onward, outward and upward!

preparations...

2009-04-05T23:11:39Z

about three weeks ago, on a gloriously sunny friday lunch hour, i impulsively bought a flat of herb starts and a flat of veggie starts at planters. and they've been sitting on trays in front of our west-facing french doors ever since, waiting to be planted. and i just added some more veggie starts which i bought at the independence expo yesterday. all are patiently waiting, and i'm praying that they don't get too root-bound before i can get them safely in the ground.

around the same time, i ordered a 50/50 mixture of compost/topsoil from missouri organic, which was delivered on 3/31. 15 cubic yards. took up the entire driveway (and a little of the neighbors', despite the driver's best efforts, but chris cleaned that up right away).

spent all of that evening working with chris to get the raised veggie beds he'd built the previous saturday...

...filled in. (4 wheelbarrows of dirt, pushed by chris mostly uphill from the pile in the driveway cleeeeeear around to the very back of our property, for each one -- the man is a wonder to me -- my job was to rake it out evenly, break up the clods, tamp it down a bit.)

we finished that up after dark had fallen, and moved more dirt from the neighbor's driveway-side of the pile into the front terraced rock beds we'd built last summer (and which i'd attempted to "lasagna garden" over the fall/winter with layers of peat moss, newspaper, and coffee grounds, but no dirt because i ran out of money, so all the dirt's getting added at the end -- oops) so that we could cover the pile cleanly with our enormous, bright blue tarp, then collapsed into bed after well-deserved hot showers.

the next evening, since we didn't have the beds built yet for the bean trellis and raspberries, we worked on the front yard. chris continued adding dirt to the terraced rock beds.

(chris building the terrace beds last summer)

these beds will host shade-loving plants (coleus, hostas, etc.) for the duration of the hot months, but next year i'll be starting cabbages, lettuces, broccolis, and things of that sort to plant in them so we can harvest them before the trees leaf out. got too late a start for all that this year, though the locust trees on the east-facing "hell strip" on our property are late-leafers, so i may yet experiment with some lettuces and cabbages in those beds anyway.

and i forked up the soon-to-be herb bed...

(photo from last summer)

...leaving the bordering ivy and grasses, and the two boxwoods (which will likely be moved out of that bed), but ran out of back power and sunlight before i could add in any of the new dirt/compost. and now it's rained and gotten cold again (and will likely snow a bit tonight), compacting it all back down so that i'll have to do it all over again. *sigh* but i got the three roses moved to the bed along the driveway; hopefully they'll like their new home. they're not going to get as big as i'd originally thought when i first planted them as foundation ornamentals, so that wasn't a good use of them -- plus, who wants to be harvesting herbs around prickly roses? (although i'll definitely be harvesting their hips later this summer!)

half the dirt pile is still waiting in the driveway, covered in the bright-blue tarp (currently straining and flapping in 40-mph gusts of cold north wind), for the weather to turn so we can get it placed in the new bed spots in the yard. but first we have to build the beds in which to place it -- and that will require some building with the remaining fir boards we bought as well as fetching more rock from shawnee, all of which takes time, energy, and good weather. oy!

bellaschlager @ 2008-06-09T12:28:00

2008-06-09T17:28:21Z

what with the stormy, overly-hot-and-humid weather keeping me from working on the yard (well, it's horrible for yardwork, but the plants are LOVING it), and our acquisition of a new dining set, i'm all about thinking about more decorating ideas for the house. and i just thought of something: what if i created a false wainscoting in the dining room with a display ledge about 5' up from the floor, and i could put decorative objects on it. (i'd create the false wainscoting with mdf as the background, 1"x3" boards for the "box" frames, 1"x6" boards for the shelf, with decorative trim and brackets) stuff like these plates here, by thomas paul:

i could intersperse such things with more glass jars o' stuff like the ones i've done in the kitchen, filled with various colorful beans, grains, and pastas, to pull in more of an "earthy" feeling (and to save my kitchen counterspace -- haha). (the chalkboard paint works wonderfully, btw; finally got some chalk and tried it out this weekend.)

i also really like the idea of creating silhouettes of people who are near and dear to me (perhaps i'll have them sign and date the backs of their individual silhouette), and hanging a collection of those on the wall somewhere. perhaps in the dining room, since that will be the gathering place for large family events. now i'll just have to figure out how to do that. :)

(x-posted to my personal blog)

our first yule (by season)

2008-01-07T16:04:18Z

i can't believe it's been a month since i last posted on here. We haven't been doing much worth blogging about, really; just trying to keep up with family events for the holidays and stay sane in general (both sometimes easier said than done).

However, that being said, I thought I'd post some pics of our Yule decorations to commemorate our first Yule in this house:

and our house's first winter with us:

:)

(by season)

2007-11-19T17:54:20Z

i spent saturday re-potting all of our deck plants in sterile pots and soil, cleaning all bugs and bug-related debris from everything, so that i could bring them inside permanently to their new home in the "atrium." they're a little sad-looking from having spent 3 weeks in the garage with no sunlight, but i'm sure they'll spring back to life in their new (much warmer and consistently-temperate) environment. am considering getting a humidifier to keep in the atrium just for them -- i'd have to keep it on the floor, though, so i don't have to climb a ladder to refill it every day, and floorspace over there is at a premium of late, so i haven't made up my mind. however, if i don't get a humidifier, then i'll have to climb up there all the time to spritz the plants, and that'd be just as much work. so.......hm. we placed The Amazing Ficus Tree directly in front of the french door which we don't ever open so that it gets loads of sunlight, and it looks really pretty there. :)

chris-the-stuntman cleaned out all the new (uncovered) gutters on the back of the house yesterday afternoon (while i wasn't home, which terrifies me at the prospect of the horrible things which could have happened), so now my mind's at ease on that front, especially since i've been seeing reports that the weather's supposed to turn nasty and winterish on wednesday (just in time for us to travel all over the state of kansas for thanksgiving on thursday, and then again on saturday for thanksgiving with another branch of the family.....not to mention the family which is travelling to our house this weekend!).

