Well the boxes are all laid out in the garden area where I want them to be but now they are waiting for me to find a way to buy dirt or in this case the ingredients for something like Mel's mix for Square Foot gardening.  The boxes are all deeper then his 6 inch depth so will take a lot of soil mix.  I think I figured to fill them to the top they would need nearly 48 cubic feet of soil.  I think this year I will just put in a 6 inch layer and add more soil next year.   

Hope we get the dirt figured out asap as my little home grown seedlings need to go in the ground.  I have a few tomatoes, a couple of eggplants and some flowers.

My tomatoes are not all the normal red maters most are used to.  I have loads of Lime Green Salad which is a little dwarf with green when ripe tomatoes, a couple of Matina and of Gregori's Alti which are both red heirloom that handle cool temperatures and ripen early. I even have a gasp hybrid I have raised from seed called Oregon Spring.  This is a red early ripening, cool tolerant hybrid. I lost my Taxi seedlings so bought a yellow hybrid called Lemon Boy.   I have not tried Lemon Boy before so that will be interesting.

No peppers survived the can't reach them time so if I want any in the garden I will need to buy some.

Boxes, boxes and more boxes

Rain is threatening today so no painting on the outside door as planned.  Instead Toli and I sorted through his pile of untreated scrap lumber and found wood for a total of 4 garden boxes. He is working on the boxes right now.  Once they are built we will have to find places for them and get them ready for planting.  One is a narrow box that will go near the fence and be planted with pole beans and maybe a tomato or two.  The other 3 are squares and will get my bush beans, lettuces, and other salad fixings.  My squash will actually go in the front yard this year since the day lily beds are in need of being redone and that will leave room for a couple of bush squash.

Talked to building department today and found out exactly what we need for a building permit.  Sigh I could not believe all the crap they want.  I expected some of it but not all of it.  Thank goodness I had taken Nicks advice and have one of the folks at the box store drawing up the deck plans. That will take care of those plans but we still have to find the pins marking our lot and draw up a plot plan for the permit and of course everything has to be in duplicate...  Not sure I really want to mess with building folks but sigh it is that or pay someone to do the work for me.

Early on in my paint research I was shown some stuff from RustOleum that they make for doors.  I liked the sounds of it and today we picked up a can of the Ivory for the back door.  The stuff smells as it is oil based and takes more smelly stuff for the clean up. Toli got one coat of paint on the door today and will put another one on tomorrow if the weather holds.  I think it will work out nicely for that door but not sure I will want it on the front door.

I took yesterday off to attend a rabbit show that was being held about 6 blocks from my house.   I walked in and the first thing I saw was a big, beautiful Satin Angora boy.   Turned out he was not there to show but rather to sell.   Yes he came home with me.  His name is now d'Artagnan.  My new beautiful baby boy is probably an ermine which means his spinnable wool will stay nearly white but he may get a bit more color on his noes and ears.

 As I had promised her breeder I took my little doe Cloud Flower with me to get some opinions on her.  Due to her small size I was not sure if she would be big enough to fit the standard so was not expecting much. Grin she ended up with a BOB which sounds impressive but isn't really in this case.   Satin Angora are fairly rare especially in this area.   The only ones at the show were Cloud Flower and a beautiful older chinchilla doe.  In show A the chinchilla doe beat Cloud Flower and in show B Cloud Flower beat the chinchilla doe. 

1 light or 2?

Toli inspecting his painting job

We were only supposed to paint the walls and window trim in the nook but after looking at the walls and the ceiling Toli changed his mind. After all the work done on the walls of the breakfast nook the rest of the kitchen looks horrid! Now we are going to paint all of the kitchen.

Wry grin that is what Nick and I have been trying to tell Toli needed to be done from the start.  Good thing I bought enough of my wall paint for the whole kitchen, the bathroom, and the hall.   

Yesterday I got the ceiling paint for the kitchen and Toli took down the fan/light so he could clean the ceiling in that area.  The fan was really put in very poorly even the box was hanging below the ceiling level!  Toli was not at all happy with what he found.   Having that light down makes me wonder if we should just patch that hole and install two ceiling lights in the kitchen.  One would be centered in the breakfast nook and one would be "centered" in the kitchen area.  I think the extra light would be wonderful and right now is the time to put them in...

Toli is home and ready to paint the windows in the nook.  I was allowed to be lazy and not paint today because the construction out front had the water off all day.  Since the road was torn up for new storm drains they also put in a new water main.  According to the construction worker we should have water pressure now :-)

The bathroom is on hold until we can get a delivery truck to our house.  Wry grin that torn up and closed road is a limiting factor.  As I told someone the other day you can't get to my house.  The fact of the matter is there are ways to get close but not with a delivery truck.  I am not at all sure how they are picking up trash right now since the alley is blocked at one end ...

Garage is on hold due to the weather and Nick being busy with Hunters home schooling this week.

Front steps are on hold until next month.  Building codes, building permits, and sigh detailed drawings are all slowing progress on that front.  If we get the design I have in mind built it will be really nice.  The damaged steps will be covered over by a low deck that runs 10 ft across the front of the house and 6 ft out from the house.  There will be steps completely across the front of the deck with a some sections of step on the sides sorta like \____/    Since the deck is so low the steps won't need a railing but we will put one along the sides of the deck.   I am looking forward to seeing it happen.

Painting finally!

Toli wanted to see what the green paint for the window trim looked like so last night he used it on the side of a  window.  The effect is very different then what I expected.  As he put it the color makes the window vanish and brings the outside in.

And today I finally got to put on a coat of my pale violet paint to see how it would look. The violet is very subtle and has a slight grey undertone which I think adds a nice dimension to the color.   You can see in the photo that it barely shows any color.  And that window really does vanish.

More prep work today.  Looks like it may be Sunday before I actually get to see how the pale violet will look in the breakfast nook.

Cold weather has put a stop on the prep work for the garage and the front steps are on hold for a building permit.

The bathroom has become a big point of dissension between DH and I.  We have all the stuff we need being delivered tomorrow to do a nice renovation in there but DH wants to store it for a few months...  Problem is I have seen where that will lead ie it remains in storage and nothing gets done.

Just back from Home Depot.  After looking over our projects Nick and I decided the cost of a paint sprayer was well worth it.  He picked out a big one that we can use on both the big 5 gallon cans of primer and paint for the garage and the smaller 1 gallon cans for use in the house.  With all the painting projects ahead of us it only makes sense.  Alex decided to show off how big the new paint sprayer is.

Today we will prime the breakfast nook and hopefully  tomorrow we will be able to paint it, I am not so sure of the colors the grands helped pick.  The current plan is for the walls to be pale violet and trim green... They do look well when we hold the paint chips next to each other.  Lets hope they look as good in real life. To be honest almost anything would look better then this.

The adventure starts

School is out so Nick is not working.  That leaves him with lots of free time to come over and motive my lazy butt.  He has been coming over and helping me (IE doing most of the work while I babysit) and slowly but surely we are getting things done.   Saturday he sanded the back of the garage, then we tackled the breakfast nook.  Ugh that was a messy undertaking.  The fridge is back in the little nook over the stairs leaving the breakfast area empty and ready to prep for painting.  Today I tackled the two windows in the nook getting them cleaned and ready for paint and this evening DH and I will be working on the remains of the wall paper in the breakfast nook.   Goal for the end of this week is to get the breakfast nook painted and the table back in place.  Oh yeah I may have to buy a couple of chairs so we have someplace to sit while eating...  

Next week we tackle the bathroom.