How Does Your Garden Grow?

July 07, 2009

Organic!

Well, almost. We have been composting for a few years now, though not everything we throw on the pile is certified organic. But I generally have enough compost to use in a small vegetable bed and for any flowers I plant. I also invested in a worm bin and some red wigglers to take care of the, ahem, dog waste in the yard. They're not quite up to speed with Mo yet, but they are happily reproducing and I'll have their contribution to add to the mix soon.

I haven't had very good luck growing tomatoes in the back yard; I have a bunch of plants every year, and am now getting volunteers from the compost regularly, but I don't get quite enough sun for them to produce fruit in a timely manner. I'm also lousy at watering regularly, so if mother nature isn't on my side, the plants suffer. That's pretty OG organic if you ask me.

The internets are full of resources for organic gardening, including pesticides that are supposedly "safer" for you and your veggies. Saferbrand.com does include some really good information about what, exactly, organic means in terms of the certification process for pesticides and repellents, and explains why the term "natural" is essentially meaningless (I've griped about that on more than one occasion...) I have not really had pest problems (well, nothing smaller than rabbits and chipmunks, that is), for whatever reason. I like to think it's because I have a healthy ecosystem in my back yard and strong plants that are not suceptible to insects. The reality is probably that I am such a terrible garden that the veggies are not even palatable to insects. I was really bummed about my sunflowers, which I was foolish enough not to cage, and which were immediately devoured by rabbits. I planted a pot of zinnias and cosmos, which have strangely grown almost three feet tall, but thus far have failed to bud. The one thing that seems to be thriving is my carrots. I have some small bit of hope left.

Posted by mwashburn at 02:25 PM | Comments (0)

One of the nice things about where we live is that we are close enough to a wetland to get a pretty wide variety of birds in our yard. We've seen everything from nesting robins to woodpeckers to red-tailed hawks and, last fall, a beautiful scarlet tanager. We keep talking about things to attract butterflies and hummingbirds, but haven't done it yet. We really should think about a glass hummingbird feeder.

I know we have ruby-throated hummingbirds here, but I'm not sure what other species. There are so many, and they are all so beautiful. It's unbelievable that some of these little buggers migrate from Alaska to Mexico! Last year when we were in Arizona, we visited the cool hummingbird enclosure at the Sonora Desert Museum outside Tucson. Unfortunately, it was a time of year when the birds were not real active, but we did catch a few glimpses of several species. It is hard to wrap your brain around the idea that hummingbirds and ostriches are all birds... can you imagine if there were humans the size of your hand?? Pretty weird.

Posted by mwashburn at 09:00 AM | Comments (0)

Under Construction

April 09, 2009

...well, no we're not. But it always seems that when we're the most strapped for cash is when I have the biggest fantasies about remodeling, etc. My two big ideas right now are building a solar-heated studio in the back yard, and remodeling the kitchen. I don't think we need to invest millions in the kitchen; I kind of like the retro cabinets, but I think new cabinet hardware, concrete countertops, and updated linoleum would do wonders. We also plan to refinish the kitchen table (which I love, despite the completely beat-up finish), replace the chairs with something more modern, and replace the wood-and-metal cheapo bakers rack with a nice sideboard and wood wine racks.

I like this sideboard from West Elm, and they also have some modular ones that are really nice.

But back to the wine racks. I often think that we don't keep nearly enough wine around. There are so many cool wine rack designs out there, and that same site even has recycled wine barrel accessories, which are really cool. Because we did winery tours in the Finger Lakes on our honeymoon (a trip we plan to recreate for our 10th wedding anniversary next year), we like to pretend we know a little something about wine. But, my knowledge pales in comparison to that of my brother, who worked at a four-star restaurant in Philadelphia for a while with a world-class French sommolier, and our friends who used to run a wine shop. I doubt I'll ever be an actual wine collector, but having a nice restaurant-quality selection on hand would be really lovely.

I doubt we'll be devoting the entire pantry to modular wine storage any time soon, but hopefully as we slowly update the kitchen we'll be working on flexible solutions to attractively store more vino...

Posted by mwashburn at 09:16 AM | Comments (0)

Dreaming of Green

February 04, 2009

Do you celebrate Valentine's Day?

We do some years, and not others. We have never made a particularly big deal out of it, though I'm always happy to have an excuse for eating out. This year I think we're going to spend the day in Chicago with friends, in a totally non-romantic way. Much like New Year's Eve, I'm starting to think of Valentine's Day as a holiday for amateurs.

That being said, I do enjoy flowers now and again, and much as I hate to admit it, I do have a grudging respect for Martha Stewart. Her aesthetic is somewhat conservative, as far as my tastes go, but still very well designed and I appreciate the stunning photography in the magazine.

So as far as looking for an online florist goes, you could do worse than Martha. It's kinda cool that her line includes live plants. I'd love to have live orchids, but considering I can even kill an aloe plant, I'm not sure how that would go. Fresh flowers definitely add something to a room. It's one of those little touches I often forget, unless I'm entertaining. One tip I got from Martha a couple of years ago is making a big arrangement of hostas. Since I have tons growing in my yard now (well, not NOW, but in the spring/summer), I clip big bunches of several colors/varieties, and they stay fresh in a big vase for a couple of weeks. It's a nice alternative to live plants if you have a withered, brown thumb like me.

Ahhh... it's nice to talk about lush, growing things on a day when the whole town is shut down due to 18" of snow. Think warm thoughts, think warm thoughts.

