House Made

Irene
Originally uploaded by erg1976.

Here’s a picture of the kind of Rosemary I planted along the front walls. Note that these are not our walls, nor our rosemary. The rosemary in its current state is small and cute and looks and smells like any old rosemary. I love that when I plant herbs, I come in smelling like I’ve been cooking something good all day.

This variety is supposed to grow “vigorously” with little blue flowers, but we’ll see what “vigorously” means when the soil is all clay. I’m hoping for grows “at all.”

clean wood on the pergola
Originally uploaded by merideth.

Okay Nathan and anyone else who wants to know how to clean years of mildew, algae, and other nameless gunk off your exterior woodwork, here’s how you do it:
Buy Cabot Problem-Solver wood cleaner. Mix according to instructions and spray it on with a garden/pesticide sprayer of the type you get in the home depot garden center. Wait and hose off according to package. Then voila! Amazingly clean, next-to-new looking wood.

This stuff is unreal. It smells like bleach lite but with no eye-burning fumes. If we’d had a power washer I think the pergola would look brand new. As it is, though, it looks all shiny clean and ready for stain with just the regular hose set on its most super-powerful stream mode (spider killer).

I wish I had before photos so you could see the real difference. Suffice it to say, I give this stuff a two thumbs up.

cleaning the pergola
Originally uploaded by merideth.

But first, where’s the lesbian? Wheeere issss the lesbian? Oh, wait! Flannel shirt and army pants! There I am. Jeez could i BE more of a cliche?

Anyway, so the backyard is getting ready to get a little improvement of its own. And today we got started on that by using Cabot’s wood cleaner and the hose turned to “spider killer” to get all the, well, spiders and algae and various other gunk off it. Part 2 tomorrow will involve a second round of Cabot’s and then an oil-based, semi-translucent stain.

Also today I fixed the crap bench we got from Wal-mart (for the front porch) whose seat had split after barely a week in the occasionally rainy outdoors, and stained it a better color; put the final coat of varnish on the front door exterior; and varnished a shelf for the office.

Beth planted trailing rosemary and some other things in the front yard; got the remains of the mulch out of the driveway; and started sewing the world’s coolest dog bed. All in all, a successful Saturday.

cool black and purple iris
Originally uploaded by merideth.

Can we just discuss for a moment how cool these are? Black and purple iris. The photo doesn’t do them justice and they’re popping up all over the front yard. Beth promises that by next year they will have multiplied enough that I can clip some and bring them inside. Until then I drool lasciviously at them whenever I walk past.

Pup
Originally uploaded by erg1976.

This face, in all its innocence, has caused some garden “issues.” Good thing this face is so cute and is accompanied by an endearing personality and much wagging.

When Merideth and I went to the garden show last week, we stopped by a display describing how to create the ideal garden for your dog based on a Sunset article. This display contained a list of toxic plants for dogs, one of which is the hydrangea, which I had JUST planted in the back yard several days earlier.

When we got home, I considered this sweet face and my hydrangea. I thought about the damage Dixie typically causes in the yard — digging, etc. As far as I knew, she wasn’t really EATING the plants other than the grass, which is normal and expected. As I was standing there considering, the dog plopped down in front of me, bit the head off a marigold, and chewed thoughtfully.

The hydrangea now lives in the front yard. It’s a California native, drought-tolerant garden with a lush, blue hydrangea in it. I potted the hydrangea and put it off to the side in the hopes that no one will notice the random juxtaposition.

Note that dog’s glassy-eyed stare is flash-induced, not toxic-plant induced.

waterfall at the sf garden show
Originally uploaded by merideth.

The San Francisco Flower and Garden Show. It. Was. Awesome. Yes, we even took off work to go on a Thursday so that we could avoid the crowds and not cut into any of our valuable weekend reno time. We are just that dorky.

But the show itself was quite cool. Display gardens filled the cow palace (how’s that for a great convention center name?) and included many HUGE waterfalls and 30 foot trees (imagine the cranes!). The only down side was the lighting. The whole place was shrouded in that kind of Disney gloom that was supposed to make Lincoln look less freakishly robotic in the Hall of Presidents. Consequently, photo ops didn’t abound the way I hoped they would.

We bought a few plants. Got a few ideas…made notes on plantings and specimens and materials…ate kettle corn and frozen lemonade…and found that all too many straw hats with giant fake flowers and neck-shielding fabric capes attached to them were available at the expo portion. Run away! All in all, it was a great time. Two green thumbs up!

laundry
Originally uploaded by merideth.

Beth here.

Anyone who has lived in a dwelling without a washing machine knows why the laundry room is my favorite in the house.

But my beautiful room was tainted – tainted! – by a constantly cluttered bookcase/pantry because the real pantry was full of laundry/cleaning paraphenalia.

But now, after installing cabinets above the washer and dryer, the terrible bookcase is gone, and my laundry room has once more left my heart peaceful with its wonderful washing ways.

the beth shirt
Originally uploaded by merideth.

…is BETH!!! And today is her birthday. In celebration, I am wearing this Beth shirt featuring her over-the-shoulder coy glance. So now everyone will know that I CELEBRATE BETH!!

This a.m. when I woke up I told her “happy birthday.” She said, “It doesn’t feel like my birthday,” to which I replied, “That’s what happens when you open all your gifts and cards early.”

Her reply: “Well it really doesn’t feel like my birthday now that I’ve learned a lesson.” Haaahahahahahahaaa! Happy birthday, awesome girl!

It was all about the prep work this weekend so no shiny visuals to share:

1. Beth de-weeded the back yard and planted a few more flowers and plants which she bought on the way home from art class. (Yes, she has a problem.)
2. I cleaned up all the detritus that had collected on the back porch from various adventures in planting, window installation, stucco work, roof repair etc.
3. Beth planted an angel’s trumpet which I’ve been anxious to get as they are so cute and smell GREAT. And, it turns out, the reason they are so fragrant at night is because they’re pollinated by bats! How cool is that?
4. Went to the paint store and got all the primer and paint for the outside trim and windows and wood stain for the pergola in the backyard.
5. Went to the lumber yard to price the materials for our fence repairs.

And that’s it. Boring visually? Yes. Exciting in what it foretells? YES!

So clearly Beth’s favorite thing about work on the house is the landscaping. Well, that and her new best friend the reciprocating saw. So for the past several weeks, most of the work around here has been yard-related. With the mulch all in and the leftovers distributed to the neighbors (Beth loves that her mulch of choice is now what she gets to look at in everyone’s yards), we’ve planted the majority of our front yard plants. We’ll buy some agapanthas and an angel’s trumpet from a local nursery and we plan to put a queen palm on the second terrace of the right side of the yard, but beyond that, stuff is pretty much done…organic-wise. The hardscape is a whole other story. So anyway, the photos don’t do it justice, particularly in the case of the little lilac tree. Also, there’s clearly reno crap everywhere and that’s hardly pretty. But you get the idea nonetheless. The idea behind the whole thing is that we’ve used California natives that are drought tolerant. Oh, and things will grow.

This is the strip next to our walkway. Planted with antique roses, new roses, alyssum, and obviously, daffodils.

This is the left side of the yard as you face the house. So far the only things you can really see are the little unknown bush we replanted from elsewhere in the yard and a few grasses. The lavender below the wall is doing quite well.

And the other side of the yard. It just looks way better than the photo shows.

Lastly the parking strip with the new lilac tree. The strip actually looks really good. Not that you can tell here. (How cute is our neighbor’s blue house?)