It is so… eclectic.

She said.

And not in a good way. In my memory, her face was slightly upturned and her nose crinkled. There were no other witnesses, so I stand by the description.

Yep, I said.

And there we were, standing on my deck disagreeing but not being disagreeable. She was the landscape architect and I am the homeowner.

I like things that go together, but I don’t like matching. She clearly was a fan of manufactured coordination.

I seek the thrill of finding something close to what I want and working with it to make it close to my dream. She invested in perfect.






















I enjoy a bit of whimsy. She was a bit more buttoned up.

I swoon at dashes of random. She would look the other way.

This wasn’t going well. She was looking the other way. Not hearing me. Not hearing how Michael and I live, and how we wanted to live.

She wasn’t mean. She wasn’t unpleasant. But, I wanted her to leave just the same. I didn’t care that she owed us seven more hours. She was stealing the potential that I see every day just by being here. She didn’t see what I saw and she wasn’t going to.

She was supposed to be our prize. We won her expertise in a silent auction. In the name of philanthropy and a pretty good deal, we won not just one session with a landscape architect, but two. 

We actually didn’t mean to win both last year. We signed up for one two hour session and then ran across another for five hours. We knew we needed the additional help, and thought someone would outbid us on the first. Nope. We ended up with both and were actually giddy at the idea of seven hours of expert consultation.

And then she arrived. And then it went bad. First she told me that we just had to have a front deck on our house so that we could drink coffee in the morning before work. I smiled. Then replied, we actually like the back of the house much more. More privacy, more grass, no street, and oh, Michael won’t drink coffee. Ever. Unless it has Bailey’s or something like that (OK. I didn’t really say that last part, but I thought it.).

We then got to the back of the house and the deck with the unfortunate “eclectic” comment.

We went inside to see how the inside relates to the outside. This is when the gloves came off, well, mine. She still had the plastered smile on her face. She was convinced we needed to “just move a wall to have a walk in closet.” I responded, we have moved walls, to have more livable space and a walk in closet is “just not a priority for me.”

Silence, but for too brief a moment. She did not listen to what I said and continued with…

Then, when you move that wall, you can have a terrific walk in closet, blah, blah, blah. Well, I said with more force this time, we have a small home. A walk in closet is just not something that we want.

Walk in closet, blah, blah, blah.

No. We will not have a walk in closet. Not ever. Not in this house. I don’t want one.

Silence. Stare. Look away.

We headed back outside. But not before she commented on my mason jars.

They are for canning, I explained. Canning, she questioned.

Yes, we have a garden and then I just gave up. I didn’t want to tell her why I canned and why gardening was important to me. I didn’t want to explain why I didn’t want to sit in my front yard and have coffee with Michael, have a deck with matching pots and have a ginormous closet that was bigger than my bedroom.

But then something pretty amazing happened.

She also knew that we weren’t connecting. At all. She took a moment, digested the entire time we were together and suggested that she send someone else from her office. Someone who could help us make a plan that we could build upon.

Yes, I said. That sounds lovely. That was the first thing that we really agreed on. She left happy, and I was happy she left.

Have a seat

I found two chairs at a yard sale. We ended up there because our experience at a local “man sale” was less than satisfying. For weeks a sale that would appeal to the men of Kent Island was advertised on local web sites and on strategically placed signs. I fell for it, and Michael did too.

I had visions of power tools, equipment, gear… all at affordable prices. I talked it up to Michael and we agreed to get up early on Saturday (but not poor-yard-sale-etiquette early) to be among the first to arrive. I think he was just as excited as I was… until we got there.

There was a lot of stuff: most of it rusty or broken; all of it over priced. Now we were caffeinated and driving the streets looking for a deal. Okay, not really.

On our way out of the disappointing man sale neighborhood, we saw a small sign for another yard sale – no fanfare, just the words “Yard Sale” with an arrow. We followed. There wasn’t a lot of stuff, but I found two sturdy chairs that I liked.

New, old chairs

Lately we had been sitting out at the pond to watch the turtles (I realize any illusions of our exciting, wild lives were just shattered by the previous sentence). I was convinced these two chairs could live by the pond so that we didn’t have to move chairs back and forth from the deck to the pond. Clearly, we needed these chairs.

And for $2 for the pair, we didn’t even need to consider the deal or bargain for them. We took them home and set them up by the pond. For a few nights, we sat on them and watched the turtles. They were comfortable and for the price even somewhat disposable, but I thought they could be even better.