Posted by mwashburn at 08:45 AM | Comments (0)

My Dream House

December 04, 2008

This seems to be an ongoing theme here... my dream home, or What I Would Do to Our House if Money Were No Object. It's hard to spend on luxury when you're busy doing the bare minimum to keep the place from falling down, but... In any case, in addition to the jacuzzi and slate-tiled sunroom, another really cool idea is radiant floor heating . I didn't realize that you can get this for any type of flooring these days. It's under $10 per square foot, and supposedly can save you up to 40% on heating bills. Not too shabby. Not to mention the nice touch of enjoying your hardwood or tile floors without the ice-cold winter feet thing going on.
We've also looked into tankless hot water heaters, solar panels, etc. It is a little frustrating that a lot of "green building" ideas are still so expensive for first-time homeowners, but I'm really hoping that prices come down as the technology improves and as fuel prices continue to increase. I remember when we first moved to the Midwest; it seemed strange to me that just about everything was gas furnaces, gas ranges, etc., but it was so much cheaper than the electric-everything I was used to back East. Fast forward 12 years, and the cost of natural gas has gone through the roof.
In any case, the radiant floor heat seems like a great idea on several fronts. It's self-install, supposedly quite easy to DIY. Another advantage, I'd imagine, over forced air, is no icky vents running through your house housing spiders, dust, bacteria, and all those other yucky things a germophobe like me lies awake at night thinking about. The heating mats are also listed as no-EMF, so the paranoids who are afraid of getting brain tumors from their wireless networks can rest easy as well.
Once again, I'm contemplating buying a Powerball ticket this week... of course the question remains of whether we'd renovate the house or flatten it, regrade the lot, and start over. Because, of course, if we win the lottery we wouldn't change our lifestyle a bit.

Posted by mwashburn at 09:14 AM | Comments (1)

Spring Might Finally Be Here

April 18, 2008

It's been sort of a wacky couple of days. Bout number three of the stomach flu (the Bug, not me), earthquakes, and 70 degree temperatures. While I enjoyed the mini-vacation yesterday, I missed the beautiful weather that has started to (finally!!) occur. My lettuce is sprouting and it's almost time to plant the rest of the garden. I always find that my mood, my energy, everything seems better when the weather gets nice and we have more daylight.
Naturally, my thoughts start to turn to outside home projects. I think our tasks this year include power washing the siding, possibly replacing the busted old garage door, and trying to make less of a mess of our front walkway for as cheap as possible. Dream plans include a swingset and some sort of patio in back. We have our yard-sale patio set we got last year, and the market umbrella that Adam's parents bought us, which is nice, but wouldn't it be great to have a real brick patio and some nice Adirondack Chairs? I think it's awesome that lovemypatio.com sells a rainbow of colors. Now if they only had child-sized ones, we'd be in business. I'm from the Adirondacks, so I suppose I have to have Adirondack chairs to "keep it real."

Yay spring!!!

Posted by mwashburn at 08:52 AM | Comments (0)

CraigsList Coup

April 08, 2008

For quite a while I've been thinking about getting a metal flat file/blueprint cabinet to store some of my artwork. I have numerous large paintings on paper that have been rolled up for years (very, very bad for them) as well as canvases and sketchbooks and portfolios leaning up against walls, in closets, under futons, etc. But, the price has always been pretty prohibitive. You can easily pay upwards of $800 for a good one. So on a whim I posted on Craigslist that I was looking for such a thing. Within days, my post was answered by a crusty retired guy near Joliet who collects and resells antique furniture. All I can figure is that he picked this up at an estate sale and had no clue what it was worth. There are two separate cabinets, 37" x 47", that stack:

Some of the paint is scratched off, and there's a teensy bit of rust on the back of one of the cabinets. Still, the two cabinets are worth easily $1200. The price tag? $100. I made two trips to Joliet (3 hours round trip) with a friend's jeep to get all of it home, but now that it's here I'm soooo happy. I got the studio straightened up on Sunday. There's still more to do, but now all my artwork has a home and it was fun to go through so much of my old stuff. I think with a little effort I'll be painting just like the old days. I haven't lost as much as I thought.

Posted by mwashburn at 07:29 AM | Comments (3)

I am The Cat in the Hat

March 17, 2008

The first thing I do when I get home from a trip is freak out about how dirty my house is. On Saturday, I stood inside the entryway of our house staring down at my orange Ikea Saxan Rund rug and the collective foot-wipings of the past year and a half (the vacuum cleaner only gets out just so much, you know), and realized that I don't have any Woolite foaming rug cleaner in the house. My next though, since I'm really trying my hardest to be a bit more health and environmentally conscious, was that perhaps there was something less toxic I could use to clean the rug. You can clean just about anything with some combination of white vinegar, baking soda, and borax. Cue the internets.

I found a recipe for all-purpose rug cleaner that consists of equal parts vinegar, borax, and salt. I mixed up the stuff, finding that the borax and salt weren't quite dissolving in the vinegar. I dumped it on the carpet (and a spot on our living room area rug that's always bugged me, just for good measure), and scrubbed the stuff in using my little utility brush. Of course, the fine quality Ikea rug shed an alarming amount of orange fuzz, slightly discoloring the scrub brush, but so what. I now had a wet wool rug (and if I learned nothing else from last summer's "Let's felt a whole sheep" party in my friend's backyard, it's that vinegar and wool just don't smell very nice together) with clumps of salt all over it. Swell.

Wait 24 hours for the crap to dry. Vacuum. I now have dried-on patches of whitish salt and borax mixture in my carpet. A second scrub-brushing did loosen a little of it, but it still stinks like a wet, vinegar-y dog. I've sprinkled some Arm & Hammer carpet fresh on in in the hopes of at least making it smell less unholy. If anyone has any ideas for something to clean the cleaner out of my wool carpet, I'm open to suggestions. Stupid internets. Stupid tree-hugging hippies. Next time it's Clorox and petroleum products that smell fresher than a fake pine tree.

