.



This is much better, I think. Bright, warm, and clean.

We did the cabinets and the trim, too. Now all that is left is to replace the door between the laundry room and the garage.


We also burned a good portion of the of the sticks, leaves, etc. collected from our yard during the winter in the outdoor fireplace. O. found this fascinating.


And, because we can't have the excess of combustible materials in our yard dip too low, Dad and J. replenished the firewood supply.

First Day of Spring

And things are changing, yet again.

The grass began turning green about a week ago. Daffodils, snowdrops, crocuses, tulip trees, forscythia, and scilla are in bloom. Everything has buds. Our favorite hardware stores are stocking mulch and compost.

I've potted pansies and purchased a lavender and a rosemary plant for the soon-to-be herb garden.

I think really like this more southernly spring.

Ceiling Fan #1

We installed our first ceiling fan this weekend. This one is located in the guest bedroom. We decided to begin there just in case our installation fails and disaster occurs.
So far, so good.

Return to two working bathrooms

The plumbers came today to correct the leaky shutoff valve and replaced it. They also noted that the larger problem is that the toliet base has some wiggle to it. The floor in the bathroom is not level, as there is a rise in the concrete slab in the Norwest corner of the bathroom. Therefore, the toliet doesn't sit flat on the floor, and gives a little when you ascend the throne. The plumbers suggested that they lift the stool and reset it, replacing the wax ring and adding shims. And since the slight thrill of feeling like I might fall everytime I sat is gone, I agreed.

And my dad will be happy to know that, per our home inspector's suggestion, the plumbers also installed the drop tube on our water heater (though it may actually be called a t/p joint. Still haven't figured that out yet.)

Ruminations

1.) I'm thinking of painting our office-slash-computer room, shown below (viewed from the living room), green.


One of these greens. Something that would match the pear in the argon or the olive in the oxygen.
Or, a shade lighter than the green shown in the Greg Stones print, below.



I'm letting the idea marinade for awhile because this sounds like one I might regret in six months.

2. J and I would really like to improve the smaller bathroom. The floor is our least favorite part of the the bathroom because it is a color of yellow that defies accurate description. Thus, the floor is very good place to start.

We were browing the Super Menards last weekend, and saw self-adhesive laminate tiles. We calculated that it would take about $50 of tile to cover the bathroom, plus the cost of leveling compound. We're picked out a couple of samples, see below. I think I like the colors in the one on the left better, but I wish it were lighter like the one on the right.


Then, we realized that if were going to install new tile and have to yank the trim anyway, that we might as well sand the trim and repaint it. No problem, I have all that stuff, just need to buy some trim nails ($10, if that.)

Then, we realized that we would probably have to take out and remount the toliet to install the tiles. And since the toliet is white and doesn't match the rest of the bathroom and I'd like a low-flow to save water, we might as well buy a new toliet too ($160+, in "bone" color to match the shower and the sink).


But, if we're replacing the toliet, well, heck, we may as well replace the cabinet under the sink. We can keep the sink since it's of decent and durable material and remount it on a new cabinet and plus install a new faucet. (And this is where I quit estimating the costs.)


But, if were doing all that, we should get a new medicine cabinet that matches the cabinet. Plus we'd like a bigger one, because solving the storage problems in the bathroom would be a major victory.


And of course, if we buy a new medicine cabinet, we'd need new lighting to replace the only source of artificial light in the room. We'd like to replace the fan on the ceiling with a light/fan combo, and then put in nifty curio lights near the medicine cabinet.


As you can see, the $50 "let's replace the floors" project has become a near-complete remodel. I can't decide if we're better off with the above plan, or gutting the whole thing and starting from scratch.

Blue paint and a birdfeeder.

In honor of Groundhog Day.

Here's the new paint in the "big" bathroom. We painted the cabinet white, too. I still have touch-up work to do at the ceiling and a few spots where the tape tore the paint.

I think I like the color, but I wish there was less of it. Maybe crown molding at the ceiling? Or wainscoting on the bottom half of the walls?

And thanks to Ben and Missy for the birdfeeder. Emma likes it too, because it brings the tasty-looking birdies closer to her spot in front of the French doors.

Well, I'll be darned.

It DOES snow here. I was starting to wonder.

View outside my office this morning.

Paint and a Leak

Our current project is painting the bathrooms. After priming the "Lettuce Alone" bathroom in November, we took a break for the holidays and travel, but it's time to finish up the project.

The main bathroom is now "Roadster Blue," a deep sky blue color, chosen to match the color of the sky in our photos of Rocky Mountain National Park. The paint feels like a drastic change, and I'm still getting used to it, but I think I'm going to like it once the touch-ups are done. We also painted the trim, the door, and the cabinets (plus new hardware). Painting the trim made a big difference. Using my best observation and deduction skills, I think the trim history is as follows: 1.) bathroom carpet installed, and carpet is glued to trim; 2.) carpet is removed, possibly in a water-related event, which requires removal of the trim; 3.) laminate flooring is installed, and old trim is recycled. Whoever reinstalled the trim did not fill nailholes or paint, so the trim really needed a facelift.

The smaller bathroom is "Oatlands Subtle Taupe," a latte or mocha color. Since the flooring, cabinet, sink, shower, and toliet are all from different eras and don't match, I tried to pick a color that would tie everything together. The paint essentially matches everything except the flooring, and the color unfortunately makes it look even more yellow. Ugh.