pictures to come soon...

barstools revamped (by season)

2007-11-19T16:50:53Z

(cross-posted somewhat from my personal journal)

last night, after preparing a nummylicious dinner of herbed scrambled eggs with sauteed mushrooms and onions, toast with homemade amish apple butter, and canned peaches, i decided that i was feeling crafty. so i FINALLY got around to re-covering our new barstools with the striped fabric i'd previously used on my "martha-stewart-y" bulletin board (which i still need to re-frame):

it was SO easy, took hardly any time at all, and they look fabulous! (i'll post pictures soon; i couldn't find my camera last night and chris was working late.)

it's funny, but i felt really encouraged by that project (i've been distinctly un-crafty of late) to continue into my other fabric/sewing projects that i want to do for the house (i.e., sewing curtains for practically every room in the place, but beginning with the kitchen and living room). i found a really cute idea for curtains for the living room: tack doornails into the wall above the window; sew loops along the top of your backed fabric panel (i'd make mine floor-length); hang curtain via loops on doornails. you can adjust how the curtain looks and how much light is allowed in by folding the curtain and hanging it differently on various nails. perhaps i'll also hang a sheer behind it so that light can be allowed in without sacrificing privacy, and to soften the look a bit. ...and perhaps i'll make two panels, so i can create the effect of a bigger, more dramatic window. :)

i'm still on the fence about recovering our current couches or having one built for me and having that covered in the fabric i have. see, i've got in my mind's eye a living room setup consisting of a couch that's a wide semi-circle facing the fireplace/tv-above-the-mantel (oh! did i tell you that chris and i bought an LCD teevee last weekend? we've got it perched on the fireplace mantel until we do the massive project of rebuilding the chimney and creating a wall of built-in bookshelves with a cabinet to encase the tv), and flanked on either side by (possibly slipper) chairs covered in a reddish/berryish leather (which will bring out the reds in the couch fabric). an ottoman/coffee table (with built-in storage) which one could put one's feet up on and use for more seating would center the group, right in front of the fireplace. see, the living room is weird in that the furniture has to be in the center of the room for traffic-flow (and lack of much wall between the living and dining rooms). and although our current couch and loveseat work all right, facing each other on either side of the fireplace, i just can't help but think that my dreamed-up arrangement would create a far more cohesive and unique "look" for the room, besides being ultimately more useable.

i've also been toying with the idea of painting patterns on the walls in the bathrooms, and using wallpaper scraps to create a vintage botany-esque scene on at least one wall in the guest room. future projects... :)

bellaschlager @ 2007-08-17T12:12:00

2007-08-17T17:09:56Z

after a bitter disappointment when home depot ran out of the wrought-iron, 7-piece outdoor dining set that i had my heart set on (i thought they wouldn't be restocking it since it's "seasonal" product and was so heavily discounted), i was overjoyed to discover yesterday that they'd restocked it, that it was still on super-sale, and that they offered free shipping for it. so we snatched a set up right away. yaaaaaaaaaaay! i'm SO excited about it.....now we just need to finish the dining pavilion so we have somewhere to put it once it arrives! haha

last night while on a dash to home depot (i should get a discount there, seriously!) for a construction stapler, i decided to check out their lighting section to see if they had any decent wall sconces in stock -- and they did! they were only ~$26 each, and they look really frickin' good if i do say so myself. hehe and i'm glad i bought them, too, because, although the dirt-moving guy was supposed to meet my stepdad at our house to move the last "bit" of our dirt mountain and the smaller sand-hill to the backyard, he no-call/no-showed (again). so the sconces were a good way to cheer my dahlink up -- he really wanted something on the wall besides the fugly temporary construction lights we had before. :)

since i hadn't done a very good job spraypainting the curtain hooks for the dining room wednesday night and therefore couldn't install them last night (had to wait for them to dry all over again), i worked on my room (at long last). i got all the trim re-painted, and then decided to have a go at painting over the beige walls with my van-dyke-brown glaze. i got one wall (mostly) done, and part of another, and then brushed it with big, swooping brushstrokes. and i was VERY pleasantly surprised to discover that now, when the light catches the glaze, it literally *sparkles* along the brushstrokes, with a golden gleam. it didn't have that effect in the living room, so having the beige as a basecoat must be causing it, but it looks SO FRICKIN COOL!!! i have to buy more glaze and van-dyke-brown paint tonight to finish the rest of the beige walls, and i can't hardly wait. i think i'm going to coat the red walls with some clear glaze, too, and brush them, too, to give them some depth -- they're awfully flat now (especially compared to the newly-textured other walls), and they constantly look dusty for some reason (ugh!). my room is gonna be SO FRACKIN COOL by the time i'm done.

AND i thought of a really cool thing to do in the guest room: i'm going to turn the daybed so that its back is along the west wall, centered on the window and facing the doorway. then i'm going to make floor-to-ceiling curtains that span the length of the wall, draping them over the bedframe a la a canopy, creating a haven-like feeling and *just* opening on the window, so it feels more intimate and makes the window seem larger. then, on the walls, i'm going to paint a design in green that will sort of frame the prints that i'm going to hang in there. i think this arrangement will really open up the quite-small space of the room, while at the same time create a cozy little nook for relaxing on the daybed -- plus, it'll look *so* inviting when one peeps in the doorway! :)

chris says he likes my ideas for painting in the master bedroom, so i'm going to start paint-shopping for the *perfect* aubergine color, even though we won't be able to actually *buy* the stuff until probably the next pay-period, haha. weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

colors on the brain

2007-08-16T16:41:11Z

so this has been on my mind lately.....i painted 2.5 of the walls in my room a deep, crimson red, and the remaining ones the same beige as is in the hallways &etc. the funny thing is, ever since i did this, i've been avoiding my room like the plague -- even to the point that chris has to nag me to finish the touch-up work on the trim &etc. the furniture's still shoved into the middle of the room, and i just never go in there unless i absolutely have to. so i've been thinking that, since i'm so enamored of the chocolate linen treatment that i just completed on the living room walls, perhaps i'll repeat the treatment on the currently-beige walls in my room. i'm thinking that that will not only balance the weight of the red, but also warm up the space, and the texturing will be a neat addition. i don't think the room would become too dark because it's got two large windows in there in addition to the white ceiling. and whatever artwork and shelving i put up can be framed in white (like the trim) to keep things lightened up. and bronze lighting. :-)