Posted by mwashburn at 05:08 PM | Comments (0)

Home, Sweet Home

November 30, 2007

We're going out to buy our Christmas tree tomorrow. And yesterday I found a nice red berry and twig wreath for cheapo at Kohl's. I have to admit that I am among the ranks of atheists who love Christmas. I just can't help it. But the thing that occurs to me this year is that the longer we live in this house, the more I love it. Sure, it's got some issues, but we are slowly solving them one by one. I have gotten used to the one small bathroom. I've decided that the eat-in kitchen is actually really convenient and cozy. My rainbow colors of paint make me very very happy. And I just love the way the sun comes in all the front windows on nice days. I love the forsythia bush in front, that glows a beautiful yellow color all summer. The longer we're here, the more I think there's not really any earthly reason we'd need a larger house. I know we will probably sell this house eventually, but after all the time, effort, and love we've put into it, it will be difficult.

Posted by mwashburn at 06:36 AM | Comments (0)

Already Dreaming of the Desert

October 16, 2007

The weather is turning here. Now, I love fall, but we all know what comes next. Misery and Despair. Luckily, this year we are headed to lovely Arizona for the Christmas holiday. The desert can be a bit bleak, but it's just lovely to be there in the winter instead of in snow up to one's knees (or elbows, or whatever). I also love what people do in their yards with desert landscapes. You still have to plan around the seasons a bit, but you can have nice things growing all year round, and do some really cool water features and things that don't need to be winterized. The landscaping company linked above (Pathway Landscape, in Scottsdale, Arizona), promises to add some how-to's and advice articles to their website in the near future. They've got some really gorgeous landscaping in their portfolio, and really, inspiration from desert landscapes can go a long way even in our Midwestern climate. Although we abandoned our walkway project this summer (too much time and money, when we really checked it out), we still plan to do more landscaping with stone and really spiff up the outside of our home. My father-in-law even bought us a big how-to book on Patios and Pathways. We really want to do a patio/low deck out back too, while we're on this daydream thing. Maybe dreaming about this stuff will help get me through the long nights and chilly days of winter.

Posted by mwashburn at 06:46 AM | Comments (0)

More Remodeling Ideas

September 07, 2007

As I've mentioned before, when we bought our house we had to completely gut the bathroom and remodel. The only thing we kept was the original bathtub, because it is one of those old enameled steel dealies, which in my opinion are much nicer than the new plastic-type ones (not to mention VERY heavy and difficult to move). It was the only quality thing in the room.

[This post is sponsored by Faucet.com]

But one of the fun parts of remodeling was picking out new bath faucets, both for the tub and for the sink we chose. We ended up buying cheapies locally (decent brands though), but honestly we didn't know where to start online. We have friends who bought Grohe fixtures online. This is a really expensive but super-good-quality German brand that can be hard to find through retailers. Faucet.com has Grohe, Moen, Kohler, and all kinds of high-end brands, beautiful selections, at a discount. They also carry things like cabinet and drawer pulls, which reminds me that while I would love to remodel our kitchen, we have been forbidden from ever changing the cabinet hardware, as the drawer pulls are exactly the right size and shape to serve as bottle openers. Very handy when we're trying to go through several cases of beer in a weekend.

Faucet.com, despite the name, even has cool lighting fixtures. We plan to replace some of the light fixtures in the house at some point too, so good to know where to go online as well.

Posted by mwashburn at 06:24 AM | Comments (0)

The Remodeling Fantasies Continue

August 29, 2007

When we bought our house, we had to gut the bathroom and completely remodel. We knew we wanted tile, and we looked into a few different options. Deciding that this was not our "forever house," we went the safe (and inexpensive) route, sticking with an easy-to-match white ceramic. Had this been our "forever house," and were money no object, we were really interested in glass tile. You can even manage to find recycled glass tile some places, which is awesome.

[This post sponsored by Glasstilestore.com]

I've always thought doing some kind of cool mosaic with tile would be really fun. Like a big Welsh dragon on the bathroom floor (when, of course, I have a bathroom large enough for the whirlpool tub, sitting area, etc.) Then there are beautiful and completely non-functional things you can do with tile. We met an artist in New York (he runs a tattoo shop in Brooklyn that Adam's tattooist was working out of for a while) who does amazing mosaic artwork–here's his website.

But anyway, I just love the look of glass tile. Glasstilestore.com has a huge selection with a lot of sale pricing (depending on how large an area you're doing, it ain't cheap stuff!) Those little colored 1x1 tiles are supposedly the new trendy thing for flooring (according to this month's Domino), and I do really like the look. When we were researching for our bathroom, we were told to remember that the more grout lines you have, the smaller it makes a space look. So keep that in mind if you want to tile your breakfast nook with 1x1" tiles. I'd love to learn how to set tile myself; I thought I'd be willing to tackle a backsplash or something like that. We did, however, hire a professional for the floor and tub enclosure. So happy tile shopping!

Posted by mwashburn at 06:42 AM | Comments (0)

More Gadgets to Covet

July 24, 2007

I've wanted a new vacuum cleaner for a while now. We got ours... I don't even remember how long ago, and it's a bagless, but it's dirty, and loud, and full of dog hair smell that just won't go away. I always think Dysons are so cool. Well-designed, nice to look at, supposedly work better than anything else on the market, and the creator is a contemporary art collector (Dyson was on the board of the Tate Modern, I believe, until a few years ago). So how excited am I to find out about a website that has rock-bottom discount prices on Dysons AND free shipping? Yeah. Well, a new vacuum isn't quite on my shopping list yet, but definitely in the near future.