I fixed up any loose parts with wood glue, did some minor repairs and painted them yellow. Now they are way too nice to sit down at the pond. They found a new home at either end of our picnic table under the covered deck.

Old, new chairs

So I was on the lookout for new chairs for the pond. I didn’t have to look past our shed. There were three redwood aluminum chairs that we had purchased as part of an auction lot a few years (eight?) ago. These are the same chairs that every family in the 70s had on a patio or deck. They are sturdy and durable if not a little plain. I already had the paint from the last two chairs so I took these apart and painted the wood slats complete with a racing stripe.

Much better. And, we have three more chairs for the deck and/or turtle watching.

Someone’s in the kitchen…

There is a list still a mile long and this is just to get the current kitchen livable. Yes, outlet covers are still missing, the ceiling needs to be patched and painted, and the other side of the kitchen is still missing drywall. Yikes.

Not quite an "after" photo, but close enough.

But, we have curtains, a pretty back splash (and all my fingers!) and paint on the walls. Gone are layers of wallpaper, faux beams, a frighteningly sticky windowsill and any trace of teal (unless you count the blue in the custom* curtains).

And the distraction of planning a new kitchen – one twice as size with a wish list just as big – can be overwhelming. We still expect to use this kitchen for a good number of years and the small efforts have helped. In fact, over the holiday we spent time sitting around the island in the kitchen – the very kitchen I would try to block people out of when we first moved in.

And the before. Almost the same angle.

That’s definitely progress. 

*and by "custom" I mean fabric from Joanne's on discount and eight sides of straight(ish) sewn hems complete with a light blocking material Michael insisted on. 

It was really bad….

It's at this point, you know you can't go back

Before it got a little better. Our kitchen was one of the more usable rooms in the house, but we didn’t really like it. We started by finding some really inexpensive tile about a year ago. For less than $100, we thought we could transform the current kitchen to a slightly prettier version that we could live in for about five years.

Our ultimate goal is to build a new kitchen in the current dining room and make the current kitchen a small dining room. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s back up to the simple tile purchase that got this project rolling.

Tiny, pretty 1 x 2” glass tiles on 12 x 12” mats. Did I mention that I’ve never tiled? Ever. Clearly, that hasn’t stopped us before, but this was our kitchen that we would use every day, multiple times a day. Not a roof that is far, far away from our daily lives.

I looked at videos online and books that we had on the shelves and realized that they all had very good, but conflicting advice. Off to the big box store for supplies. Grout, trowels, tile snips and the like. I tried the snips on the tiles with no luck. They are glass – they shatter. A tile saw was the only solution with a special blade for glass. It was my Christmas gift – the one and only thing I asked for.

Yeah, I’m a dreamer. But, I am in love with the tile saw. It worked and I still have all of my fingers. A Christmas miracle because you have to get pretty close to that blade with these little bitty tiles.

Action shot

Nice, right? And it was loud and wet and dirty and GLORIOUS. But I should have been wearing a hat: it would have kept the glass pieces out of my hair and also hidden that great style I was sporting while standing out in the freezing cold cutting tiles with no gloves (the water plus tile made for a slippery mess).

Kitchen renovations are no place for the vain, so I continued.

The transformation was almost instant. Even when I just taped up the tile to see what it may look like, it was dramatic. So much better than the layers of random wallpaper from before (go figure). The tile is done, but while I was waiting for grout to dry, I started painting and other fun things. A work in progress, but there has been progress.

Sometimes I wonder...

Why we didn't just knock it down and do this:

Minus the highrise buildings in the background, of course.

More places to stick the ever-growing to do lists

I made a magnet board with found objects. Well, mostly found objects, I had to buy the magnets. Scrap pieces of wood plus photocopied crab placemat and champagne corks (drilled out the cork and stuffed in the circle magnets – no glue, friction just keeps them in) make for a rustic and fun board.

Not sure of where it will end up, but it won’t be on the kitchen counter (note the sneak peek of the glass tile backsplash).

Top that... counter edition

We had really ugly countertops in the kitchen. This is the first step of thousands to make our kitchen more livable. We have plans to move the kitchen to another room, but keep this intact and usable until we tackle that project. My conservative estimate? 2015.