also, i'm thinking of doing a similar brush-treatment in our bedroom, in eggplant glaze over the current (*blah*) beige paint, except i'd only brush vertically so that it's not a complete copy of the living room's look. (single-direction brushing gives the paint a look rather like that grasscloth wallpaper that i like so well in ralph-lauren-style homes.) i think the eggplant would really compliment the wood furniture we've got, and we could keep the space warm by adding dark-bronze lighting fixtures and colorful botanical art on the walls. the eggplant will also go perfectly with both of our sets of bedding, we can continue that color in accents in the master bathroom, it will compliment the living room's brown, and it wouldn't be too "girly" a color for chris.

RSVP request

2007-08-15T16:47:57Z

just so chris and i can have an idea of how many people to expect, could our friends here please comment as to whether they think they'll come to our housewarming party this saturday? we'd really appreciate it.

in case you need it, here's chris's party webpage, which contains a link of a map to the house.

thanks!

(x-posted to my personal LJ)

bellaschlager @ 2007-08-15T09:14:00

2007-08-15T15:10:51Z

well, it took 4.5 hours last night, but i got the living room finished. and it looks FABULOUS! the wall treatment even makes our sofas look better -- less "relic-from-the-early-'90s"-ish (haha) -- and they'll *really* pop once they're wearing their new slipcovers (i couldn't resist holding the fabric up to the freshly-painted wall to check. me=nerd). i'm hobbling about quite a bit this morning -- my ankles apparently quite dislike being used to clamber up and down ladders for long stretches of time -- but my new sneakers and a couple excedrins are helping alleviate that. :-)

chris doesn't want to take pictures of the completed room until we can put the furniture back in place (which i won't allow until tomorrow night at the earliest so the glaze has the utmost time to dry in this freakishly humid (though central-air-conditioned inside, thank the gods) weather), so in the meantime, here are a couple teasers:

here's a shot of our new barstools, too, which i bought at target a couple weekends ago. though chris wouldn't let me paint the wood black, to match the kitchen better (which i now agree with -- it helps create a visual transition to the living room's brown tones, especially since they're right in the kitchen/living room doorway), i'll be re-covering the seats with our fancy new striped fabric before saturday's party. :-)

bellaschlager @ 2007-08-14T09:51:00

2007-08-14T16:02:29Z

ay, dios mio, i'm SO FRICKIN' EXHAUSTED. and that's after only one late night of work (i didn't go to bed until 2:00 a.m.). *sigh*

after getting home late, eating dinner later, and walking the dogs even later, i started the living room painting project: applying a dark-chocolate glaze to the walls and then brushing it *just so*, so that it looks like linen when finished. and although it's a LOT of work, the "even" sections i did last night look FABULOUS and i can hardly wait to see the finished room when i'm completely done tonight. seriously, it's just so comforting to the eyeballs; it even softens the kitchen's green walls. MUCH better than the blank, flat creamy-white walls. and it doesn't hurt that the new color will look absolutely *stunning* with the fabric i'm going to use for the sofa slipcovers. *swoon*

chris has been working his arse off in the master bathroom, making it presentable. he's scrubbed the shower and bathtub to within an inch of their lives, removing all the grout, dirt, caulk, and other miscellaneous muck from them -- they now look better than they did when we first bought the things! he's also caulked all the baseboards and windows and repainted the trim, so that's all gorgeous now. and he took a razor-blade-scraper to the inside and outside of both windows, and the result is simply stunning -- the glass is actually literally *sparkling* now. :) he also put a line of silicone caulk where the bathroom tile meets the hallway's hardwood flooring, so that looks more finished now. so now all we need is the shower door, and that bathroom will be done! (...except for moving the sinks over and hiding their plumbing, but that's a future project. and there's also the decorating, but, again, future project. haha)

in other decorating news, i ordered an old 2006 calendarbook from the new york botanical garden that has full-page, color copies of antique botanical drawings in it (the sort with latin and german descriptions), and it arrived yesterday. and the drawings are SO perfect! i can hardly wait to start framing them and hanging them all over the house. hehehe speaking of framing things, i need to get our "found in the walls" stuff framed and hung as well. hopefully before the party, so we can share them all, but we'll see. so much to do!!!

bellaschlager @ 2007-08-01T07:03:00

2007-08-01T14:59:01Z

so while chris was working inside last night (doing the previous night's dishes because i can't immerse my julienned finger, the gallant fellow that he is), i decided to get some exercise and start hauling more dirt to the backyard for the "dining pavilion". chris saw me working and said that he wanted to help -- "help" meant making a string-line and rebuilding the wee wall i'd previously made into a perfectly-straight, perfectly-level thing (goddess bless his perfectionism!). after five wheelbarrow-loads of dirt, i achieved a blister on my thumb that made any more shoveling impossible, so i hung out with chris and "art directed" his building of the house-facing wall and the steps that will go from the driveway to the "pavilion" (you can see them below at the left end of the wall -- they're quite flat, so it's kind of hard to discern them here). you know, those steps took quite a bit of work for how simple (broad, flat, and *heavy*) they seem!

i have to say, it's looking pretty good!

pictures!