I'm not sure which model I'd want; I think the Dyson Animal is one of the newer ones, and the maneuvarability is a big plus for me. That's another thing I hate about our current vac; it tips over when I'm using the extension and is a pain to haul around. I generally just ram it into things in my way, like that scene in Sid and Nancy where Sid Vicious is trying to vacuum the crummy apartment. A little price checking shows that 1Awesomevac's prices are even better than Amazon's. You have to put things in your cart before you can see the price, because of minimum advertising price requirements set by manufacturers. But that's ok... off to daydream about my clean home.

[This post sponsored by 1Awesomevac.com]

Posted by mwashburn at 08:45 PM | Comments (0)

More Furniture Daydreaming

July 12, 2007

There seem to be more and more places online to find nice furniture. Furniturefromhome.com is an online furniture store that offers everything from home office furniture to dining room furniture, living room furniture, and more

[This post is sponsored by Furniturefromhome.com]

Furniturefromhome.com has a wide selection in a few categories, and more of the contemporary styles that I like than some of the other online furniture stores I've looked at. I like the platform beds these guys have, and the microfiber contemporary living room sets. They also have LOTS of leather furniture (which I always think looks a little smarmy, but BOY is it comfortable), and a really neat metal bar stool. When I have my slightly bigger house with built-in wet bar, I'm gonna get me some cool bar stools. Leather, of course.

They also offer a print catalog, and FREE SHIPPING which is a really big deal when ordering something like furniture. Most of the time when you order furniture online it costs an extra $100 just for the shipping. And almost everything is delivered via white-glove service and assembled by the delivery people. Although we've had tons of fun with our flat-pack furniture a-la Ikea (yes, I'm being sarcastic), this sounds great.

Although I had to hunt for the advanced search option on the website, it works very well, instantly sorting which images you are shown based on which styles, colors, or rooms you check off. You do have to go through clicking the thumbnail, and then clicking again from that individual item's page to get a larger image, and when I used it the zoom feature was a little clunky. But, the larger images are a nice size and you can really see the furniture details. The detail page gives individual prices for each piece of a set, so that is really nice to have that info right there without having to hunt for it as well.

More and more I'm thinking that I will try buying online next time I buy "real" furniture. We are still trying to be economical with our cars, meaning that we don't have an SUV to haul furniture from Chicago, and shipping prices are outrageous. Our local furniture store has a big selection, but also big prices. Having just had a wonderful experience buying the Bug's "big girl bed" online (although via ebay), I am definitely willing to make big purchases online again in the future.

Posted by mwashburn at 02:53 PM | Comments (0)

Someday When I Can Afford Furniture

June 25, 2007

One of the things I'm always browsing, despite the fact that it's just not in the budget right now, is furniture. Well, we just ordered the Bug's "big girl bed," but someday we want a loveseat/chaise of some sort, and a buffet in the kitchen, not to mention a new bed for ourselves.

[This post is sponsored by Great Priced Furniture]

This site for discount furniture looks like a pretty great place to price shop. They don't have a ton of stuff that fits my more modernist tastes, but the kids rugs are really cute and reasonably priced, and this chaise lounge is pretty much exactly what I'm looking for. There is just a TON of stuff on the site, but the keyword search seems to work pretty well; it turned up a decent selection of platform beds (what we want for our room eventually; well, we have one, but it's an ugly cheapo). Actually, I think I first heard about this site from a friend's blog post, which may or may not have been a sponsored post... hmmm... In any case, they have a huge selection, and a 30-day money back guarantee. But, I couldn't find even ballpark shipping rates posted on the site, which would make me a little nervous in ordering such large items online. I'm sure the next time I'm daydreaming about new furniture, I'll be checking this site out again.

Posted by mwashburn at 12:26 PM | Comments (0)

Living Space or Creepy Cave?

June 21, 2007

Our garage has come a long way since we moved in. Adam has done lots of organization and cleanup, but it's still full of spiders, and the garage door is... well... let's just say it's seen better days, though it does still go up and down, thanks to our new garage door opener.

[This post is sponsored by Car Guy Garage]

Sometimes I fantasize about new solutions for garage storage. (Adam can attest to my fondness for "storage solutions"). A lot of my half-baked closet organization schemes never work out, but if money were no object I'd tidy up the garage and have cool stuff like this workbench. It would be nice to have drawers, and actual workspace as well as shelving. More and more of the projects we need to do around the house require someplace to work, and Adam has ended up just laying things out on the driveway or in the breezeway, when something a little more ergonomic would have been a good idea. I also really like the idea of a pegboard to hang tools on. My father has that kind of setup in his garage, and you can (almost) always find the tool you need. We have two small toolboxes with a jumble of things, and shelves with random assortments of nails, screws, etc. It's all a pretty makeshift arrangement. The carguygarage website also has some fun stuff like switchplates and glassware with flames. I know the flames thing has gotten so trendy, but I still find it to be a cool graphic element. I don't know that I'm ready for a flamejob mailbox, but still...

Posted by mwashburn at 12:00 PM | Comments (3)

Anticipation

June 19, 2007

Well, the grunt work is done and Adam is almost done spackling the spare room. I'll post pictures when it's all painted and pretty. Not much else new to report. Lots of pots-a-boilin' around here though. The Bug's "big girl bed" is scheduled for delivery tomorrow, I've got an actual client meeting with a potential freelance client at the end of the week, and have also started scheming on how to start my own bricks-and-mortar business. This is probably months, if not years, away, but current circumstances have made the prospect more and more interesting. I'm starting by picking the brains of everyone I know who is involved in their own business venture, and starting to investigate things like storefront rental costs. Will keep you all posted if anything interesting comes of it, but at present I'm treating it mainly as a fantasy world exercise.

