Garden Changes

April 12, 2011

April 21, 2011

May 1, 2011



Kitchen progress over the past 4 months

Well things are moving a snails pace these days, but there is progress being made which I'm happy about. The cabinets were installed in January and the coutners came in February and I am totally in love with both! We were able to start using the kitchen to actually cook again as of February 12th and we haven't eaten out since :) We did go to our friend's house for pizza one night and my mom's for dinner another night, but other then that, every dinner has made at home!

Here's what the kitchen looks like as of now.

As far as details go, the cabinets are maple stained cinnamon, dovetailed drawers, all plywood construction by Blue Mountain Woodworking, Bath Pa. Kyle and Heather are really cool people and we really enjoyed working with them. The hardware came from them as well, although I don't know the manufacturer or names or anything. We also got the counters through their fabricator, The Marble Source. Kevin was also very nice to work with and did a really great job.

The Granite is New Ventian Gold with an antique finish. It has litte grooves and pits in the surface and doesn't ahve that high glossy shine like most granites and I freaking LOVE it! It has little specks of red (garnet maybe?) and pearly white spots like mother of pearl or something. So freaking cool!

The only seam in the granite is at the faucet and it shows up way more in this picture then it does in real life. And the offset faucet was a fabulous idea (Thanks to my husband) as it's directly over the drain when I want it to be but easily swings out of the way so I can access the entire sink when needed.

And the sink is nothing short of a Godsend. This thing can fit an entire meal's worth of prep, cooking and eating dishes inside and I still have room to wash and rinse all the dishes without having to drain the sink halfway through. The only reason I'm handwashing dishes right now is because the dishwasher isn't hooked up yet (the only appliance that we haven't used yet). The floor has to go in first, but that's not happening until the painting is done. Right now the tiles are sitting in boxes in the middle of the room just waiting to be laid out on the floor.
And the paint is in the living room just waiting to get on the walls
And the pendant light is sitting upstairs in its box just waiting to be hung

Soon my little friends...soon you will be where you belong :)

Concerts

Since I'm thinking about concerts today I decided I should probably make a list of all the concerts I've been too because I know I'm going to forget (I already am!)

I'll have to come back and add dates and try to put them in order somehow, but here's the list as I remember it

Lilith Fair
Counting Crows
Alan Jackson
Tim McGraw
Shania Twain
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Creed
Kenny Chesney
Dixie Chicks
Big and Rich
Martina McBride
Aerosmith

ETA: NKOTB (and BSB) :)

Decisions, decisions

We're making progress in the decision making department.
On black friday I actually got my husband to go shopping!! And it's a good thing too, saved a total of 25% off our appliances (a little over $1K) :)

We picked:
GE Dishwasher Model # GLDT696TSS (Sears)

Kenmore 5 Burner Gas Range with Convection oven option and Warming Drawer Model #72903 (Sears)

Sansung Over-The-Range (OTR) Microwave Model # SMH9187ST (Best Buy)

Samsung French Door Refrigerator Model # RF266AEPN/XAA (Best Buy)

Stainless Platinum finish doesn't show the finger prints like regular stainless steel, but still looks good :)

Cabinets: Blue Mountain Woodworking

They should be here on thursday to take the measurements so we can finally get them under contract.

We're going with Maple wood stained cinnamon with beaded inset drawers and doors. Base cabients will be standard size. The uppers will be 36" tall and 15" deep since the inset reduces the inside cabinet space. We're getting a double silverware tray drawer, Soft close drawers and 2 base cabients with pullout trays.

This is the sample in their showroom. It's not quite as red in real life

Hardware: I don't have a picture but I picked a flat black, bin pull style drawer pulls and knobs for the doors.

Countertop: Gold Venetian Antique Granite (with the antique finish it has a little bit of texture and won't be as shiny/glossy as most granites)

Floor: We're doing locally quarried black slate tiles. We're going to use a matte searler so it'll look more like a chalkboard then a shiny smooth surface. I don't have any pictures

Sink: Rohl Shaw farmhouse (apron style)

Faucet: Delta Linden Pullout sprayer. Venetian bronze

Lights: TBD

We're going to do recessed lights and undercabinet lights but I also wanted a chandelier over the kitchen table and a pendant light over the sink.

I'll probably order this chandelier and maybe add shades down the line

Kichler: Salem - Chandelier 5 Lt Incandesent. Tannery Bronze





I absolutely fell in love with this pendant light from pottery barn but it's on backorder until March 21st :( I might just wait for it b/c I cannot find anything like it!