Non sequitur alert: Darnit. The Cyclones just lost a close one.

So. the bathrooms are still in need of an overhaul, but new paint helps.

The leak in the title is a leak in the small bathroom. I'd noticed a couple of weeks ago that there was water dripping from the toliet shut-off valve. It was a slow leak and hadn't worried about it much yet. Regular mopping did the trick and Emma the Cat really liked her new source of water.
Sometime last night the slow leak became a significant leak. I realized what happened when I stepped into the closet this morning, which is right behind the bathroom, and the carpet was soaked.

The valve is attached by solder to the inlet, so I can't (easily) remove it to figure what isn't sealing, and the packing nut won't budge. That, and the fact that Jason and I can't agree which valve is the main shut off valve for the water to the house, and when we tested (anticipating an emergency) both valves, neither valve turned off the water to the house. Yup, we're in over our heads on this one. Oh well, it's probably time to make friends with a plumber.

A new year, a new attitude towards the fireplace

Yesterday we gave the fireplace a second chance, and after a good burn, the woodsmoke smell is gone. Dunno whether we finally burned away whatever it was the smelled or if the big H that is currently floating on top of our house had something to do with it, but the fireplace has redeemed itself.

We didn't spend the entire weekend lounging in front of the non-smelly fireplace, however. The Christmas tree was stripped bare, ornaments stowed, and hauled away. I installed a broom/swiffer hanging thingy in our kitchen closet yesterday. Best $7.52 we've spent so far on the house. J bought a shephard's hook and installed our new birdfeeder next to the patio. And I installed two-thirds of the outdoor solar lights that we received.

I'll have no photos for several weeks. I left my camera in my mom's car and I can't retrieve it right now. D'oh.

Christmas Decorating 3. Thank you Patti and Jon!

Look what arrived at our house today:
I love these sorts of things. Patti has a wonderful hand at this. I like it so much that it's going to stay on the dining room table until, oh, spring, at least.

And Owen, of course, loved the circles.

Christmas Decorating. 2. Tree and Lamppost

And here is what I did with the lamppost in our front yard. Not much, but I think it helps.

The Christening of the Fireplace

After having the fireplace and chimney inspected a few weeks ago, we had our first burn last weekend. My dad, visiting with my mom in honor of Owen's birthday, was there to help us through the process.
It worked well, and Dad managed to mostly burn through two big pieces of petrified wood that were left by the previous owners. However, using the fireplace makes the whole house smoky-smelling, for, like, days. And since I associate the smell of smoke with morning sickness and smog chamber experiments at a previous university, we have a problem (well, I have a problem). I hope that there is some leak-fixit that can be done to the chimney. Another item on our long list of projects.

But it was quite cozy, as you can see from my view, sitting in the rocking chair next the fireplace.

Christmas Decorating. 1. The Fire Place Mantel

I snipped evergreen limbs from the yard, threw them on the mantel, added candles and some fake plastic fruit. I can't tell if it looks like cozy ensemble or a mess, but it's festive.

I also had placed our stockings on the mantel, via heavy iron stocking holders. There were there long enough for O to show me that he is just tall enough to grab the stocking, but not long enough for the logical conclusion to stocking grabbing to occur (that is, pulling down the stocking, carrying the cast iron holder with it, and crashing onto his head).

I'm perplexed with how to accessorize this part of our living room. The fireplace looks unbalanced to me. Starting at the top, the ceiling comes to a point on the right side of the center line of the fireplace. And then the left side of the fireplace is bricked, but the right side is sheetrock. And then there's the hearth; it extends on the right, but not on the left. Plus, I have a scale problem with many of the accessories I have, as in, they were purchased for decorating small apartments of our grad school years.

So, when I try to accessorize this area in a traditional way, it just looks weird and even more unbalanced. I need to embrace the asymmetry, but I'm out of ideas.

Two-year old in the house

(Those are supposed to be circles, which is his very favorite thing in the whole world. They became blobs, unfortunately; poor icing technique on my part.)
But really, it would have been simpler to give him a can of chocolate frosting.

Be gone, "Lettuce Alone"

This week, J and I learned what people working an academic schedule do when classes are not in session and they think they have free time the night before Thanksgiving Day.

They paint.

The second bathroom, before:

The second bathroom, after:

This is just the primer. I think we'll paint this an off-white at some point. We're just glad to have the green "Lettuce Alone" paint color covered.

Entry foyer, in "Tea Stain", egg shell finish. We painted the hallway the same. It's a subtle, a taupe/grey color.The green door needs to go. Maybe two shades darker than the walls?

Lighting Dilemma

This is the lighting fixture on the ceiling in our entry foyer.What do you do when one half of the voting household thinks this is hideous and the other half loves it, because it is "antiquey looking"? Especially when that half who loves it is the one doing the electrical work?

Mutant Tree

This is the sweet gum tree in our front yard. It was the first tree to begin changing colors and will be the last to loose its leaves. Notice the right side of the tree? That side has been a nice maroon color for about a month now, with little leaf loss. The rest of the tree started changing to yellow a few days ago.

There are other sweet gums in the neighborhood, but they're either all yellow or all maroon. Strange.