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A little of this, a bit of that
This week I find myself in one of those places where I have a lot of things have finished but nothing really to show for it. And that’s how you end up with blog post about everything and nothing at the same time. My parents are currently soaking up a bit of sunshine in Florida and were nice enough to ...
Smooth operator
I am basking in the glow of a finished hallway, folks. After a weekend of painting and a few finishing touches, the hallway is looking so much better. It was a weekend of many projects (I hope to show you the others soon), but I felt like I was running from one thing to the next. At one point I ...
Feature Friday: A gorgeous potager
Boy, do I have gardening on the brain lately. March is such a cruel month because everything tells us it should be spring but for so many of us it is still very much winter. The garden design series I did a couple weeks ago was fun so why not continue the theme with some more looks at great gardens. ...
How to skim coat a lumpy wall
If you’ve been following the progress of removing the wall texture in our small hallway, you’ve probably figure out by now that the remaining texture in the house (in the downstairs bathroom and the den) will be professionally removed. This was a messy and time-intensive project. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that texture is not in my face every ...
An unfortunate case of the munchies in my yard
The world outside my door appears to be frozen. Certainly nothing is growing, but I didn’t expect things to be shrinking. Sadly, there are a lot of things shrinking in my yard. The deer are starving. This winter has been so snowy and so cold with almost no relent (we’re hoping for above-freezing temperatures this week which would be good ...
Oops, I broke that? Aw, shucks. 🙂
First off, thanks for all the thoughtful comments on the ugly bathroom post. You guys all had great ideas for further improvements in there on the cheap and I’ll definitely be putting some of them to good use. OK, time to fess up. Who has ever “fixed” something with the secret hope that you actually make it worse and you ...
The ugliest room in my house & randomly painting things
It never ceases to amaze me how one image can spur me in a direction I never realized I wanted to go in. A couple years ago it happened with a photo of a door painted black. Although I had never really given it much thought before, four hours later I was painting our back door black. I still love ...
What kind of garden do you (and I) have?
Now that I’ve run through some of the many styles of gardens, the natural question is, “What kind of garden do I have?” I think for me it’s safe to say that, strictly speaking, I have none the types of gardens I’ve talked about. And I bet that’s true for most of you. I think most gardeners tend to create what ...
Even more garden styles
Last week we looked at three kinds of gardens: modern, formal and cottage. Of course there are many other kinds, but I’m going to try to cover them in one fell swoop, rather than individually. N A T I V E G A R D E N S Contemporary Landscape by San Leandro Landscape Architects & Designers Urban Botanics Simply put, native gardens strive ...
Discovering garden styles part 3: Cottage gardens
OK, we’re back with another look at a garden style, and I suspect this one is a bit more relatable to most people: the good ol’ cottage garden. We’ve already looked at modern gardens and formal gardens, but now it’s time to loosen things up a little. C O T T A G E G A R D E N S The free-flowing nature of ...
Discovering garden styles part 2: Formal gardens
Yesterday in a little break-from-winter look at garden styles we took a look at modern gardens. Now we’re going in what you would think is the opposite direction, to formal gardens, but really these two styles share more in common than you might think. F O R M A L G A R D E N S Even if you’re not a fan of ultra ...
Discovering garden styles: Modern gardens
Damn this weather. Let’s talk gardening, shall we? I love studying garden design (that is, if you count looking at countless photos of gardens to be studying). I think it would be great to have a garden in every style if such a thing was possible to pull off (I think would require multiple properties or one really, really big ...
Questions I’d like to ask the previous owners of my house
I wanted to lay around and do pretty much nothing this weekend. The gravitational pull of the couch was particularly strong, so it’s a good thing I published that to-do list last week. There’s nothing like having to have something to write about on a blog to keep you honest. Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, but I tackled the ...
A DIY magnetic chalkboard: Now you see it, now you don’t
I have to apologize, you guys. My disorganized method of managing photos has struck again. I kick myself for this. I work with professional photographers at work every day and I know that they all have a method for cataloging every photo they download, so why I never started doing the same thing is a bit of a mystery. I’ve ...
Taking stock: What’s on the agenda
Ahhhh. I’m back and so refreshed. Call it a massive rapid influx of Vitamin D, but sailing the Exuma islands of the Bahamas was certainly just what the doctor ordered. I feel refreshed and ready to jump into some great winter projects. Now that the holidays are over (and I am SO thankful that I put everything away before we ...
Flown the coop
It’s the same every year. The Christmas decorations come down and almost instantly my thoughts turn to the garden. This is problematic because the earliest I can start working in the garden is early April, and that’s if all the stars align and we have an actual spring (something that is almost unheard of in this part of the country). ...
Letters from the Garden
Letters from the Garden
