Dresser update!

Jackie has been busy!  She cut the boards for the new bottom of the dresser and attached the rolling wheels.

Next she attached a piece of crown molding as a decorative front on the bottom.  I spray painted the new pieces and we reattached the drawer pulls. 

Jackie will insert drawer slides next before we bring it up to the house.  The current drawer slides have eroded down to almost nothing and the drawers don't pull in or out smooth.

Since we cut off the bottom of the thing, we now have an extra drawer.  We're going to sit that on the top of the dresser as a cat bed.  They love boxes and drawers and love laying on top of furniture.

Clever score alert!

Bad Seed Orphans!

project this week? What to do with an orphan dresser that we took in out of the goodness of our hearts only to discover a deep, dark, horrible secret? (water/mildew damage) - do we give up and cast this poor lonely piece of furniture to the curb? (not that we have curbs here) - nope! We improvise! We are in the South! We shall use Southern engineering! i.e. buzz saw time! We'll put a new bottom and fancy scroll work on the bottom and it'll have a new and productive life instead of the gutter trash it was going to hang out with! (forgive the saw dust on the lens)

I'm struggling with some major problems with my hands and arms and don't type much any longer.  Yes, a writer that can't type or write.  Not good.  I'm attempting to work with voice recognition software but its difficult in that I don't like to talk much. LOL - I'll figure it out yet.  I haven't heard from my doctor about x-rays I had taken last week yet.  We'll see if there's anything that can be done besides icy/hot cream and braces.

The yard looks like a jungle and they tell us we're in a drought here and conserve water.  We do take that serious even though it's been raining for almost 3 weeks straight with just a few days of relief.  Our driveway is escaping onto the street!  With Nick here we tackled some major house projects - the kid insulated the garage in one day and night and worked on applying masonary sealant onto the cinder blocks.  He built a fire pit for us and chopped down some trees about to cause problems with our roof - with an axe, he wanted to work on building some muscles - LOL.  Jackie has been working hard at painting the kitchen cabinets and drawers.  The walls are a brick red and the cabinets were a chocolate dark brown.  She painted the drawers and doors a cream color and will highlight them with some red in the detail work to pull it all together.  It looks so much brighter in there and is losing it's "cave" feeling.  We're also working in the bathroom to fix the horrible paint jobs previous tenants attempted.  I swear that they were either blind or stoned or both when they painted some of the rooms!

Summer is here

Summer temps are starting to hit this week, we had a drop in temps earlier that had us scrambling for the electric blankets again, but now the temps are going back up and we have the overhead fans on. All of the plants that I planted seem to be taking off. Even the squash I transplanted. The seedlings, however, are a different story. They didn't survive the cold snap and/or Grady laying on top of them.

In the garden and yard. We Have, strawberries, marigold, rosemary, roses, soap wort, coleus, purslane, mint, lemon balm, more marigolds, squash, Grapevine, a Lily, snapdragons, dill, butterfly bush, crape Myrtle, crab apples, red buds, maples, mimosa, a willow, and wild berry vines, I probably missed something in there.

Nick made a fire pit for the house and did a good job after figuring out one misstep, he wants to finish it off with a frame of concrete around it to go with the building blocks and pavers. He didn't get to use the fire pit last night because it rained, go figure.

 soap wort, purslane, coleus, roses

 butterfly bush, dill

 crab apple #2

 crab apple #1

 crape myrtle, butterfly bush, snap dragons, lily

 fire pit

 cat nip

 squash, marigolds, grape vine, a bush I haven't a clue the name of

 marigolds

marigolds and strawberries

Productive! Yay! Wait - it never ends

last two days of work - purslane ground cover planted (after some weeding). Runaway soap wort fenced, mulch around newly planted trees and the red bud, more weeding, lawn mowed, weed whacking partly done, replanted a squash, more weeding, Nick began the firepit, spread mulch in the larger garden. Propane purchased for grilling chicken!

This included three trips to Home Depot yesterday. This in addition to the dishes I must do, the chicken I need to cook and floors that need mopped and scrubbed.
That last one probably won't get done today! LOL

 Crab apple #1

 our "dwarf" crape myrtle

 Nick & Jackie starting the fire pit - crab apple #2 in foreground

 problem corner we need to tackle.  Going to put a retaining wall in front of the retaining wall, the decaying wood and spaces will act like a "french drain" and help reduce soil erosion

 adding purslane as ground cover at the problem corner

 our red bud "bush" - it's probably 30' tall

 snap dragons, a surprise lily return and weeds (working on the last ones there)

 soap wort being fenced in!

 soap wort before being fenced

 a nice little fenced plot for soap wort and roses

 fire pit in progress

 more mulch

 mulch begins

 my purslane is happy today

 re-setting pavers and weeding.  Note the marigolds in the tub.  Love ya, Mama

 our grand supervisor - Deacon! Today he almost caught a bird flying over him.  The old man still has it!

Spring is sprung - Summer hits this week, probably

Well, two trips to Home Depot for building stuff for a fire pit, mulch, bathroom stuff, floor vent covers, switch plate covers, ground cover plants, small fencing to coral my soapwort......

and we have another trip planned tomorrow for a larger project. We're nuts. Thankfully Nick is young and strong! An iris is making a comeback this year and our roses have spread. The dwarf crape myrtle is about as tall as the house! photos tomorrow.

Update

Jackie painted the door frame and inner door to the bathroom.  We're starting to fix the mistakes of whoever painted before us.  They were stoned or blind or both!  They painted the small bathroom a dark green including the trim and did a bad job of it.  She painted the trim and door white.  Looks better, I'll take photes tomorrow.

I transplanted my seedlings.  We'll see if they make it through the shock: coleus, Texas blue bonnets, blanketflowers, lov-lies-bleeding and the catnip.  The love-lies are so delicate, hoping they make it.  Hoping that nick gets the garden tilled under - I'll plant other plants and transfer these (these in a week).  I have foxglove and other seeds I want to plant.  It's hard to garden with my arms messed up.  It was hard enough with a bad back, now we're throwing in bad arms and carpal tunnel.  Joy. 

Jackie placed brick around the trees Nick and I planted last week, that'll keep us from accidentally weed whacking or mowing over them.

Ack - I need to post more

I have fallen down on the job of posting to my blogs badly!

Well, some current photos of the house stuff - gardening has started, some house repair and plenty of plans for the future.  Trying to knock off some of the items off the never ending list like getting matching hardware for the kitchen, including the drawers and doors that had no pulls.  Next will be sanding and painting the doors.

New floor vents and getting paint for the big intake grates that need scrubbed and hit with rust proof paint.

New plants, of course, and caring for the ones I've got coming back....

Never ends.

Catnip 

 Salvia (1 of 2)

 crab apple tree

 the other salvia

 grape vine

 marigolds - for Mama of course

 snapdragons

 crab apple

black walnut (hopefully it makes it out of the winter shock)

 my Xena autographs and badges from the convention (where my pen name was recognized - I have fans! wow!)