Posted by mwashburn at 09:19 PM | Comments (0)

Lesson Learned

June 16, 2007

Suppose you were remodeling a room in your house. And suppose you naively thought that steaming the wallpaper off, one loooooong strip at a time, would be the hard part. WELL, YOU'D BE WRONG. No, the hard part is scrubbing the slimy, gluey wallpaper paste residue off the walls with TSP solution and then wiping with a sponge. And then you'd still have to worry about the fact that you decided not to prime. But then again, it's not too late, because it's going to take you until next April to finish cleaning the walls. My in-laws will be here on June 30. I'm not quite sure how this project is going to finish itself by then.

Posted by mwashburn at 03:11 PM | Comments (0)

How Does Your Garden Grow?

June 10, 2007

Well, so-so would be the answer to that.

Lettuce: success. Three rows of very happy, tasty mesclun mix. Although I didn't get any radiccio, and I seem to have some weird, spindly parsley-looking thing that's not mentioned on the seed packet.

Spinach: Not exactly failure, but certainly not success. I don't think it likes the clay soil. I got one row of kinda sad-looking greens. I'm wondering if there are male and female plants; there are some that grew flower heads and some that didn't, and some with pointier leaves and some with more rounded leaves.

The greens

Success: [so far] peas and cucumbers. The peas have started growing noticeably from day to day. I put in a little stake-and-string trellis for them yesterday, and today the little feelers are touching the first row of string already. The cucumbers were quick out of the gate as well, but I'm seeing some little buggies on the stems. I hope they get through it, as Lilybug can talk of nothing but her cucumbers.

Jury is still out: tomatoes. I bought a flat of 5 (was supposed to be 6, but the runt didn't make it) tomato plants for $1.25 at Menard's yesterday. I have always taken pity on the runt of the litter, hoping I could nurse it back to health, and plants are no exception. Which, if I were a true hunter-gatherer, would doubtless mean my own demise. But in the case of cultivated tomatoes I had nothing to lose. The plants seem to be hardy, if a little under-loved. We'll see how they do.

So not bad for my first summer of real gardening. I may expand the beds again for next year, we'll see. And I would almost be able to call my garden "organic;" however I have been partaking liberally of the city's free compost, and one just has no idea what is in there. You tend to find things like bits of plastic bag, bottle caps, and the occasional roofing nail. My own compost pile is pretty happy. I turned it over yesterday and found masses of big, fat earthworms and nice black organic sludge. I should have enough of my own compost next spring to fertilize the two garden plots I have now.

As for flower gardening, I also have a mixed card. I did a hanging planter of dahlias and some sort of ivy yesterday, though I'm afraid it won't get enough sun where I've hung it. The canna lilies are coming up, but I only see 5 of the 10 I planted. The poppies are a complete no-show. Next year I may try sunflowers in the side yard. Happiest are the overgrown wild things in the yard; the daylilies, mint, lilies of the valley, and other unidentified blooms. The raspberries, chives, and native clematis I've added to the mix seem to be happily hanging out as well. The lazy, lazy gardener in me likes these things that just take care of themselves. Happy almost-summer, everyone.

Posted by mwashburn at 03:48 PM | Comments (0)

Household projects

May 21, 2007

I know wallpaper removal is boring, but keep reading and you'll get a bonus photo!

You may remember the ugly ugly wallpaper in our guest room. I've got it about 75% removed. I've been using our little hand steamer, doing a little bit at a time while Lily is napping, with the goal of having the room finished (which involves complete wallpaper removal, cleaning the walls, patching where necessary, and painting) by the first week in July when Adam's parents visit. Read on for in-progress photos.

Clean walls!

This photo is a little on the yellow side, but you can see how awful that wallpaper is.

And now the bonus:

This is the EXACT dollhouse I was planning on ordering for Lilybug's birthday, and thanks to a tip from a friend, I found it at a garage sale this weekend for $30!!!!. I'm not sure why it wasn't snatched up immediately, but I guess some people balk at paying $30 for something at a garage sale. But I knew what I was looking at. With all the dolls and furniture, this thing is worth close to $150 new, and it is in excellent condition. I was so thrilled. I was figuring we'd get the dollhouse now and furnish it bit by bit through the year, but this was fully furnished and inhabited. So the Bug got her birthday present a little early. She LOVES it, and I must say it's my best garage sale find EVER (though I can't take credit for the find, since I was tipped).

Posted by mwashburn at 05:08 PM | Comments (1)

Around the House

May 14, 2007

We're busy little bees around here. My Mother's Day present to myself was getting my office painted this obnoxious shade of magenta (well, Adam helped quite a bit), which I LOVE.

Keep reading to see some garden-type photos...

We scored an awesome little patio set at a yard sale today for $25. It needs to have some rust removed from the table, but other than that it's solid. In fact, when I'm done writing this entry, I'm going to go sit at it and drink a cold beer.

And here's my happily growing lettuce:

And in front, I am still waiting for newly planted poppies and canna lilies to emerge, but our irises have bloomed. I can't figure out, though, why our neighbors have beautiful purple or yellow irises, while ours are somewhat bacon-colored.

Not a color I would have chosen, but I'm not about to go digging them up just yet. Looks like we have scored some clumping bamboo for the back yard; we have a whole area that we are planning more exotic garden in, once the dead box-elder comes down. Will keep you all posted, as I'm sure you're laying awake at night wondering about it.