Serena Antique Mercury Glass Pendant - fluted cap: antique bronze, cord: black

I think those are the decisions we've made so far, but they're the big ones! of course it's the small details taht will probably drive me into the nut house :)



Kitchen remodel

It's been so long since I wrote a post I don't even want to try to catch you up on what's been going on since the last one.
But I do want to document the kitchen renovations since I don't want to forget the little details down the line. and I should probably start with documenting the construction (although this is probably something I'd rather forget)

I have determined that our house is a 1920's Bungalow style house. The entire thing is plaster/lath construction with next to zero insulation. Next year we'll be replacing all the windows and insulating from the outside and replacing the siding. I'm think the kitchen was probably changed around in the 70s or 80s since there was drywall behind the little bit of cabinets and that's about how old the fridge and stove look.

Here's what we started with as far as kitchen cabinets...

1st weekend - demolition

plaster/lath removal in the sun porch area and off the load bearing wall

2nd Weekend - Demolition (this time, we meant business! haha)

We took the entire sun porch off the house and rebuilt it except for the roof.

Saturday:

Windows removed

Outside wall removed

 Outside wall rebuilt

Sunday

Window openings fremed and sheething installed 

Monday

Windows installed

3rd weekend - Insulation (didn't take pictures) 

4th weekend - Demolition

The remaining plaster/lath was removed from the old kitchen.

View from the Hallway

View from the back wall where the table will be looking to where the stove will be

View from the window corner looking towards the living room/hallway

View from the door corner looking to where the sink will be 

Loving the sunrise :) 

Garden Tour

I'm a part of the cottage garden forum on gardenweb.com and I posted this "tour" of my yard last week to introduce myself. I love this forum, everyone is so nice, the advice you get is out of this world and I live vicariously through the pictures that everyone posts. I would definitely define my gardening style as "cottage" - very informal, I love complimentary colors and textures, there's always something blooming, things just grow into each other so there's really no room for weeds :)

So here we go...

Last year we totally re-did the front of the house. When we moved n they had some evergreen yews, a sick rhodedendron, a half decent azalea and some burning bushes. That's about it and they had to go! :) So these plants are only in there home for a little under a year now, and things seem to be growing quite nicely now.

Moving around the right corner (the west side of the house)

The only thing on this side of the house were some sickly looking yews and once again, they had to go! This is a mostly shade bed and there is a maple tree that's to my right as I took this picture just outside of the photo and that's a cherry tree in the back right corner. I want to eventually have the flower bed come down and around these trees.

And moving towards the back of the house..

This Bridals Wreath Spirea came with the house and I just adore it :) I have a Brunner Macrophylla in front of it and it's by far one of my most favoriate plant purchases. when it was in full bloom it had the most electric blue flwoers = Awesome!

And turning to face the back yard...

This bed is also brand new, less then a year old. The shrubs on the right and left are lilacs we rescued from my dad's friends (lilacs send out shooters and are easy to dig up and relocate or just remove) the shrub in the middle is a Ninebark "Coppertina". That's where we buried the dog.

From the front of the new bed facing the back of the house. I have since added more rescued plants and some of my seedlings to this area so I'll need to add an updated photo soon.

And from the back yard looking at the back of the house. This whole garden bed was a result of our sewer project last year. (we had a blockage in our lateral near the house and had to remove the deck and excavate from the house to the white cleanout/vent stacks you see near the deck steps in this picture. Thankfully we have a friend with a backhoe who works for beer and chocolate chip cookies so it all worked out, but Chris and I did the rest of the final grading ourselves.)

The same bed, just a different view. I'm slowly filling in this area with more seedlings and rescued plants :)

This is the back yard looking East. We have an alley separating our house from our neighbors. The large tree in the middle a silver maple and the bain of my gardening existence. this thing has such shallow roots and sets seeds in helicopters 2xs a year. I hate them with a passion! I added a new bed around the tree and between the 2 pine trees - I call this my alley bed.

The view of the back yard from the alley. the "sidewalk" in the front of the picture is temporary and we just moved 2 tons of bricks from my mom and dad's house this weekend to put in a free-form walkway (not as boxy as the concrete sidewalks). The hill by the deck is scheduled be cut out and we'll be adding a retaining wall and a deck hopefully in the near future.

And here's the "alley bed". I had just transplanted most of these perennials so they're still looking a little said. This will look 1000 times better once we mulch. Lord only knows when that will happen though.

The east side of the house looking towards my front perennial bed. That's where I started gardening and the eventual plan is to continue that bed down to the Alley bed. I hate cutting the grass on this hill and my solution is to plant it up so I don't have to :)

And here it is - my first perennial bed. I have morning glory that grow up the railing on the front porch and I added some more plants to cover the foundation. it's a hard area to plant though, it's only about 12-14" wide between the house and the sidewalk and it's dry shade.