The first photo was taken the second weekend we had the house as you can see by the circa 2005 cell phone charging. The second was… later. Many minor changes – hardware, layers of wallpaper, new sink but the most visible (maybe not in this photo) are the countertops. With two coats of the worst smelling paint I have ever used, our countertops went from teal to olive.

I remember vividly the former owner, Bob, asking me if I liked his wife’s choice of countertop color. Um, no, but the paperwork was already signed.

We were hesitant to use the product after reading many conflicting reviews online, but then realized what could be worse than teal? About 18 months of wear and these countertops are still better than the teal. Here’s the product in front of the old color.

Best $20 makeover ever.

Top that... and that

We had a very functional card table, but not very pretty. I think it’s the same table every family had in the 70s with the gray vinyl top complete with cracks and a random cigarette burn or two. I’ve used it for years with a nice bright white tablecloth and it worked just fine. But with a little spray paint and super discounted fabric purchased online, it is now ready for any event.

Because I still had plenty of outdoor fabric left, I made a little tent for Michael’s grill stand. It makes me smile because I think it looks like a circus tent.

I have an addiction to outdoor fabric. Unfortunately, it’s been documented.

The Tale of Two Fans

I don’t like ceiling fans. I understand the benefits of fans, of course. But, aesthetically, they are ugly. And, our house came with the ugliest of the ugly. Eventually, we will replace them and Michael and I will again discuss the merits of light fixtures with and without rotating blades. Until then, we are stuck with fake wood, bronze monstrosities with weird flower-like glass appendages.

As I started making improvements in the kitchen (much more on that later), the fan distracted me in all its [the opposite of] glory.

Enter the hero of this story… oil rubbed bronze spray paint.
My fan went from this… to this. (I didn’t think to take a photo of the before until I had one blade off, oops! Also, I haven’t landed on new glass covers, but this is a work in progress.)

Not bad for a day’s work and a little asphyxiation. Yes, I sprayed the sucker in place in the middle of the kitchen. Imagine Michael’s horror when he walked in to this:

If I took the entire fixture down to paint it, I might as well have replaced it. And, that wasn’t the point. OBR (oil rubbed bronze for those in the know) is my new obsession. Now I walk around the house trying to figure out what to spray next. Maybe those fumes did get to me…

Top 10

I love the lists at the end of the year – nice reminders and a countdown of sorts. We live with lists every day with our house projects – we have separate lists, a combined list on a dry erase board and a working spreadsheet on the computer. Even with all of those lists, I can’t help but do a list to capture all of the reasons I am glad we moved here, so here goes and in no particular order….

10. Our next door neighbor who clears our driveway after it snows – every snow storm (we offer a bottle of honey Wild Turkey in return).
9. The same neighbor throws parties for any reason – separation party, reconciliation party and a divorce party (all in one year and we are always invited!), but also lights fireworks on random days. Mostly Sundays and Tuesdays.
8. Drivers used to stop and ask if I needed help when running through the streets. Once they realized I did it on purpose, those same drivers stop to offer encouragement.
7. Harry, the heron, who has become the closest thing we’ll have to a pet. He stops by daily to eat from the pond.
6. The liquor store that offered toilet paper during the Hurricane. Also, Hurricane related: all of the neighbors who ignored the mandatory evacuation offered whatever they could to help one another.
5. The local crabbers (Mark and Earl) who always offer me deals and tell me when I should skip them because they don’t want to upset a “local.” Never thought I’d be so happy to be called a local, but that is a huge deal on Kent Island where folks that moved here 20 years ago are still called “chickenneckers.”
4. The family down the street that just got electricity and sits outside all summer long drinking beer always offering us one as we walk by. I said yes once, and I will have friends for life in them.
3. The older couple next door (the other side) that always offers me cuttings of plants and extra vegetables from their garden. Since I’ve started gardening, I’ve been able to return the favor.
2. All of the dogs in the neighborhood – Duke who used to run with me and his illegitimate offspring, Angel, who doesn’t have the personality that Duke did, but is a good reminder of his father; Raven the huge black lab that may be the stupidest but sweetest dog around; Libby who ignores us as we walk by and is just like her family; Frick and Frack, basset hounds, that protect their yard as fiercely as slow, fat, friendly dogs can. Unfortunately, there is one exception. We call him “Yappy.” Enough said.
1. Last but not least, we’re calling this our house now, not Bob and Mary’s. That doesn’t mean we don’t still blame them for some of the crazy things done in this house, but we celebrate every one that we fix in our house.