Posted by mwashburn at 06:24 PM | Comments (4)

Springtime

April 28, 2007

The longer we live in this house, the more I like it. It just feels more and more "home" the more we personalize and repair it. Today I got around to mixing compost into one of my garden beds and planting some spinach and lettuce, as well as planting poppies in the newly enlarged flower bed out front. We still need to have a tree taken down in back, and have the stumps out front removed, but somehow outdoor renovation doesn't vex me as much as indoor renovation. It feels right that changing the landscape should be a slow, incremental process that you work on when time and motivation allows.

As for indoor rainy-day projects, I've started stripping wallpaper in the guest room/studio. Turns out the Shark steamer we bought last year is perfect for loosening ugly wallpaper. And, I was thrilled to find that there is, in fact, paint underneath. This means no priming. Just some scrubbing with TSP substitute (no P), and then paint. I also bought the paint for my office. It's magenta. MAGENTA. Not sure if I'll love it or hate it, but I've got two gallons. I would love to paint some bookshelves too, but I don't know if/when I'll get around to that.

So despite all my complaints about our house, it is *ours* and we really are fortunate for all that we have. The things that really matter, family, friends, and a roof over our head, we have in spades. The rest is just icing (not to mix metaphors or anything).

Posted by mwashburn at 02:07 PM | Comments (0)

Things I Hope to Never Have to Go Through Again

April 09, 2007

Suffice to say, insulation is dirty and itchy, roofing crews are scary, and you need more than 1.5 people to insulate an attic in a timely and efficient manner.

Posted by mwashburn at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)

Around the House

April 04, 2007

Once again I have had many complex and profound thoughts about culture, politics, and the state of the world, but nary a moment to commit them to typed expression. So more ranting and raving about our domestic life will have to do.

RIP, gentle coffee maker.

It just stopped dead in its tracks this morning, mid-brew. It was threatening me with such action yesterday. And it has been complaining of "CALC" despite repeated flushes with vinegar. Alas, at least I can say that my marriage has outlasted my coffeemaker.

Ikea Hack

I do plan to submit this to Ikea Hacker. Basically, I hemmed these Ikea Merete curtains way too short originally. I was thinking of putting a contrasting color of a similar fabric at the bottom, to create the effect of these hellishly expensive linen curtains from West Elm. But, what I ended up doing was taking some of the discarded fabric from the original curtains and sewing it back on. Somehow just creating that seam line looked right. It draws the eye down and adds a slightly more sophisticated touch to cheap-ass curtains. Or at least I think so.

Posted by mwashburn at 10:17 AM | Comments (6)

Random House Stuff

January 28, 2007

Well, I've suddenly gotten motivated about home improvement after several months of sloth. Well, it was decided that we cannot wait to replace our roof, so that is definitely happening once the weather gets warmer. While financially it's a bit scary, it will be a really good upgrade to the house, preventing further damage, solving the mold problem, and allowing us to replace the attic insulation and thereby saving us lots of money next winter. The good news is that I got a fourth estimate recently, from a local, family-owned company that our realtor recommended. Their estimate came in several thousand dollars cheaper than the others we'd gotten.

I also assumed that the old windows in this place were going to be a terrible heat sink this winter, but putting in the storms actually sealed them up pretty well. Only a couple feel at all drafty, and we've got curtains or cloth blinds up over all of them. I finally got a Roman shade up in the office room, which means I can now walk from the shower to our bedroom at night without streaking through the office (there aren't actually any neighbor windows facing that window, which looks out on the back yard, but if someone were out in the neighbor's yard at night, there would be a free show). The other window-related thing I finally did was scrape the paint off the windows in the kitchen. Whatever troglodyte painted the kitchen also painted all the hardware and slopped paint all over the window glass. It looks much nicer in there now.

I've got the curtains for the kitchen all sewn, and a trip to Menard's next weekend will provide the hardware to hang them. I got this panel in 'cinder' from Pier One to use for the doorway to the utility room, and then got a second to cut up into a cafe curtain for over the sink and a small curtain for the window on the door to the outside. The cocoa brown looks nice with the antique red on the walls, and both colors are in the small rugs I got for in front of the sink and the door. My other color-related plan involves replacing my dishes. I love the pattern we have—Noritake Colorwave, but when we got married the pattern was new and only had four colors. We registered for purple and blue. Now, I'd like to replace those with earth tones, probably graphite, chocolate, and maybe suede or cream.

I also hope to strip the wallpaper in the spare bedroom and get that and the office painted by fall. I'd like to do one wall in each room in a mossy green and the other walls in a warm cream tone. I wanted something colorful, but that went with all the bright colors we have in the front of the house. We probably won't paint the master bedroom; I'd like to eventually tear out the wood paneling and drywall in there, but in the meantime we plan to remove the brown wood folding doors on the closets and instead hang curtains there; probably in this, this, or maybe this fabric from Ikea. I decided that a graphic black and white print will work better than color, since we've already got a whole palette of reds, purples, and maroons in the bed linens, the furniture, and the rugs.

As much of a headache as owning a house is, it is really kind of nice to really build a "nest" and feel that it's your own.

Posted by mwashburn at 11:02 AM | Comments (2)

The Last Month in Pictures

August 21, 2006

Pillowcase dress I sewed (with only a little help from friend Lisa) for Lily

Thanks to rostitchery for the great pattern and to friend Gretchen for sending me the link. I found the pillowcase (vintage, I think) at a local thrift store, without any particular project in mind, but this proved to be perfect. The only think I may change is adding some side darts that can be let out as she grows.