2007-07-27T21:57:32Z

i bought some new outdoor seating wednesday (on clearance at lowes while i was *really* shopping for fungicide), and chris and i assembled it and put it on the deck last night. ain't it purty? :)

also, here's a picture of where the "dining pavilion" is going to be:

bellaschlager @ 2007-07-20T10:03:00

2007-07-20T15:03:47Z

here's the rock wall that chris built last night -- ain't it beeyootiful?

and, remember my post about my oh-so-"martha" bulletin board? chris finally took a picture of it:

bellaschlager @ 2007-07-19T22:31:00

2007-07-20T03:58:00Z

in gardening news, i discovered a nest of wasps residing in the front-side yard. how did i discover the nest, you ask? well, that would be because i slammed my hoe right down in their front door, which REALLY pissed them off -- enough so that one of them stung me, just above the inside of my elbow on my right arm. *that* was pleasant, lemme tell you. after emitting a shriek that echoed down the block, i fled inside (unpursued, thank the gods) and, having never been stung before and thus unexperienced in such events, immediately googled what the first aid is. i'd thought at first that i'd been stung by a bee because the swarming bugs were so small. but there was no stinger left behind to remove (a key ingredient of beesting), and bees apparently don't nest in the ground -- wasps, hornets, and yellowjackets do. after doing all my reading about wasps, their lifecycles, and their habits, i feel kind of bad that i'm going to have to exterminate them, because they're apparently *very* helpful creatures to have around, what with all the "eww"-type insects that are their daily bread, but their house is right next to where we want to pour our patio in the frontyard, and right in the middle of where i want to build flowerbeds. i can't have the little buggers getting pissed at me every time i want to do a little gardening, so they have to go.

at least we still have the bumblebees and honeybees (somewhere).

tonight, chris gave me a major surprise when i got home. he'd spent the entire evening building the retaining wall around our deck for the fill-dirt that we're going to put under the under-deck area up to grade and keep water from damaging the foundation. and it's friggin' AMAZING. it's got the perfect amount of curve to it, and he tapered its setback from the driveway, and its taper down to the ground on the south end, *perfectly*. he gave it a longer strip of setback from the driveway than i'd been thinking of doing, and i'm glad, because that'll give more space for "softening" greenery and "error room" while we're learning how to get in and out of the garage without hitting the house (*cringe*). seriously, i have no idea how he did it -- those are native sandstone rocks, and they're BIG and VERY HEAVY. i'm starting to suspect that he's got some sort of superhero power that he's keeping secret from me. we'll post a picture very soon.

no rest for the wicked non-wall-builder that i am, though -- because of my landscaping "vision" and because of the recent availability of some freshly-unearthed rock that leon knows about, he's renting a pickup truck for chris and me (he gets better rates than we can) so that chris and i can go get *more* rock to create the other flowerbeds, retaining walls, and the like. although it's back-breaking, hot, sweaty labor, i'm SO glad that the rock is free for the taking since the cost of renting the truck and paying for all the gas to go back and forth between the "quarry" and our house is going to be quite enough for our pocketbooks. :P 'specially since we're going to have to order more topsoil to fill all these beds &etc in. yeesh. at least i can take my time with the planting! haha

bellaschlager @ 2007-07-14T16:21:00

2007-07-14T21:36:51Z

howdy folks! this is chris posting this time...

a really odd thing happened today. i was out back futzing with the deck when i hear this, "sorry, we don't mean to be snoopy, but..." it was the original owners of our house, they were in the neighborhood and were walking by to see their old house from the outside.

the last time season or i saw them, it was before we actually started any work. it was really odd meeting them because we were about to tear apart their house. i gave them a tour of the inside of the house and they were blown away. they said they could barely recognize the place.

in other house-related news, our fill dirt came.

i have an insane amount of shoveling to do tomorrow. the good news is soon we'll have the back yard they way we want it and one of the huge things on our to-do list will be taken care of.

so if you're bored tomorrow and have your own shovel, please stop by!

bellaschlager @ 2007-07-06T13:28:00

2007-07-06T18:48:05Z

my lunchtime drorrings of what i want to do to the backyard (lately):

this first one is an overall plan for the backyard. there's the fence from the bottom of the deck steps to the front corner of the garage, with a gate in it. there's the odd little area where the driveway creates a "patio" at the side of the garage, where we'll put the firebowl and a couple adirondack-style chairs. there's the "outdoor room", with a table and chairs, and a water fountain (hehehe), backed by the hedge.

this next drorring is a look at the fence/gate if you were standing in the driveway looking south. i want to make the posts the same height as those at the corners of the deck. you'll see why in the next picture.

remember those odd little things sticking out of the fence in the first picture? well, here's what they are. i want to take the concept from the gate i posted waaaay back and incorporate that by creating hanging flowerpot arches along the fence. i want to do three because odd numbers of things are always better. they'll be the same height as the deck posts so that (1) there will be room to walk beneath the plants without hitting one's head and (2) there will be a sense of visual continuity. they'll also help give more "oomph" to the fence, giving the enclosed section of the backyard more definition.

finally, here's an elevation of the "outdoor room" as though you're looking at it from the bottom of the deck stairs (without all the other stuff in front).

whaddaya think?

bellaschlager @ 2007-07-06T06:18:00

2007-07-06T17:02:01Z

i was talking to the the family on the 4th about the house, progress, &etc., and felt kinda guilty because we hadn't updated in quite a while. we've now been living in the house for a month (!), and things are coming along. we're learning the joys of having a garbage disposal and central air, and i'm thoroughly enjoying having the laundry room on the same level as the master bedroom. chris got the mirrors mounted in the upstairs bathroom, and the medicine cabinets in the downstairs one (quite a chore which he and leon pulled off splendidly).

i cut down the holly tree (the one on the right in the userpic) in the front flowerbed -- yay for sawsalls, so now there's no bushiness covering up the front of the house...no dead, dying, stinky bushiness. yay! chris had some fun chopping up the stumps and digging them out, so now the flowerbed's all ready for replanting. i'm really excited about it, and i'm sure that the flowers that've been waiting patiently next to the bed are excited as well. :)

last weekend, chris also surprised me by cleaning the house out of all boxes and construction remnants -- he said he wanted to not be embarrassed if someone called and said they wanted to come over. haha so now it really feels more like we live there instead of just squatting in someone's construction zone. :) now we just need to get those boxes and bags of stuff to goodwill and we'll in really good shape!