Come on, Irene

We’re catching up on the blog so there will be some random, out of sequence posting.

In September, our area was under a mandatory evacuation for Hurricane Irene. Sounds pretty scary, right? We did a bit of research that consisted of polling our neighbors on what that meant. Most importantly, we found out that that doesn’t mean you have to leave your home. However, you have to understand that it means you will have no access to services provided by the county – fire, medical, etc. – until the evacuation is lifted. We also found out that the only neighbors that were heading off the island were all elderly folks and planned to use those emergency services. They took off, the rest of us stayed.

As the hour of mandatory evacuation and bridge closures neared, we prepped our house and ourselves. We made a list of what we had to do. We took off of work early and began our preps.

First? A trip to the liquor store where we stocked up and the local merchant handed out toilet paper to its customers. We already liked the owners, but this made us customers for life (as long as we survived the storm, that is!).

Next up was the hardware store. With wine and beer out of the way, we could concentrate on other preparations. I should note that the liquor store was way busier than the local hardware store. Anyway, we bought a new chainsaw (we needed one anyway) and five gallon buckets to store water. At the grocery store (by far the most crowded stop we had), we purchased ice. I’m still not sure why there were such lines to buy food when the likelihood of losing power was so high – why buy more to spoil?

Having learned our lessons from Hurricane Isabel (September 2003) at the old house, we felt pretty confident with our planning. That storm had a huge surge that flooded the neighborhood. We knew our current house didn’t get swamped in that storm – the former owners told us so, but I didn’t believe them so I checked with their insurance agent to confirm. Our house is 14 feet above mean low water and the last surge was seven feet above. But, the frenzied meteorologists were calling for a much larger surge, and we would be prepared.

We also knew if the roads flooded, our cars would be useless so we had kayaks and bikes set up by our front door and the boats in the backyard tied to the deck. We moved all of the deck furniture indoors so that they wouldn’t fly around and crash into the house (the meteorologist were calling for high winds). We were sure we would lose power so we had ice in all of our coolers stocked and filled tons of containers with water including the new buckets and stationed them in the bathroom and the kitchen. Back in 2003, our power was out for six days. Given that we are in a more rural area now, we thought this could be longer.

We hunkered down and waited. And waited. And nothing. Yes, it rained and there was some wind. A few old or dead trees around the neighborhood fell down and the power was out for about 14 hours. We weathered the storm just fine, and I didn’t tell my mom about the mandatory evacuation until after it was lifted.

One more thing, we know we were lucky as the storm was devastating to the north of us.

A picture is worth a thousand words...

And my camera broke.
Welcome to the family, Canon Powershot S95!

Enchanté

On a tour through Brussels, I met the nicest plant. Our guide had purchased it that morning at the market and brought it with him. It was love at first sight for me, but it quickly developed into love for life after having smelled it’s citrus scent. There was no tag, no name and nothing familiar about this plant. I asked, but learned that he discovered it in Thailand and this was the first time he’d seen this plant in his home, Brussels.

He was almost tree-like, but had these spectacular bursts of red to yellow flowers and a scent that I won’t soon forget (the plant, that is, not the guide).

Having met this exotic creature, I’m questioning my newfound commitment to planting natives. How fickle the gardener’s heart can be…

Homesteading is not for me

Or, I could have called this post: Grocery Stores are Great.

I picked 52 tomatoes and 6 cucumbers the other day, so I knew canning was in my future. I’ve done regular tomato canning in the past and decided I should save a step and make sauce right away complete with fresh basil from the garden. The sauce is terrific and fresh, but after 52 tomatoes and 8 hours in the kitchen, I ended up with 4 measly pints of sauce.

The cucumbers went much better. Six cucumbers netted 6 jars of relish, but seriously, who needs 6 jars of relish… ever?

Going to Pot

I was in search of soilless growing material. I had no idea what it was or what it looked like, but knew that a search online brought many sites for growing marijuana at home. I ventured to Home Depot and the result was really no different than my fruitless online search. Then I went to our local nursery (a brief aside, it’s called Lowe’s. I think it’s an unfortunate name because of the big box store of the same name. They are a really nice family and helpful, so I overlook the confusing name and expect the unproductive conversation Michael and I always have when I say I’m going to Lowe’s.).