Other great thrift store find:

A cool little dish (I think it was originally a candle holder of some sort) that matches my bathroom colors. It's currently filled with earrings, makeup brushes, crap like that.

And speaking of my new bathroom, keep reading to seem some photos of the house-in-progress!

What the bathroom looked like when we bought the house:

What it looks like now:

The paint job in the kitchen, completed this past weekend:

We still need to install the chair rail and hang some artwork, but I really love the color. I've dreamed of red walls somewhere in my house for quite some time. We've also been working on the yard; my herb garden is coming along nicely, and though I planted them really late, it looks like we will get some tomatoes this year. Other neighborhood goings-on include the neighbors shooting a family of skunks with a pellet gun, leaving a lovely lingering odor of skunk in the air for the past week and a half straight.

Stay tuned for some truly twisted ramblings. I may be off the Zoloft, but Lily has started sleeping through the night and I've started jogging again, giving me waaaaay too much time to think.

Posted by mwashburn at 09:21 PM | Comments (1)

More Joys of Homeownership

August 05, 2006

The good news is that my dryer was FINALLY delivered yesterday. We even got a discount because the delivery guys dented it on the way in.

The bad news is that we woke up Thursday morning with water dripping from the ceiling of our bedroom. We haven't decided quite what to do yet. It's an expensive repair (worse than the first) because the leak is where the addition joins the main structure. We are debating finding a way to just replace the whole roof, since it will take care of several other problems with the house.

In a bout of escapism, Lily and I went up to Michigan to pick peaches with friends yesterday. Today, I'll be baking peach pie.

Posted by mwashburn at 08:35 AM | Comments (0)

A Post that Is Not About Breastfeeding in Public

July 29, 2006

But it is about our house. Sort of. I could give you a bullet list of everything we've done in the last two weeks, but that would be pretty boring. I could give you incredibly cute photos of the Bug in the knitted top I just finished, but that would involve locating the digital camera, downloading photos, etc. etc. So, instead, suffice to say it's Africa Hot here, the new house is coming along nicely (though we've been trying not to run the air conditioner because it is a) the size of a buick, b) has a clogged condenser drain that is located in the crawlspace and c) probably costs a fortune to run).

We just got done with a visit from Adam's parents, who bought us stuff and helped us landscape the front yard, thus earning lots of brownie points with the neighbors. We bought one of those cool-ass steam cleaner thingies, and finally tried it out today. I've been blasting the shit out of windown panes, tile, you name it. Probably not the best idea on an Africa-hot-with-99%-humidity day, but what the hell.

The visit also included a trip to Michigan (the beach in New Buffalo is only about half an hour away), where we watched the seagulls, had lunch, and bought some awesome Michigan peaches.

Oh, and some asshat has been shooting people near Indianapolis. They caught the kid, and now the paranoid people up in Hammond are apparently calling the police every time a rock hits their windshield. There have been four suspicious incidents in the past week, but no bullets recovered. I don't know what to think, but it still makes me nervous to send Adam up there each day right now... However, I think the headline should read:

TERROR AT PIEROGI FEST!

It's too hot to blog. I'm going to go make some gin lemonade and hem the curtains.

Posted by mwashburn at 04:31 PM | Comments (0)

A Few Bullet Points, Since I'm Short on Time

June 09, 2006

• The people at Home Depot haven't escorted me out of the store saying "Ma'am, we think you've had enough paint chips" yet. Yet.

• Yes, you can go to home improvement stores every day for two weeks straight.

• "Florida Mango" is a pretty screaming bold color when you've been living with off-white walls for the past 10+ years.

• When you walk through Ikea shrieking "and it's only $3.99!" for two hours, somehow your cart will total over $300 when you check out.

• It's really hard to clean a carpet with a chubby baby on your back. They're not real patient about you marking neat stripes to be painted on the walls either, even if it is for their bedroom.

I have all this other stuff I'd like to post about, but there's just too much happening. Busy with house, work, etc. I'm reading a couple of really good (and disturbing) books on marketing to children that I'd like to discuss at some point (if I haven't decided that we need to throw out the TV, grow our own food, and live off the grid by then...), and oh yeah, a certain little Bug will be A WHOLE YEAR OLD on Monday!!!

Posted by mwashburn at 05:52 PM | Comments (0)

So Freaking Busy

June 01, 2006

I should be posting about all the exciting goings-on, but I'm too knee deep in said goings-on to deal with posting about them. Suffice to say we are documenting all of the various messes we are making (and hopefully the wondrous cleanups to follow). I was really hoping Adam would get around to posting before-and-after pictures so that I wouldn't have to. The bathroom is obliterated. The carpets are in a heap in the garage. The funky smell is gone. We are scratching our heads about the floors- they look great in most of the house, but are a little fucked up in the living room. Adam is a little afraid of the sweat equity involved in refinishing them ourselves. I said, "eh. Throw rugs. Save pennies. Hire someone next year." We've ordered a refrigerator and are now fretting over the cheapest place to buy bathroom fixtures. The tile guy, after disappearing from the face of the earth due to a move, accidental phone disconnect, and simultaneous cell phone in the washing machine incident, reappeared and managed to get a message to us yesterday. This is all happening so fast and it's just. so. exhausting.

They tell me it will be worth it in the end. I, of course, get the more glamourous end of the renovations. While Adam is sweating pulling up carpet tack strips and gutting bathrooms, I am online ordering attractive lighting fixtures and planning jaunts to Ikea for window treatments. I really want to do the painting. We're painting the living room orange. Isn't that fucked up??? I've always wanted to do something like that, and here we are. Liberated from bland blah cream colored apartment complex walls.