of the fabric i ordered, two bolts came in. they're the "accent" fabrics, though (one is striped and one is a lovely textured red), so i haven't been able to create any of the drapes or start on the sofa-recovering yet. HOWEVER! i did complete a very marthastewart-esque project: we have a couple of cheapie bulletin boards, and long ago chris painted the frames black, so i took one and covered the corkboard in the striped fabric and reassembled it, and then hung it vertically in the kitchen on the blank wall behind the breakfast bar. then i hung our little silver "mailboxes" next to it, so it's now a highly-functioning wall, and a place for us to dump our stuff besides the countertop. :P it really gives the kitchen a "lived-in" feeling, which always makes me feel better (i'm SUCH the nester, given the time, money, and materials). i'm eventually going to get some nicer wood to make a nicer frame for the bulletin board, which i'll also paint black, but that's a future project.

chris cleared the leftover gutters out of the backyard and has stored them out of sight behind the garage, and has now found a scrap-metal guy who will pick them all up on monday. wooo! now we just need to find someone who will *buy* the old windows from us, and haul them away themselves, and we'll have that all cleaned up.

i've come up with a fabulous new landscaping plan for the backyard; i'll do some drawings over lunch and share them. methinks the plan will incorporate some decorative fencing from the deck to the garage, and hedging along the rear property line (i'm thinking either bamboo or korean boxwood), and will allow me to create the "outdoor room" we so badly need for entertaining purposes (we're going to get a high-top table set to put on the deck, but there's not room for anything other than that). my "outdoor room" idea should be able to hold a 6-person table and chairs, methinks. it'll be defined by the fact that it'll be a level area, raised about a foot or so (enough for one step up) from the slope of the yard/driveway, and bordered on the front (house-facing) edge by the same sort of rocks which we're using to create the retaining wall under the deck. along the south edge of the backyard, where the neighbor's fence is, i'm going to created a formal, raised flowerbed backed by climbers. not only will this give the slope under her fence purpose, but it'll create seating. i'm also thinking that we won't have any grass in the backyard; what isn't dedicated flowerbeds will be covered by that dark-dark mulch. i think that will really complement the driveway's colors, and we won't have to worry about trying to keep grass growing in that mostly-shady space. my reasoning for installing a hedge instead of a fence along the rear property line is that we won't have to worry about setback limitations and so can USE and INCORPORATE the space behind the garage instead of leaving it outside the fencing/hedging and therefore mostly inaccessible. i'm really excited about it. :D

bellaschlager @ 2007-06-25T12:59:00

2007-06-25T21:51:45Z

well, we finally closed on our refinance loan last thursday. this means, as chris put it, that we're finally out of "construction loan" phase and into "the bank owns my arse for the next 17-30 years" phase. weeeeeeeeeeeee! we're official! hahaha

oh, the joys of plumbing! on saturday, chris discovered that we had about 2" of really yucky-looking (containing bits of biodegraded t.p.) though thankfully not-too-smelly water standing in the lower section of the basement. i waited to call leon in hopes that it would go down or something, but no luck. so that evening i called, and leon (the trooper that he is) came over after dinner. while we were waiting for him to arrive, chris and i vaccuumed up all the water we could, dumped it into buckets, and hauled it out to the sewer grate outside. about 11 buckets in total.

once leon arrived and assessed the situation, he decided that the problem was caused by more of the sand and concrete that had gotten down into the sewer trap and drainage pipe that runs out to the main line under the street, and had therefore plugged up the works. ugh! (we'd already had a plumber out to mega-vaccuum out the pipes at the beginning of may for the same problem.) so leon, on a full stomach, worked for the next two hours or so (with chris and me hauling countless more water-, concrete-, and sand-filled buckets out to the street) alternating between vaccuuming out the pipes, working a crowbar around in the pipes to loosen the muck, filling them with clean water to suspend said muck, and vaccuuming it all out again for us to haul away. nasty, sweaty, smelly work. we got most of it out, though, but there's a bend in the main pipe that leon couldn't get to, and our little shop-vac just isn't powerful enough to get that stuff out, so we quit for the night. before leaving, though, leon came up with the clever idea to plug the pipes with newspaper-stuffed plastic grocery bags to maintain the pressure in the main pipe so that we could use the toilet, shower, sinks, etc. without having it all come back into the basement, and in the hopes that said pressure would force what blockage remained on out into the main street pipe. and, as far as keeping the water from backing up into the basement, it worked! :D

yesterday i called the plumber but he was out of town (we took turns dropping each other's calls -- he was on a missouri highway and i have no signal in our house), but he called today and said he'd be over this morning to clear out the pipes. yay! leon thinks that this vaccuuming ought to do the job, and i sure hope so -- that was naaaaaaaaaasty! naturally, we'll be chlorox-ing the basement really well tonight (we refrained from doing so yesterday, not wanting to waste our efforts in case the water rose again).

i'm starting on the "filling out" of the house now. i've been buying super-cheap baby plants at lowes, and some good topsoil, and if it's not too disgusting tonight i'm going to start taming and replanting the front formal flowerbed. i'm actually really excited about it, to have at least one thing that will look cared-for and on it's way to being "finished." :) also, i got the fabrics ordered for the window treatments in the kitchen, dining room, and living room ordered, and the fabric i'm going to use to re-cover the sofa and loveseat as well. and they were all half-price! :D they could arrive all at once, or piecemeal between this wednesday and up to 6 weeks from now -- i'm kinda hoping they arrive all at once, since two of the fabricks are going to be used for "accents" on/with the other pieces.

chris has been working hard on the inside of the house -- he's gotten his own room entirely done now, including creating a "guitar wall":

he also got the guest room all done, and assembled the daybed. (and now that i can do laundry again without fear of causing the Next Great Flood, i'll wash up the bedding and make it look all purty!) yesterday he spent the morning assembling and putting up the lovely mirrors and glass shelves which go under them in the upstairs bathroom (pictures to come), and finished just in time to show them off to my dad and stepmom who came for a visit.

we're also getting dirt soon, which is very exciting because, once that's delivered, we can start the "real" landscaping. and there's a LOT to be done, according to what i've been plotting. (remember this?) i'm imagining a mixture of formal and informal beds (some incorporating rock that we've brought in from the 'burbs) arranged around a series of patios and at least one water feature (lowe's currently has a really pretty, simple-but-elegant, tiered fountain that i'd like to use, for one). lots of space for interesting plants (especially since we've got an interesting mixture of completely-shady to mostly-sunny spaces scattered throughout the yards), conversation/social areas, and space for my "yarden workspace". there's also going to be some fencing and arbors incorporated, all made of light-green-painted wood, methinks. that way they'll blend in with the plants which will be growing up/on/around them. the fencing will also give the puppies room to play and socialize with whoever's in the yard without having to be confined to the deck or tied out. (i have a *major* issue with tying dogs out, which i won't get into here.)

