Landscaping: How a Nasty Note and some Dog Poop Became a Wall

In every marriage, you have to determine one another's sensitivity toward public image. How long does it take to get ready enough to feel comfortable leaving the house? How candid are you with new people? Who gets how much of your time off - friends or spouse?

Here's a scenario from our life:

Upon moving into our 1922 home, we focused much of our repair/renovation energy on the interior. As previously blogged, the look and feel could be captured in a smell... formaldehyde, old cosmetics, and mildew. Limited means forced us to neglect our grass in the front yard.

A quick word on grass. Grass is personal. If my grass is perfectly tailored, an even shade of blue-green, cut to a perfect 3" high, and sprawls out as far as the neighbors' eyes can see, then that means I care about my neighbors' feelings. That I value their opinion, the work they've invested in their grass, the hours they've spent fertlizing and mowing said grass, or going to work so they could pay someone else to nurture and care for their grass. If my grass is patchy, yellow, and long, that means I hate your guts and you suck.

Or so it would seem, based on the note we received after letting our grass get too patchy and yellow-green.

The note read:

"To Whom It May Concern,

I need to be repaired. I am ugly and messy and want to be pretty like all the other yards. Please fix me.

Sincerely,
Your Grass"

A second note, in the same handwriting sent on the same day:

"Maybe it's time to try a different grass seed. Just plant, water, and cut. Thank you."

Here's where the marital lesson comes in.

My reaction:

F*@& 'em. If they want to make my grass a personal offense to them, fine. If I fix it, the terrorists win.

My husband's reaction:

We aren't upholding our neightborly duties, not keeping up with everybody else, and someone doesn't approve. Let's scramble to find $2500 to do some really nice landscaping

Then another gift was left for us, but it wasn't a note in our mail slot.

Someone walking their dog bagged the poop, tied it, walked up onto our sloping lawn, identified the worst patch, and gently placed the poop on our lawn.

You can imagine how our reactions were magnified by this neighborly gesture. Several heated but educational negotiations and poof!

We have a wall.

Admittedly, it would have cost between $5,000 - $10,000 if we hadn't found this amazing guy named Pat Rocks (yes, the actual name of the guy who installed our rocks was Pat Rocks). The $2500 included some beautiful stone from Maryland that had lots of warm colors to play off of they yellow brick in the house. I learned a lot, but don't have the muscle to have done what he did.

This is where I get frusrated. I know how to do so much, but I only have these wimpy girl biceps to do it with. When my designer/contractor career takes off someday, I might consider Steroids to remedy this problem. That or subcontract muscle.

I did, however, have enough muscle to do all the planting, scoring Fall clearances on perennials at Lowe's, Home Depot, and the like.

Plant list:

Hybrid Tea Roses
Anise Hyssop
Sorbet Peonies
Bell Flower (mislabeled - thought it was mockorange, which has a phenominal fragrance)
Lemon Thyme
Ajuga
Hostas
Pink Daffodils
Pink Angelique Tulips
Veronica Speedwell
Burberry (or barberry? Whichone is the fashion label?)
Pink Azalea
Hydrangea
Silver Lace Vine
Toad Lillies
Pig Squeek
Lobelia
Cinnamon Fern
Coleus
Iris
Snow in Summer
FLowering Cherry Bush


And a million other little guys I can't remember.

I hired babysitters to watch Hazel so I could watch Pat. I learned a ton about installing a retaining wall, and Pat and I worked together to arrange them in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

Retaining wall info to come...

While I love my garden, and love watching Hazel's eyes light up when a new flower has bloomed for her to pick, I still harbor resentment that somewhere, perhaps down the block, there is someone with a lot of time on her hands...snickering.

The terrorists won and I got a garden. Call it a draw?

News Flash! Hazel's UN-Birthday Party a Success!

Between the "Gazillion" bubble machine, blow-up wading pool with ball pit, balloons, streamers, pink fairy princess cake on top of dirt cake covered in worms/eggs/green sprinkles, garden buckets with toys we later scooped dirt cake into and ate from, and Hazel's pile of dress up clothes...we had fun.

I need a nap.

Thank you everyone for all your fabulous suggestions! Our outdoor party became an indoor one and they didn't kill each other.

