Dogs and Jen: Home Edition

I’m finally picking stuff from my garden! Over the last week, I’ve been having some radishes with my dinner and I even sent some home with brother Tom. Mmmmm….radishes.

And finally, here’s project 3 completed with brother Tom. This was also the most plaster-dust intensive project. After many battles and a lot of adaptation, we mounted my TV on the wall. There are still a few steps until this wall is complete, but for now, I have to show off what we accomplished. I really love this hanging up there.

Extra points if you can name the show on the TV.

And while I didn’t take any photos of us working together, I found one of the two of us that’s just a little older. It was taken exactly 25 years ago to the day that Tom arrived this weekend.

Project #2 that brother Tom and I worked on last weekend was installing a light in my little entry area. There was no light here before, so we had to run wires from a switch, up into the dormer space, and then down into the ceiling. Then we mounted the light, hooked it up, and got it working on the switch. And by “we”, I mean Tom. I watched.

It looks great, and makes a huge difference in how the space looks. It’s also inspired me to work more on the lighting for the rest of the room. More on that as the equipment arrives this week…

On a separate note, it’s just worth sharing this photo of what I did to my hammer this weekend. The circumstances of this need not be discussed, except that I have confirmed that I have a very secure shed.

My wonderful, amazing brother Tom came out to the East Coast and spent the weekend with me. We went to two of the Cubs-Nationals games (go cubs!), ran the George Washington Parkway Classic 10 Miler (which required me to get up at 5:freaking30am). And Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, “we” worked on projects. That really means Tom did tons and tons of work while I either watched and gave him moral support, or ran off to work for a couple hours.

Our first big project was installing new fencing. We went to Home Depot and couldn’t find easy-to-move fence sections, so we bought all the slats individually. Here is my handsome brother disassembling the old fence (I helped with this part).

We have a big pile of slats, and concrete in the wheelbarrow. So we cemented the posts in place on Friday and while I went to work Saturday afternoon, Tom put the whole thing together.

We even got a nice fence in place to block the space behind the cedars, and connceted it to the neighbors’ fence (see it up and to the right…)

I am so totally excited and pleased by this. He even leveled *every slat*!

More pictures on other projects tomorrow, once I’ve had time to clean up.

I think I’ve bought the last  small item I need for my kitchen. These are the pulls and knobs that I got for my kitchen.

Question 1: What kind of a tree is this?

Answer: A dead tree.

I was suspicious because it didn’t have any little buds on it. I went up to it and it had a big crack all the way down. I poked a branch, and it cracked off. Tuesday, I was going to cut it down, but I didn’t have to. I just pulled up and it came right out of the ground.

Question 2: What is that tree now?

Answer: A really big, really fun stick!

This dead tree is actually fine news. I didn’t want a tree in my garden, anyway.

Last Sunday and Monday, we got over 2 inches of rain. The planter that I had built twice which was happily holding my red flowers was looking a little droopy. By Tuesday afternoon, I could tell that the rain was a bit much for it.

And when I got home from work, it was like this

All the flowers were squished under the dirt. I managed to salvage the plants and I put them under the tree in the front yard with the purple pansies.

 

And the few blooms that broke off will live out the rest of their pretty life on the mantle.

 

I think that I may just concede defeat. This planter was poorly conceived and poorly executed. Stupid planter.

I am so completely torn up trying to pick kitchen lighting. Michelle pointed me to Restoration Hardware, where I found this which I just love. I think a big one in the center of the room, and two small ones (one for the sink and one for over the stove) might be nice - in brushed nickel, not this shiny.

But they are really expensive, and aside from that, I wonder if it might not give off a lot of light since it has a metal shade. So then there are alternatives like this:

But they feel a little too nautical or moderm. They don’t feel like they go with my faucet, for example, nor the oil rubbed bronze cup bin pulls that I will have on my drawers.

So option three-ish, is this:

I have seen lights like this in some of the books I’ve bought. Stylistically, it would fit my kitchen. But I don’t know about the ribby glass. Is that cool? It looks like it could easily get dusty looking.  I don’t think about lighting enough to know if this is retro stylish, or just frumpy.

Advice? Opinions? Anyone?

I went to eBay for my faucet and sink for the kitchen. It took a lot of looking, but I found exactly what I wanted at really good prices.

I got a nice stainless undermount sink that’s just the right size for my little kitchen. I guess it’s not that exciting to look at, but I’m happy with it. All this kitchen stuff piling up is making me anxious to get it all installed!

And OH MAN! Can you stand how awesome this faucet is? I can hardly stand that I am calling a faucet “awesome”, but it is!!

Today was a terribly rainy day that has lead into a terribly rainy night. We’re talking about 2 inches of rain total. I went through five changes of clothes today trying to prevent flooding due to the improper grading around my house. I must have looked crazy out there in the torrential downpours in my little skirt and t-shirt with a shovel, moving dirt around and digging little trenches. All that bragging about the nice weather has finally come back to bite me.  As of now, the basement is dry and the rain is blotchy. Once we make it through this, I have some projects ahead of me to prevent major anxiety every time it rains.

But Saturday it was in the mid-80s and beautiful, so I coated myself in SPF 40* and repainted my white picket fence. I didn’t think it needed painting until I fixed the basement railing. This is not the most dramatic thing I’ve done, but it makes me happy to see it nice and white. Plus - does a girl get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?I’d better watch out because soon, I might run out of things to paint around here!

Before

After

*Yep, really. Sometimes SPF 50. I don’t want to be one of those leathery, wrinkly people. I don’t want skin cancer. Yay sunscreen!