ETA: i talked to the plumber over lunch to see what he encountered and whether the problem had been fixed. he said that indeed, the blockage was just beyond the bend in that main pipe that runs to the big street sewer pipe, which leon couldn't get to with his crowbar last night, so the plumber ran a snake 100' (which is very thorough of him considering that the pipe in the basement is probably only 30' from the street line!), vaccuumed it all out, and then ran a bunch of water through the line to make sure it was all cleared out. i'm not looking forward to seeing the bill, which he left on the dining room table, but i'm glad the problem's likely taken care of for good now (seeing as how we don't have any more loose sand or concrete in the basement anymore to get into the line! haha).

tonight, leon's going to come over and help us mount the lovely medicine cabinets in the master bathroom. it's going to be a bit of a project because there are pipes directly in the way of where the screws need to go. hopefully we won't have to go to the extent of cutting out the sheetrock, inserting a board between the studs, re-sheetrocking, patching, and painting, and then mounting the medicine cabinets. ugh!

tomorrow, *knock on wood,* we're supposed to get the money from our refinance. then we can finally purchase a door for the shower and get that finished, and then we can use the master bathroom at last instead of having to hike all the way to the second floor to shower! weeeeeeeeeeeeee! :D i'm also looking forward to some long, luxurious soaks in the superdeep tub in there. :)

on financing and appliances...

2007-06-07T18:45:36Z

so we STILL haven't closed on the refinance ("endloan") for the house. this is the step that's supposed to pay off our construction loan and provide us with the money to do the little "sprucing up" things we wanted to do, i.e., build the frontyard patio, landscape, buy fabric for window treatments and slipcovering, etc. the f*ing bank's inspector keeps coming back to us with little ridiculous demands and lists &etc that MUST be done in order for us to close. she's been doing this for over a month now, which has cost us $1400 in interest payment on the construction loan, and will probably cost us another similar amount if we have to pay the may interest amount because of the endloan bank's taking so long to close this f*ing deal.

the latest demand? we have to have a dishwasher. not just bought, but installed. why, you ask? well, see, there's a "hole" in the cabinetry for one, so even though it's not required by ANY sort of code held by ANY regulatory agency, there must be a dishwasher in that space.
)(&*^*&%$&()(*&^(*^%T)*&^*&%$^%#$##@^(&*%^%$@#%*^%$#@
so yesterday i spent a good hour finding a well-reviewed, on-sale dishwasher on the sears website, locating a store that had one in stock, and organizing my dad and stepdad so that dad could pick up the machine this morning and deliver it to our house, where stepdad would help him unload and install it.

but, even though i made a separate call to sears and requested that the salesman put the requisite power cord with the machine so that it's all together and ready for pickup, he failed to do so. so now leon has to go get one, along with the powercord for the garbage disposal. *sigh* i just hope the damned thing works properly.

on a lighter note, i picked up our c.s.a. distribution last night, so now our fancy-schmancy new fridge has veggies in it and doesn't look so pathetic! yay! AND we even got a dozen fresh eggs from free, grass-fed, small-farm hens (they're SO SO SO tasty!), which are now happily chillin' in their special egg-compartment. hehehe

poor chris wasn't feeling well last night, and i was so worn out from officework and general stress that it gave me a horrid stomachache, so nothing much was done last night besides the purchase of the doorknobs, a new deadbolt for the backdoor that doesn't require a key to open it from the inside (which locks, by the way, have been against building code for AGES), a plunger for the toilet that was mysteriously stopped up when chris got home from work, and some gorilla glue so i can glue magnets back onto the spice cans and stick them on the fridge door with their buddies. hopefully that will work better than the superglue ("works on all materials!" pffffffffffffffft!) that i used before.

oh, also: chris has informed me that the kcp&l guy showed up this morning (not at the time requested, of course) and installed our spiffy new programmable thermostat. hooray for saving money and energy! and with a ~$300 thermostat that we got for free! :D

all right, back to work for me.

bellaschlager @ 2007-06-06T12:17:00

2007-06-06T21:47:28Z

we moved into the house last tuesday, a week ago yesterday, and have spent the past week puttering around, emptying boxes, putting things away, cleaning, &etc. i even put the beautiful new crewelwork-on-ivory-linen bedding on the bed for ONE day, but since we've been having to keep the doggies gated in the master bedroom on the off chance that workers/inspectors will be stopping by, it hasn't been back on the bed. in future, the bedding will be on the bed, and the doggies will be shut OUT of the bedroom. they have a nasty habit of "digging" on fabrics (i think they think they're creating a bed of some sort), which has already ruined the sofa fabric, and will not be allowed to happen on the beautiful new bedding.

we had a guy come over last weekend and install new (very pretty) guttering on the newly-constructed part of the house. leon installed the downspouts on monday, and now our freshly-shored-up foundation is safer from any future torrential rainstorms.

the trash-hauling guy came back yesterday and took away the enormous (and hopefully final) pile of trash that accumulated during the moving process and from chris cleaning out the garage. chris has done an AMAZING job cleaning up and organizing the garage. all of our old, ugly bookshelves are lining all the walls, and all are stuffed with boxes of our random crap. so much crap! he hung up our bikes, too, so maybe this weekend it'll be nice again and we can go for a ride. :)

i bought fixtures (towel bars and the like) for the bathrooms, and chris and i installed everything in the upstairs one except the vanity mirrors (i didn't want to hang them until we got the light fixture scootched over a couple inches, so it's centered on the vanity, because i thought they'd be in the way, but since we use that bathroom primarily until the downstairs one is finished, i think we should go ahead and mount them). the downstairs bathroom has been rather neglected by us lately, though it'll be whipped into shape soon enough. leon put up the tile backsplash around the tub in the downstairs bathroom, and now it just needs to be grouted.