The other thing happening 'round here is that the Bug has Definitely Been Exposed to Chicken Pox. It's a mixed blessing. It will be good to have it over with (if she comes down with it), and will eliminate the need to agonize over giving her the vaccine. But on the other hand, waiting in dread for a feverish, cranky, itchy kid is not on my list of fun things to do.

And with all this going on I need to find some Art Time. Both for a couple of jobs I have to work on, and just for me. We'll see. Off to open a cold beer. (and drink it).

Posted by mwashburn at 07:38 PM | Comments (0)

Things You Don't Want to Hear the Week Before Your Closing

May 19, 2006

The phone rang yesterday afternoon, and the caller ID said "City of Valparaiso." Hmm. OK. It was the water department. Calling about our new house; I had just called a few days ago to schedule having the utilities transferred into our name as of the closing date. The water department was calling to inform me that they had shut off the water at our new residence due to a high meter reading. How high? 135,000 gallons in the reading period. Whaaaa?!?!?!? I freaked out. That's like three swimming pools worth of water. I called our realtor in a panic, and we went over there expecting to find the house floating down the street. There was no sign of water anywhere. Not inside, not on the exterior, not in the crawl space. The listing realtor inspected it today, with much the same result. The seller is going to go over there with an inspector on Monday, and the water department is going to turn the water back on and monitor the situation for a couple of days. We are really hoping that the meter is broken or something, because if we can't figure out what's wrong, it's really going to complicate this whole thing and possibly delay the closing. Well, better to have this happen BEFORE the closing, rather than having a thousand dollar water bill after we move in.

Posted by mwashburn at 10:22 PM | Comments (0)

I Love my Clean House

April 02, 2006

The apartment is the neatest, cleanest it's ever been, thanks to the constant threat of people viewing it. We've started packing up, and the office is amazingly neat. I can actually think in here! I've been so inspired by neatness lately; we've put all of our CDs into those album thingies and disposed of the jewel cases on Freecycle, I've started buying bulk containers for stuff in the pantry. No more browsing through opaque, irregularly shaped containers and bags for flour, rice, and spices. Everything is all stacked neatly and labeled. And I scored at the antiques market this past week—a new dresser for Lily that can hold lots more, a cool vintage case for my knitting stuff, and a new teapot (which has nothing to do with organization, but was too cool to pass up.)

I was also introduced to the wonders of The Junk Shop, just outside of Michigan City. It's a huge barn and two football fields worth of... wonderful junk. Buses. Old sinks. A mountain of old bicycles. Windows. Electrical parts. A wall of vinyl records. I scored a batch of painting stuff for when we start working on the house. Dropcloths, paintbrushes, rollers, etc., for cheep cheep cheep.

So these are my joys right now. It's the little things, you know?

Posted by mwashburn at 09:13 AM | Comments (2)

Why I've Been Such a Bad Blogger

March 21, 2006

Well, we had a very nice spring break week in New York. The short version is that Lily was great, we saw lots of friends and family who we miss very much, Nana bought Lily lots of cute new clothes, Adam and I both ate too much junk food, and here we are back in Indiana on the second day of spring. Suffice to say that Ohio still sucks, rest stop bathrooms are twice as filthy-looking when you have to change a diaper there, and Lily really enjoys Mariachi music.

As of this week, Lily has two or three new teeth coming in and a miserable cough/cold, and refuses to eat anything solid, so that put a screeching halt to any sort of productive week. She has figured out how to crawl, and now this is her idea of a good time while I'm trying to talk on the phone:

But, the good news is, we are officially homeowners. We got all the haggling done, and as of May 30 will take posession of a nice, though sorely neglected, three bedroom home.

Who knows, we may be in over our heads or out of our minds, but here we are. Living the American Dream and all. I'm all excited about bathroom renovations and picking out curtains, but there's a lot of less glamourous work that needs to go on pretty immediately as well. Like mold removal and gutter cleaning. Ick. But one very happy thing is that the realtor and I were over there yesterday, and pulled up the edge of the carpet under floor grates in three different rooms, to find that there is indeed beautiful oak flooring under all the carpet except in the master bedroom. It's going to be a pain in the patootie to rip up all that carpet, and I'm guessing the floors probably need to be refinished, but how exciting!!

I'll be sure to keep you all apprised of the various trials and tribulations of homeownership.

Posted by mwashburn at 05:53 PM | Comments (8)

Stress Stress Stress

March 03, 2006

Yeah, we found a house. Yeah, we had an offer accepted. All I'm gonna say is that home inspections are about the most stress-inducing thing I've ever gone through in my entire life. I thought buying a car was scary. Heh! I hadn't seen anything yet. We've got a couple of issues to figure out and negotiate with the seller (um, mold, anyone?) and having no experience with this stuff, we're having to scramble to learn about all this stuff as we go along. It seems that well, older homes have issues. We'll keep you posted and hopefully there will be good news by early next week.

The only other thing I can think to talk about, with the few brain circuits not entirely devoted to house stress, is my continued bizarre antidepressant-induced dreams. I'm looking forward to getting off the meds because some mornings I wake up feeling like I've been running all night, not rested at all. One recurring dream is that I'm back in school, and for some reason completely neglecting my history classes. Always history. I'm behind on the readings, have skipped class too many times, and feel completely overwhelmed. And now, in addition to flunking history classes, I'm usually dealing with some sort of home repairs. I mean, I understand the general sentiment of these dreams-- feeling overwhelmed. That's not rocket science. But why history class? I find it very odd.

Posted by mwashburn at 04:29 PM | Comments (1)