Houseplants are my downfall. I love them but I abuse them. Or perhaps neglect is the more appropriate term. Either way, I avoid buying expensive houseplants because my track record with them is not good. Flora Grubb greenhouse photo For years I have wanted a staghorn fern (Platycerium bifurcatum). I think they are the coolest looking plants, with their big, strappy ...
I have rarely felt a case of the gardener guilts in mid-December. Gardeners are allowed to go whole hog on the holidays because, for most of us, there are few gardening tasks to be tackled at this time of year. The garden has been put to bed for the winter and it’s too early to plant seeds for next spring’s ...
This downstairs bathroom renovation is becoming an interesting project. Little hurdles are popping up—nothing earth-shattering or more than the usual renovation snafus, but odd—but it looks like it’s going to happen. Soonish. Since I’ve blabbed on about it for a bit now, I thought I’d share with you some of the vision for what the room looks like. You’ll notice ...
Today’s post was supposed to be a big photo-filled post showing you all my outdoor Christmas decorations. But it’s not, mostly because on Sunday the dogs decided to go on an expedition down a bluff by my parents’ house. They made it down OK, but the old one got stuck down there and couldn’t get back up and the young ...
We are getting close to officially committing to redoing the downstairs bathroom. This is a big deal because (1.) this was the room we swore had to be redone immediately when we first saw the house we would buy—more than 13 years ago, and (2.) it is pretty much the last room to be renovated in this house. Everything we’ve ...
I’m a late Christmas decorator. At least it seems late, since I usually finish it up a couple weeks before Christmas, which is apparently late these days. But I like to take advantage of milder weather to do my outdoor containers, which is easily my favorite holiday project. I’m busy gathering materials now. I picked up some $6 wreaths at ...
I love giving and receiving books so perhaps it’s serendipitous that it took me so long to write about this trio of books that that has inadvertently turned into a holiday shopping post. The first is Charlotte Moss’s Garden Inspirations. This oversized book is published by Rizzoli, which is known for beautiful, photo-filled books and this one is no exception. ...
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I did my mantel twice this year. No sooner had I gotten the wreath up than I found out that the newspaper that had featured the house in the home and garden section was interested in doing a special Christmas cover shoot at our house. They were looking for a big fireplace in front which […]
I had so much fun decorating the outside this year, partly because it’s fun to deck out the “new house” and partly because it’s been downright nice (for December) to be outside this year. If it weren’t for not wanting to totally break the bank, I would have just kept on decorating. It’s no secret […]
The trip to an area Dick’s Sporting Goods store was not without it’s usual frustrations. As usual, it was impossible to find an employee to help and I was getting more frustrated by the fact that I had left my purse in the car so I was juggling my wallet and a flyer full of […]
It is so hard to blog when you’re never home during daylight hours. These short days are such a bummer, especially because I’m not able to snap a few pictures when I get home. Anyway, I have been working on a bit of Christmas decorating and have a bit more planned for the weekend (I […]
When my oldest dog Hudson was a puppy we took his picture in the yard with a Santa hat on and put it on a holiday card. Our friends and family couldn’t get over how cute he was. By the next year we had added another dog to the family and the two appeared in […]
You might have noticed that I’m a bit of a procrastinator. It is truly one of my least appealing traits (that and that I’m the antithesis of punctual). I think it’s the journalist in me. Almost every journalist I know is a huge procrastinator. I think it might be something related to endorphins and deadlines. […]
I was downloading some photos from the weekend Tuesday night and realized there were a few I’d taken just a couple weeks ago that I’ve not posted. One of the amazing things about living up north, where the seasons mean business, is how quickly things change. Although we’ve not had any snow yet (which is […]
I’m a champion online shopper. In fact it’s the main way I buy things now. Last year, I bought what I could locally from small merchants but everything else was purchased online. And it being Cyber Monday (really, they couldn’t think of a better name than that?) there are a lot of great deals out […]
Hi everyone! I’m more than a little excited to be guest posting on one of my favorite blogs today. House of Turquoise is one of my daily reads and it serves as a daily source of inspiration for me. If you’re not already reading it daily, you should be. And if you are a House […]
So help me God if I have to end up making a “countertops” label on this blog. My e-mail to Waterlox (by the way, I underestimated, it has happened way more than twice and technically the countertops are doing OK, but I had the problem again with the desktop): Dear sir or maam, I hope […]
I spent part of the weekend officially putting the last of the garden to bed for the winter. The new or sensitive plants have been caged and covered with shredded leaves, some of the perennials have been cut down (the others will be cleaned up in spring) and the spring bulbs have all been planted. […]
Yep, I yada, yada’d the counter topic. Frankly I’ve not provided an update because I’m SO bored with the whole project. Here’s the good news: things are going better (I think, but I’m a paranoid kind of girl so I’m not declaring victory yet) and I think I’ve identified the problem. Lest this blog turn [&hel
With a spare piece of window trim serving as a makeshift saw guy and a pair of clamps squeezed to within an inch of their lives, Mr. Much More Patient wielded the whirring circular saw. I stood by doing what every good carpentry assistant does: repeatedly hit the home button on my iPhone to light […]
In the interest of “keeping it real” I’m going to share the progress of working on the countertops for the office project well before I was planning to. I was hoping to go through this whole project and be able to show you the photo of the gorgeous countertops installed, and hopefully I will get […]