would you believe that we actually had enough stuff to fill every last inch of cabinetspace we have in the new kitchen?!! i actually didn't get to put anything in the left-hand pantry because of problems that the cabinetmaker needs to come fix, but other than that, the place is STUFFED. o.O

i think my dry-mop is going to become my new best friend in this place. SO much sand and grit on the floors, constantly! maybe i'll buy a bunch of those little house-shoes and a large floormat so people can kick off their shoes at the door and either go barefoot or wear the house-shoes around, so i don't have to spend every evening dry-mopping the floors. bleargh! (i still prefer the hardwoods over carpet, though. just knowing that whatever dirt and muck there is is right there, in the open, instead of hiding away in the carpet fibers, relieves my allergic mind a LOT.)

i managed to get into some poison ivy during the move. i think it got onto my teva sandals first, and, thinking the rash was just bugbites, i scratched away, spreading the rash. so now i'm constantly smearing left arm and both feet (i can only wear flip-flops for a while) with drying gel, and last evening i spent a good amount of time spraying the ENTIRE side-yard, front corner to back, with round-up. i'm just going to kill it all back and start entirely over because i saw a lot of baby poison ivy, so who knows how much of it is hiding under all that virginia creeper, english ivy, and other stuff? i really don't want to find out while trying to whip the place into shape. unfortunately, although the round-up bottle said that i'd see results within 6 hours, this morning when i inspected the supposed damage, everything looked the same except for being coated with a waxiness. *sigh* i guess if it comes down to it, i'm going to have to ask my new garden-shop-owning friend to come spray everything down for me. ($$$...) she's probably got a much more effective sprayer than my wussy little bottle-with-nozzle anyway, and she won't have to get so close to the poison in the process.

chris and i have now successfully cooked a frozen pizza and nachos deeeeeelight in our fancy new convection oven -- chris convected the nachos, too; they only took, like, 2 minutes to cook! haha we're supposed to be getting a dozen farm-fresh eggs from our c.s.a. pickup tonight, though, so i can promise that MUCH more cooking will be done in the near future. hooray, breakfast and baking! :D

more later.

WE MOVED IN!!!!!

2007-05-30T17:08:17Z

yesterday! the house now contains furniture! and we slept there last night! and it was QUIET! and DARK! and PEACEFUL! and soooooooo lovely to watch the sunrise this morning over the lush treetops surrounding the house. :D

our first dinner: frozen pizza and beer. hehehe (i didn't have the nerve to cook the pizza convection-style; i want to read the oven's manual before attempting such feats of cookery. hahaha)

we're constantly amazed at how SPACIOUS it feels now that the furniture is in the house -- it actually feels bigger than before! our dining room table looks pitifully small now, but that's okay because that means that we'll have room for an extendable one, which will be nice to have for the big family dinners and parties we want to host! :D and the master bedroom has all three dressers, the queen-size bed, and a chair-and-ottoman set, and there's still loads of room! w00t! it's also kinda weird that we have to do all our showering and primping in the upstairs bathroom; it's kinda like we live in some ginormous mansion and the bathrooms are all in some far-away wing. haha

the doggies are completely worn out from all the confusion and stress. they're shut safely in the comfort of the master bedroom today, on the theory that being in a smaller space filled with familiar-smelling stuff and squooshy furniture will comfort them. :) here's hoping they get some good, long naps today -- the perfect day for it, being all overcast and rainy.

more pictures will be coming once we've had a chance to catch our collective breath, i promise!

bellaschlager @ 2007-05-24T12:48:00

2007-05-24T20:25:56Z

so we're moving this weekend. moving the small stuff saturday - monday, and hiring movers to move the furniture &etc. on tuesday.

here's the current weather forecast:

why does mothernature hate us so? *sob* and it's all humid and moist outside right now, and the flooring guys are supposed to do the final coat of poly this afternoon. the humidity will cause the floors to take even longer to cure than otherwise, which worries me because we have a "final inspection" scheduled for tomorrow afternoon and i don't want the inspector's most-likely-wet-floor-unfriendly shoes to f*k up the floors!

i'm also in a rather testy mood because we did NOT get to close today. "why," you ask? well, frankly, it's because the bank has it's head up it's arse. on something entirely different this time. see, although they agreed with us that their inspector is insane and her requirements were entirely without merit, they decided that the kcmo codes department's "ok" of our project wasn't good enough for them and that the (private) engineer who we paid many, many moons ago to provide a technical structural drawing for the codes department, for our building permit, needs to come out and give HIS "ok" on the project. see, this is stupid for many reasons. first of all, since the codes dept has already approved the project, it's a waste of the engineer's time to retrace their steps. second, if the engineer WERE to come out and see something amiss, he would have to override the city's "ok" and that would likely piss someone off at the city. and he has to work with the city on a regular basis, so pissing the city off would hardly be in his best interest. so he's refused to do the inspection. (and needless to say, the bank's going to have a hard time finding another engineer to do the inspection, because it would put him/her into the same tight spot.)

so now the ball's in the bank's court, and everyone's waiting for it to get its head out of its arse and get on with the closing. and the closing's most likely not going to happen until tomorrow. *sigh*

tonight, if it doesn't pour (and since we won't be able to work inside the house), i'm going to work on transferring all the outdoor plants that i can into the beds at the new house. that way, if it does rain this weekend, they'll get a good soaking to help them adjust to their new home. how's that for making lemonade! x-P

bellaschlager @ 2007-05-24T07:40:00

2007-05-24T13:03:13Z

so leon, our mortgage broker, and the bank worked things out and everyone agreed that the bank's inspector who came by on tuesday is crazy. leon is meeting this morning with the engineer who first engineered our project (mostly the structure of the support for the addition -- piers &etc.) and the engineer is supposed to fax a letter of approval to our mortgage broker before the scheduled noon closing. that's the agreement, anyhow. cross your fingers.

