Orioles

We had some orioles stop in the garden today. They are so beautiful. Jeff loves taking care of the birds so these photos made his day.

New Raspberry Patch

Right after we built our house I started growing raspberries on the south side of the house.  They were in the sun most summer days and out of our view for the most part since our house faces east. It seemed like the perfect place to grow them.

Over the years the raspberries started appearing around the corner and really took over the west side of our house, as they do love to spread out. So as we have had this whole southwest corner full of the bushes, I've had to install some fencing to hold them up and out of the way. Every time the grass would be cut it was easy to brush up against the prickly branches and end up all scratched up. Although there was also the benefit of picking them and eating them as we walked by.

We talked a lot about moving them out to the parkway where they could grow more freely. We would transplant them in the fall. That's what we've told ourselves we would do for at least the last 7 or 8 years.

Finally, the project has hit the top of the to-do list and here is the start to our transplant process. The spot Jeff dug out looks a little small right now, but we plan on starting by transplanting some of the plants from the west side and leaving the ones on the south side where they are.  If the plantings take, we will make the new raspberry patch even bigger next year. We are still picking the berries so as soon as this season's crop is finished, we will start digging!

I love when things get scratched off of the to-do list!

High Radon Levels

It's official, our radon level is 5.3 pCi/L so we have to fix it.  Anything over 2.0 is bad. The EPA ratings go up to 20.0 so I'm thinking at least our level is not that bad, but bad enough that we will be shopping for the radon mitigation fan today. We learned at the American Lung Association fund raiser dinner that radon is the main cause of lung cancer in non-smokers. Once we had that information we got the free radon test kit from city hall and did the test.  Another motivator is that our neighbors to both the north and south have the radon mitigation systems on their houses because their levels were high. So we were pretty certain what our results would be.

According to the EPA, as radon gas decays, radioactive particles release small bursts of energy that can damage lung tissue. Not everyone exposed will develop lung cancer. The time between exposure and the onset of the disease may be many years. Your chances of getting lung cancer from radon depends mostly on:

• How much radon is in your home
• The amount of time you spend in your home
• Whether you are a smoker or non-smoker

Even though I am not happy with the results, at least we know what we have to do now.

Custom Privacy Fence Panel

I've been following Pinterest for quite a while and I seem to constantly return to the same photo.  It is a picture of a pergola and a privacy wall covering a nice patio.  That privacy wall is built out of two-by-fours forming a grid and there are random glass blocks in some of the grid openings.  I wanted very badly to use that idea.

We recently installed some fence panels on our lot line to give us some privacy.  In the process of doing that project, we had our fence post hole guy dig two extra holes next to our hot tub.  So here was my chance to use that Pinterest inspired idea.

My husband and I installed the 4x4x10-feet long posts into the ground next to the tub. After a few days to ensure the cement footings were firm, we filled the dirt back in and cleaned up the rest of the piles of dirt left over from the dig.  From there I got out my graph paper and measured and re-measured the opening.  I drew out the plan down to every little detail. On Friday morning I went shopping for glass block.  

On Saturday morning, he went shopping for the lumber and we started to build the grid that would hold the glass block.  Between the shopping and laying out the grid and the frame, we used up most of the day. On Sunday morning, we installed the grid-frame structure to the fence posts.  It went up quickly and easily, thank goodness. Then we spent the day cutting the boards to fill in the bottom half of the fence.  On Monday I installed the glass block permanently by using silicone caulk to hold them in place.

I am so excited to see this project completed. We discovered together that we can do our own thing without worrying too much about having an expert draw up a plan - we can do it all ourselves! This was one of the most rewarding projects I have ever completed!

Thank you, Jeff for your fantastic woodworking skills, we make a great team.

New Fence

This is our neighbor's deck. It's a little tough to tell from the photo but the two section on the far right are crooked.  They slope towards each other.  It drives my husband crazy.  My husband is a perfectionist. He loves working on home improvement projects however it takes him a long time to finish things because they have to be perfect.  Whenever I suggest that things are fine if they are a little off he just laughs at me.  So whenever he walks outside he cringes and snickers when the deck next door comes into view. 

So that became one of many reasons to put up some privacy fence. Obviously there are many other better reasons but that one is on the list somewhere.  I really wanted the fence to add some privacy but most importantly is that I wanted to have a place to tack up a movie screen and project outdoor movies in the yard with my granddaughters. I also wanted the fence for a place to hang my quilts for photos.  Plus it makes a nice backdrop for some seriously cute landscaping.  Maybe some tall bushes between the panels or maybe some giant planters of flowers and plants.  Maybe some climbing flowers on the fence and probably some hanging planters attached somewhere. 

