Summer Weather

Our iris that were planted last year are in full bloom this year! They came in like monsters this year and have lots of blooms, we found out this year that we have two colors. We only got purple ones last year, this year we have a lot of these red-orange one.
Before I talk about anything else, I should mention that we do continually to actual finish things! I've been working on the faceframes to the built-in closets that I made late this winter. I found a new mill to get wood from and they had a bunch of butternet, which is different and quite pretty. It cost me 3.00$/bdft for 4/4 stuff, all S4S and ready to go, so it ended up running me about 80$ for all the lumber for both frames. I put a picture of the raw cabinets and then finished up. I used danish oil to finish the frames and polyurethaned the plywood carcasses.



I loaded up the closet this evening and had plenty of space for everything, so I think it worked out fairly well. I had to do mine first so that we could unload the baby's room closet, I'll still need to stain and polyurethane Julies closet.
In more foolish news, I give you this:

I tore up our hallway over memorial day weekend. Every year, the hallway has gotten lumpier and lumpier with certain humps coming up in the summer and others coming up in the winter. On top of that we had nasty stained cathair-attracting carpet, and so I decided it was about my last chance to go ahead an pull it before the baby arrives. Putting down new subfloor and sistering joists is dirty, dusty, noisy work and I really don't want the baby breathing the nasty fine dust that comes out of opening walls in this house. Let alone, ALL of the bedrooms are accessed through the hall, so it can't stay out of commission, so it was a long painful one day job. I tore out the carpet and old subfloor, sistered the joists (primarily to reset level-ness) and dropped new subfloor. I came up one sheet of subfloor short and ended up finishing at about 6:30 in the evening without getting flooring down on the extension that hangs over the stairs. You can see the sistered up joists in the picture below, same nonsense as always. The only difference was that I had joists from the baby's room coming in on one side of the joists already, so I didn't have any choice about where to put the sisters. The goal here was just re-setting level in the floor, no so much strengthenin things.

I've only started putting down flooring here, the final floor will be a mix quarter sawn white oak and black walnut (all 2-1/4), but I've just started setting the edges and getting the junctions with other rooms flooring lined up. The goal is to get a seamless transition from the hallway into the rooms. The hallway has 7 entrances in it (4 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1 closet, and the stairway), so I'll need to be patient getting going. I've got the stairway and baby room threshold worked out and it looks pretty good. Many more to go, unfortunately.

Its spring again....

Okay - so its been awhile since we've posted anything new. But don't assume that's because nothing's been going on...On the contrary, lots has been going on, so much that I think we didn't stop to reflect on anything that we did. In between everything, I spent two weeks in Japan in April. I'll post some pictures from my trip another time, first - what have we been up to in the last month?
1) Bathroom Renovation. There's a small full bathroom on the first floor. While there was nothing terrible about it, it was dark, with ugly linoleum and the sink vanity took up way too much room.
Before: Ugly wallpaper.

We wanted to lighten it up and replace the broken toilet and the oversized vanity with a pedestal sink. I decided on a blue and white theme and used blue and white mosaic tile on the floor, and white subway tile about 1/2 way up the wall. Chrome fixtures finish everything out. First of all, let me say that Nate warned me about mosaic tile. Never having laid tile before, this was a challenge. I made a good faith effort at using the manual tile cutter and after a single tile, drove to Lowe's to buy a tile saw. Much easier! We finished the floor tile, and then it was on to the walls...














We chose a white subway tile with a cobalt blue accent tile placed under the fancy chair rail tile. It really went well with the blue tile in the floor, if I do say so myself! Check out the new pedestal sink and shiny chrome fixtures too.

What's left? Caulk around the tile, hang new ceiling light/fan, and make and install a medicine cabinet/mirror. Oh yeah, and finish the trim. That's it - I think.

2) Assorted gardens. Its spring again, and of course that means working outdoors. I have planted peas and lettuce(s), and NY spring onions so far outside, but inside is where most of the action is. This March, I planted my seeds from Johnny's. I started Washington Cherry Tomatoes, Polbig, Big Beef and Brandywine tomatoes, green bell and pimiento peppers, eggplants, Thyme (why I don't know - who needs that much Thyme?), Celosia (or fuzzy brain plant, as I call it), leeks, and silver queen corn. Expecting a dismal germination rate, I planted 3 times more seeds than I actually needed or wanted. Well, as luck would have it - I successfully got pretty much a 100% germination rate - thanks to the awesome plant rack that Nate built for me (see below). So the question - what to do with all those tomatoes? I'll have to find room!

3) Compost. So last year we started a compost pile. Literally, a pile - unattended and lazily resting and decomposing against the back fence. Surprisingly, when we went to check on our compost this spring - we actually had nicely composted stuff! But, not wanting to continue letting it lean up against the fence, Nate and I (mostly Nate) built a brand new two bin composting system using the rails from our old deck (our new deck is in the process of being built - more on that later). So now, our compost is away from the fence and we have a place for good compost/dirt and another place for stuff that is in the process of composting!

So, the gardens are getting ready, stuff is composting and spring is here!

Garden's Alive!

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The Waverly Community Garden

Well, the end of August is rapidly approaching and with it the end of summer. I can't help but think that I could have spent a little more time in the sun or on the water. What could I have possibly been doing rather than spending time sunbathing ? Well, gardening, of course! We have a vegetable garden behind our garage and we have also been working in the Waverly community garden. Our garden - squash is creeping into the yard...

Everything is in full swing now - we have been inundated with zucchini, some are as big as my thigh! Of course its the season where everybody who leaves their car unlocked gets a free squash, but even still I have been making lots of zucchini bread. We also have been getting a fair amount of acorn squash, patty pan squash and decorative gourds, as you can see below. You wouldn't believe how many different meals you can make under the general category of "stuffed squash." I just picked another batch of delicious pole beans from our garden - I love eating them right off the plant. Max likes to eat them too, although he just eats the beans out of the pod. Beans, beans the musical fruit..

We have lots of beautiful, plump tomatoes - trouble is, they are mostly still green! Hopefully they will ripen soon, or I'll be making green salsa this fall.
Our pumpkins are coming along very well, and I'm hoping to have another banner year of pumpkin carving and pie making (and eating). Nate and I have learned a lot this summer about gardening in this area. Its certainly different than NC and we've had to get used to things growing a lot more slowly up here. But we haven't had to water nearly as much - so that's a good thing. Nate just planted some fall carrots at the community garden and hopes to plant some garlic as well.

Well, I've got to go and find some more unlocked cars...want any squash?