the basement guys are neeeeeeeeeeeeearly done; they only have yet to do the little nook where the sellers' washer and dryer used to be. the basement looks SO much better now, even though there's still a pile of rocks and sand in the middle of the floor (which i'm told the basement guys are going to clear out). leon and chris discussed last night the possibility of replacing the current basement windows (they're both the type that swings up, and neither one closes properly, which is good for getting stuff in and out, but bad for keeping the local wildlife out -- the other evening, in fact, chris was visited in the basement by a woodchuck!), possibly by installing glass bricks. i'm up for that; i thought they were just going to fill the windows in entirely, like they did on the driveway-side of the house. they'll be behind various front-yard plantlife anyway, so nobody outside will know if they look out-of-place. :)

leon's also going to get them to help him (i hope) to offload the remaining sand from dad's trailer this morning so he can have that back (and we can have the driveway back). he said that they'll just create a sandpile in the front yard, which i'm actually okay with because that's where we'll be doing most of the sand-related work (creating concrete to repair the sidewalk, probably the kerb, and maybe even pour the patio).

chris and i discovered that we "dummied up," as my dad says: when we bought the switches and outlets for the whole house (many moons ago), we didn't even think about what color they were (frankly, i don't think it occurred to us that there were color options). however, when we bought the faceplates for them all, we made sure that those were white. so now 85% of the house has beige-colored switches/outlets in white faceplates (not including the ones leon bought, which are all white -- smart man!). so now we're going to have to go buy white switches and outlets, and re-install them where the beige ones are. they look SO retarded right now. d'oh!

the flooring guys are coming back today to do the final round of buffing out the entire house and then applying the final coat of poly. this means that we'll get a 24-hour break (yay!) from working on the house, and can use this evening to pack to move INTO it. hehehe (i'm actually looking forward to the wee break -- my fingertips are so scratched up and sore from all this caulking! i got the guest room, including the basetrim, all caulked last night; it looks SO much better! can't wait to get the last coat of trim-paint on it and be done!) so that's likely what our thursday evening has in store. i brought home 987,293,847 banker-size boxes from the office (and will bring home more today, along with some plastic tubs we're not using), and now that they're sitting in the living room, all i really want to do is get to packing. goodwill's gonna get a HAUL of donated stuff this weekend, that's for sure. :)

photos, as promised!

2007-05-23T15:02:33Z

chris finally got around to taking some pictures last night after he was done cutting ever more pieces of base trim. (i was caulking ever more windows and doors -- the tips of my fingers are about to fall off entirely, and i still have 1.5 rooms to do! -- while he was doing this, and kept getting into his shots -- hehe) mom did an AMAZING job cleaning the house up and out yesterday in preparation for the bank inspector's visit last evening, so that's why everything looks so nice in the pics. we didn't pass the inspection because the inspector's a stuffed-shirt punk, but we're going to work our way around it and are still moving in this weekend, come hell or high water. the basement-concrete guys are going full tilt, as you'll see, and the basement's really looking good. i can hardly wait to have a finished, cleaned-out basement and have all those rocks and sand out of the driveway so we can *park* in it (imagine that)!

upstairs bathroom (the vanity still needs two more knobs, which i have yet to purchase, so ignore that. i also need to do a little touch-up painting where someone got something white-ish on the vanity, and we need to scoot the light fixture to the right about 5", but it's looking really good so far.)

chris's room (he's still working on getting the base trim nailed in in various places, but other than that it looks good, no?)

guest room/playroom

a view down the staircase (leon installed the lovely new treads (which chris finished) yesterday, and the handrail (which chris is going to stain to match the treads). leon also set the "floors" for the atrium in their places, and then we're going to trim that out as well.)

the kitchen, with the bar assembled (isn't it pretty???)

a close-up of the peninsula/breakfast bar (i'm going to replace the bulbs in those pendants with smaller ones that don't hang below the rims of the shades. that's just painful to look at, even in a photo.)

the dining room, looking into the kitchen (i keep forgetting to paint that little display nook above the doorway there, but i'll do it, i promise! didn't mom do a great job touching up the paint, though?)

the basement wall, re-concreted (this is the first step in the wall re-doing.)

the basement wall, with its "face" on (leon's going to paint this with his sprayer using the remains of the 5-gal. bucket of exterior paint we have, so it'll actually be a very light gray (nearly white) instead of being so dark (that concrete's really a dark color!).)

.....and now i have to go get ready for work.

bellaschlager @ 2007-05-22T12:01:00

2007-05-22T17:09:54Z

we're going to need a new userpic soon -- the old one doesn't really apply anymore.

the bank inspector is going to come by tonight around 6:30 p.m. not that i'm going to say anything, but i hope i'm there when she is so i can see what things she looks at. of course, it'd probably be better for my nerves if i'm not there. ha!

mom's working at the house again today. she did a FANTASTIC job yesterday finishing up the painting in the dining room and master bedroom (former "trim- and cabinetry-painting rooms," so the walls were a mess).

after painting more trim last night, chris cleaned out the guest room (recently the "board cutting room," so you can imagine what a mess there was) and now it practically looks habitable! haha

i'm sure he did a million other things i don't know about, but while i was there last night, leon installed all the risers on the upstairs-staircase as well as the side trim boards that go along the span of the staircase. i can hardly wait to see what it looks like with the *real* treads on it, too -- chris stained them to match the floors, so i'm sure it's going to look *so* elegant! leon also brought over the handrail for those stairs, but now chris and i can't decide whether to stain it to match the floors, or paint it to match the trim. i'm leaning toward stain for now, because we can always paint over that if we don't like it. :)

i'm hoping that chris will finally take some pictures today so y'all can see more of what's happening. we haven't had any pics in AGES.

okay, i'm going to go find some lunch now. must keep up me strength!