Dirt cake:
3 box chocolate cakes
12 chocolate pudding cups
4 bags of chocolate oreos

mash and mix. Adorn with Gummi Worms, maltball birds' eggs, green sprinkles. Optional: bugs, butterflies, fairies, green cotton cancy for moss, edible flowers, etc. I used a plastic storage bin for the troff.

I made the fairy topper from an extra doll in craft storage. some feathers, silk flowers, dance rhinestones, and some hot glue, and poof! A fairy cake topper. She went on the top of the pink strawberry cake no one ate. Dirt cake is moist and tasty...

In the $1 garden pails were stickers to decorate their pail, eggs full of puddy, and kazoos/harmonicas.

Bubble machine was $15 at Toysrus. It was the 3rd and most expensive one I bought, and the first one that worked. And after watching to toddlers spas out for indoor bubbles, I would have paid 10 times that.

You can get big bags of refill ballpit-balls at Target. Sucky thing is these stupid cheapo balls are $20 a bag. The wading pool was big, so I needed 2-3 bags. They probably cost $2 a bag. That part sucked. But what I really bought was $40 worth of serious 2-year-old fun.


Enjoy the pictures. Happy 2 1/2 UN-Birthday, Hazel my love!




I love how her front tooth is blackened out by the dirt cake.

Vegetable Gardening for City Living

I miss California.

Where the growing season is long, the veg variety is plentiful, and it is common place to have vegetable gardens in your front yard.

I have been drooling over the ease and aesthetic of doing a raised planting bed for a year or so. Finally, I had the weather and the sweat to do it. For about $2.40 a block (under $90 total), a shovel, some sand, and obsession, it's done.

How To:

Map out the general area you wish to excavate, using a tape measurer to determine the appropriate diameter of your circle. Mark a center point and mark the circle with spray paint, chalk dust, etc.

Dig. Dig the circle a little deeper and longer than the block. Tamp down the dirt.

Fill with about 2" of sand. Tamp and check for level.

Lay first course (row) of blocks. You may need a hammer and chisel if the last piece doesn't fit perfectly. If so, hold chisel where you want to slice the stone, and hammer until it splits. Careful of the angle at which you hold the chisel as this will effect the direction fo the break.

Using a rubber mallot, check level again and use mallot to adjust where needed.

Lay remaining courses and fill with dirt to help support blocks as you go. As you lay each course, the blocks should be set back from the lower course about 1'2" - 1", receding toward to top. Makes it more stable. These blocks are already cut to fit together as a circle, but can probably be arrange one course high in a straight line.

Fill with dirt to almost the top (almost - to prevent dirt spill over). Plant zone 6A friendly goodies. Watch you 2-year-old shake with glee as she drops the seeds into the dirt.

Note about dirt: Potting soil should be replaced every year, but last year's potting soil is great for planting bed fill. So I dumped it in, added some organic fert, and saved.

What I'm growing: For now? 4 kinds of tomatoes (including some heirlooms and some yellows), orange bell pepper, rhubarb (for all those summer pies!), strawberries, carrots, basil, thyme, and cilantro. What are you growing? What have you had luck with?

Further Insight into my Insanity: a small note to my Mother

It's genetic.

This is not to say that my sisters don't having serious nesting insticts, because they most certainly do. Charlee is a terrific cook, sewer, and gardener. Meredith also excels at cooking, decorating, fashion, and knitting. They both enjoy an attractive environment and have a good eye for it.

But I can go for 36 hours on no sleep, food, and not really feel tired as long as I'm doing a creative project where I can impact my environment creatively. It's as though I am chemically, genetically, divinely compelled to do it.

In this, only my mother can truly empathize.

When she isn't on quilting retreats, she's doing glass mosiac art pieces in her barn studio. When not glass, she's a serious gardener. When not tending, she's building furniture - like the built in entertainment system or the redwood outdoor day bed. When she's not building furniture, she's attacking her bathroom tile, or playing with power tools, or knitting, or probably something completely incredible.

And yes, she will have trouble falling asleep at night...12am...1am...2am... and up at 5am because an idea for tile layout has struck her and she needs to draw it so she can go back to sleep.

Sounds painfully familiar.

I also get many of my talents from her, the things I'm proud of and I lean on in my career: social acuity, charismatic joke telling and teaching, persuasion, extroversion, mentoring strength, etc. We've both made businesses out of our artistry, creativity, ingenuity, and overall "something extra-ness". She became a marketer/business model advisor and teacher. I became a dancer/teacher/coach.