So we started installing the fence early in the day and of course after the first panel took a really long time. I was worried about doing this well into the evening but we learned how to be much more efficient after the first one and we were done by mid-afternoon. Yay! It was a 90-degree day and a crazy thing to do in the hot sun.  There are still some things that need to be finished like cutting off the tops of some of the posts and filling in the post holes but we are both very glad to get it done.

The Little Library

I really want a little library in front of my house.  I think it's a perfect location.  I live at a point in the road that forms a T. There is a crosswalk on the edge of the property and we are the second to last house from a park so lots of people walk by.  It just makes sense. 

I've been trying to explain the little library to my husband. I've given him articles to read about them. I want him to get excited about it. After all, he loves to build things so this makes perfect sense.  As we were heading out for dinner, we came across one.  Now he is excited.  I can't wait to get started.

New Brick Shed Approach

When Jeff originally built the approach to the shed, he used leftovers from the deck.  It was the cutest mini-deck and it matched the deck so nicely.  However, because it was built on a sloping yard, it was prone to be wet and water-logged after heavy rains and winter snow thaws.  So it rotted over the years.  We tore it out and replaced it with bricks. 

Jeff was really hoping I would pick some nice big bricks so that there weren't many to install. I didn't do that.  Instead, we had to put four bricks in three different sizes together to make a pattern. It wasn't terribly complicated, but it was putzy.  And as always, he had to install them perfectly which made the project take even longer.  He started the work on Sunday late in the morning and by supper time he had almost all of it done. On Monday, he finished the last two sets of four, then filled the cracks in with sand and watered it down, as required.

I was instantly inspired to finish my chair planter I found on Pinterest. I painted the chair red, dug an old hanging basket out of the shed, and attached it to where the seat used to be. With the addition of a coconut liner and some potting soil and a few annuals, it is done and looks perfectly perched on the new brick shed approach.

 

Wine Bottle Path Border

I got this idea off of Pinterest.  I saved up our wine bottles since winter and placed them in the garden as a path.  It seemed like a lot of bottles when they filled up a large garbage can, but once I got them in the ground they really didn't go as far as I would like.  I guess we will have to keep on drinking. I think it will look much prettier when the beans start to climb up the poles.

Updated Light Fixture

Original brass fixture

I've spent a major part of February and March looking for a new chandelier for my dining room re-do. I did find a few that I loved but generally I did not love them enough to justify their price tags.  After much angst about the whole thing I mentioned to my friends that I still like the one I had hanging in my dining room even though it was over 20 years old.  I wish I had a photo of it before we took it down but unfortunately, I didn't do that.

I was pretty satisfied with the idea that I really picked the right fixture long ago and that I still loved it. I did hate the worn brassy look of it though.  It screamed 80's and it needed to get an upgrade. Considering that the "in" thing these days is converting old mason jars, jelly jars, and recycled wine bottles into lights, my fixture had stood the test of time since it had the jelly jar look. I was going for something that had a Victorian feel since the house is a Victorian style.

So a friend says, "Why don't you just spray paint it a different color if you love it so much?"  Huh. That never even crossed my mind. It doesn't hurt that I have a really handy husband that can make/fix/create anything.  Off we went to the hardware store to pick out some spary paint.  I chose a color called Aged Copper.  After purchasing it, I discovered that the brand of paint I bought was cheaper at Wal-Mart so I headed over there.  It was cheaper but they did not have the same large selection of colors as the Menards store where I bought the paint.  They did have another color called hand rubbed bronze that looked similar so I bought some of that.  But when I got it home to compare, I really liked the Aged Copper better.  So that's what I used.



Spray painting in progress

Jeff made me these stands when I spray painted a bed last summer. They are basically 2X4s with a piece of an old handle from a broken shovel screwed into the middle of them. It was a great way to raise up sections of a bed frame in order to spray paint the legs without leaning the pieces against anything. So I took those wood chunks and nailed long nails into the top of them ndto have something to dangle the parts of the light fixture on in order to paint the whole pieces all at once. It worked great.

So Jeff put the light back together and hung it up last night. I love how the color complements the new colors of the dining room. So basically I saved over $300 since that was the cheapest light fixture I found that I would consider purchasing. 

Finished chandelier