Anyway, the folks at Lowe’s knew exactly what I wanted. And I spent about half an hour explaining why I needed it -- not to grow illegal drugs at home, but to try out my first garden experiment of 2011: lettuce boxes.

I heard about these from a Master Gardener Class I took earlier this year (yes, I understand how dorky that sounds!). I found the directions here. Rather than buying new wood, wire and screen, I decided to use found objects around the house/shed/garage. Other than buying the soilless growing material, cheapo handles and wheels for easy transport, these boxes were pretty low-cost and should bring months of salads this summer and into fall.

Here are the steps that I’ve gone through so far:

1. My intricate and detailed plans.
2. Box frames in various stages of finish -- I added screen on the inside, and mesh to hold the fake soil and plants to come.
3. The boxes full of the soilless growing material and seeds.
4. Small little shoots of lettuce.
5. Finally, a close-up of the lettuce – they are about 2 inches high right now.

I hope step #6 will be to rinse and add vinaigrette.

Potty Humor

Just one of the many differences between us... Michael reads the description for the incinolet, an electric incinerating toilet, and considers it a viable option for our upcoming bathroom remodel. I read it and think of, um, burning shit.

Don't get us started on the urinal debate...

Good-buy, VW

A nice man Michael found on ebay bought his VW. We hadn’t even tried to start it for years. We have so many projects that take priority over this cute, but needy car. I have fond memories of the Rabbit – I bought my first Christmas tree in it and drove it home to Fell’s Point with the top down... in the snow. Michael also has fond memories, but the only one I remember is that he was struck by lightning in it. I think that explains the electrical issues with the car, but that’s a story for another time.

The gent that bought it has the time and patience to get it back into fighting shape. After towing it away, he stopped by the following weekend to tell us that he got it started on the first try. I thought Michael was going to snatch the keys from him on the spot. He didn’t, and now we’re focused on our list of projects – one project shorter!

Raise the Roof

...and other "weekend" projects that took two months to complete.

We finished the roof in about six million not-so-easy steps literally consulting multiple books while on top of the house. I’ve highlighted the top 10 here.

1 & 2: We both worked to get the multiple layers of shingles off, and then the plywood. Demolition really is the most fun part, but this one made me nervous – what if we couldn’t put it back together?

3: We passed the point of no return when we got the plywood off. This picture was taken from inside looking out. We realized that this addition was certainly not to code with sistered 2 x 4s holding up the structure.

4: We fixed that by adding 2 x 12s and now this is probably the most sturdy part of the entire roof.

5: The view from the ground was scary.

6: But the view to the ground with all of the debris was worse.

7: Pretty new plywood was the foundation for our new roof.

8: And to be sure it stays nice and dry, we added ice and water shield. It’s a low slope roof and we over-engineered it. Quite proudly, I should add.

9: The shingles were the most fun part. We were able to match the rest of the roof and you can’t even tell we were up there. Well, except for the very important fact that the roof no longer leaks into the house.

10: We finished late one cold night. This photo shows our handiwork of adding in a light tube over the shower.

There is finish work still to be done and insulation to add on the inside, but the bulk of work on the roof was done just in time for winter. The good news is that we were able to do the project without damage to the house or ourselves.

The bad news? We now think we can do anything. A little fear in home renovation is a good thing, and we've lost it... at least until the next big project.

Garden Gloves

I pulled the last of my garden out this weekend wearing winter gloves, a hat and loads of layers, but I was rewarded with a million radishes. We then had our first real frost on Sunday night. I hope to have spring onions, but only time will tell. It's sad to say goodbye to gardening for the season, but not the weeding.

Oh deer

I really like gardening. This year I’ve been more precise in the planning and tracking of each plant and seed so that I can replicate what I like and avoid making the same mistakes again. This year also marks the second year that my neighbor’s garden was hit with blight, and I was again spared. So, I understand that even with planning, luck has even more sway in the success of a garden.

Mid-September I decided to plant a fall garden, an experiment. Even as my seedlings grew, it was still dicey. My biggest fear was that the frost would be early this year. As I was focused on weather reports, the garden’s natural predator made its first appearance ever. Deer. And so many of them. They were not content to just snack on the beanstalks, they tromped through everything else with their sharp, hooven feet to uproot the fledgling fall sprouts.

My fall garden experiment? Done, over, failed. My efforts to keep deer away from the garden next season? Oh, it’s on.