There is something that feels less lonely when I think about these things, when it's 11pm and I'm just dragging out my joint compound bucket. To know that it's not just a hobby, it's something physical that I can prove. It feels validating.

So, to my mother, in a month I'm already thinking about mothers and legacies and this genetic pool we all swim, thanks for this chemical imbalance that deprives me of much needed sleep, keeps me injured, and brings immense joy into my life. Thanks, Mom.

Birthday party panic! Help?

I had planned this brilliant half birthday party for Hazel, who will be celebrating turning 2 last December 2009. It was to be entirely outdoors with the most brilliant activities, favors, treats, etc.

BUT it's going to be rain, thunder, and lightening on Saturday!

So, I'm mildly scrambling for ideas on how to occupy 15 or so 2-year-olds indoors.

I had planned on a gardening theme. Kids would pluck little pails hanging from our tree, write their name in permanent marker, and then decorate it with paint, markers, stamps, stickers, glitter, etc. Inside the pails would be toys like kazoos, bubbles, chalk, etc. When lunch had been served, I would bring out a troff for the kids to help me mix and shovel "dirt cake" into their pails, complete with gummi worms and maltball eggs, and they would eat directly from their pail.

I can imagine a troff of "dirt cake" managing to escape it's container and end up all over my dining room...

So, ideas? Please?

DIY: Bathroom remodel proposal: audience survey?

A couple days ago, I decided to take some stored up dance money/Christmas money from my Dad, and do a remodel to our guest bathroom.

Yes, I'm bored. How can you tell?

I am, however, torn about the floor and the tub.

The tub was sprayed with a white acrylic and is now peeling in some places. It is otherwise a decent, heavy cast iron tub.

The floor is well-installed, but the material choice is a 2" white ceramic square with dingy old grout.

Here's the bathroom as is:



1960's vanity mirror and Hollywood lighting is inspiring. It inspires a remodel.



Acrylic coat peel number 1.



Peel number 2.



Formica...my exhusband's obnoxious brother.



The poorly chosen but well-installed tile floor.


Proposal?

Floor: Do I keep this floor or dig it up and put down carerra marble to match vanity countertop? Or do I keep it because it's white and secure?

Tub: Can I respray it? Leave it? Replace it? I really just wanted a face lift.

The inspiration was a super clearance on a vanity - originally $480, marked down to $80. There were 3 in stock, and in a single 20 minute period, they were gone. I saw it, went to a different aisle to get help from an employee, came back, and it was gone! Luckily, they had 2 more in stock. I snagged it and someone took the third 10 minutes after me. Poof! Carpe diem!

But now, I have a huge 37" cherry stained vanity sitting in my dining room, complete with a carerra marble counter top, pre-installed undermount sink, vintage style faucet...you get the picture.

Here's the new vanity:



Sigh...vintage style faucet in brushed chrome, complete with H and C on handles to nod better days.



Carerra marble top with pre-installed undermount sink. Carerra... a good name for my next daughter?



Solid wood, cherry stain (probably will paint white and change handles to glass knobs), with hidden storage drawers inside and blowdryer/curling iron hooks on door. This kind of sophistication and organization in the morning...I might even feel prettier!


So I'm committed now. It's no longer a whim or passing remodeler's fantasy. I now have to decide on at least the floor before installing the new vanity combo.

To frustrate my efforts, today I fell down the stairs and mildly sprained my knee and threw my back out. Ugh. This is also when I'm supposed to be getting stong and limber to do a routine with my potential new dance partner.

Is my body telling me to slow down? Does it know something I don't? I think I have Alien Design Syndrome (vs Alien Hand Syndrome). Parts of my body run away from me and I can't control the fact that I'm suddenly tiling and I don't quite know how I got there or how to stop it...

Truth is, I can't sleep well unless I've done something projecty and designy that day. Hours of HGTV doesn't cut it anymore. I need to move and create (hence my inability to resist a good vanity and postpone a bathroom remodel). Maybe I can just create storyboard design ideas for my house, a dozen plans for each space, and that will scratch the itch and prevent my implusive remodeling tendancies. I truly just go about my day, thinking dreaming, and then poof! I'm tiling and I'm confused. Like sleep walking.

Sleep tiling.

Help.



Me when it's midnight and I'm not sleeping because I'm dreaming about my unborn daughter Carerra...

(PS - no, I'm not pregnant.)