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Recent Entries to this Blog
Another Haircut!
Posted: 27 May 2015 Posted: 19 May 2015 Posted: 17 May 2015 Posted: 11 May 2015 Posted: 08 May 2015 All Entries |
Pianolady's Gardens
June 7 Walk Around
Category: Pianolady's Gardens | Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2012 2:17 am If you ever need to hide your water well, lavender certainly does the trick! 
If you need very good solar lights, these are great! Newegg.com sells them for $14.99 for a set of 6 often with free shipping. Better quality than I've found in the big box stores too. Wait until they go on sale! http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882021178 
I've always liked the foilage of meadow rue. 
Potatoes & beans looking good, thanks to the anti-rabbit fence. 
Last edited: Fri Jun 08, 2012 2:19 am This blog entry has been viewed 553 times
Progress on Home Restoration
Category: Home Improvements | Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2012 1:33 am I'm past calling it a remodel and on to calling it a restoration! Now we have a storage pod in our driveway the next month to store the contents in our garage while they fix the foundation of the garage. Our neighbors are going to love us! Actually, they'll be happy we're fixing the place up. The storage pod is an expensive thing, sure hope I can get my contractor out here to fix the garage before I have to pay for another month. Got some "before" pics of the house before the pod arrived. And I rigged up an "after" pic of what the house may look like after all the work is done. South Side of House Yes, this is how it's been for two years. Luckily trees hide it from the public view for the most part. 
Back Side with Deck Removed 
We're keeping the concrete steps behind the garage, they're actually in pretty good condition. We've been working on removing the rest though. 
Back Side of Garage 
North Side of Garage This side of the garage is literally hanging from the rafters. The concrete they put along the garage actually trapped water against the garage causing all kind of damage, and there used to be termites in this area. In fact, there are no footings in the garage, they just put down a slab and built a garage on it. It's a miracle it's not fallen down (mainly because we built a wall in the center to support it). You don't want to push on this wall, lol. 
If you've made it this far....here's my big experiment. It's my "guess" on how the house will look when it's done. We'll still need to replace the driveway, but that will just have to wait. 
This blog entry has been viewed 416 times
Wright Plus Tour 2012
Category: Architecture & FLW | Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2012 9:56 pm It will be impossible to post all the photos from our June 2/3 trip to Chicago. If you're interested in seeing the photos of all the Frank Lloyd Wright architecture we visited over the weekend, head on over to my FLW blog and have a look at all the June entries. There's a bunch! http://flwarchitecture.blogspot.com/ This was the Balch House in Oak Park. This was my favorite private residence on the tour. 
This blog entry has been viewed 492 times
A Visit to Chicago...and an idea I must copy!
Category: Botanical Gardens | Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 6:50 pm Every time we go on a trip, we try to get to the local botanical garden. This is a dangerous thing, as my idea list grows, as does hubby's to-do list! I have a bare concrete wall about 6' high on the south side of the house that I must copy this idea. 
There were many wood structures we liked, but these clay pipe inserts were very nice. I'll have to copy that idea at some point also. 
If you want to see all the photos I uploaded (which were only a small sampling), go to the link below. http://s898.photobucket.com/albums/ac183/007Pianolady/Chicago%20Botanical%20Garden%202012/ Last edited: Mon Jun 04, 2012 6:50 pm This blog entry has been viewed 452 times
Day 2 of Home Remodeling & Deck Plans
Category: Home Improvements | Posted: Tue May 29, 2012 6:35 pm Well I got my new hot water heater this morning, and now I'm waiting for my dumpster to show up so I can put the old deck into it! That will feel good, and we'll have to comb through the house for stuff we've been wanting to get rid of. My next goal for today is to repaint our house numbers and get them moved to the garage. We removed the shutters off the front of the house last night, we're not keeping them. We've also decided to get rid of the wrought iron porch supports after all. That will probably be a project for next week. Probably going to go with square columns, tinkering with the idea up custom wrought iron, but I don't think that will be in our budget. We've also decided we'll probably do vinyl siding. It comes in 7" singles which should look pretty good on this house. We're choosing a darker blue-green/gray than what we have now. It's called "Everest". After looking around at houses, the seams show up more on the lighter houses in our opinion, so we're going with a darker color than originally planned. Something like this... 
Of course the shutters will be gone, and our new big window will be one unit instead of 3 separate windows, with casement windows. It'll look completely different. We are keeping double hung windows for the bedrooms since the porch isn't very deep & we'd have to walk around casement windows. Hoping to finalize the order on that tomorrow, then there will be ~6 week wait. DH has dreamed up his deck plans. He will rebuild the deck we had with the same dimensions, add a 2nd smaller deck behind the garage, both which will step down to our concrete steps already in place. Between the decks will be some sort of walk/patio area. The retaining wall installer is going to terrace that side of the hill in two levels, that was his idea and I like it. 
Last edited: Tue May 29, 2012 7:05 pm This blog entry has been viewed 362 times
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Let the Demolition Begin!
Category: Home Improvements | Posted: Mon May 28, 2012 10:21 pm After spending a few days of "down time" with my husband's family, we were ready to demolish the deck when we got home. I was picking cherries when I heard a saw out back, and I knew what he was doing! 
Now he's out back smashing concrete behind the garage, lol. This blog entry has been viewed 410 times
Got A Lot Accomplished Today!
Category: Pianolady's Gardens | Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 8:32 pm On the home improvement front....I visited the window showroom and decided the company I want for the new windows for the house. We also decided to look into vinyl siding after discovering it would be $6k to fix and paint the house. So he's coming back next week to bid on that too. Also arranged to have a new water heater installed next week, we need that as soon as possible. In the gardens, I got the window boxes planted, and am enjoying some new blooms. 
Not sure what this variety is. 
Hot Cocoa with Red Fairy in the background. 
Jackmanii 
This blog entry has been viewed 416 times
A Pleasant Surprise
Category: Pianolady's Gardens | Posted: Mon May 21, 2012 6:55 pm I haven't seen this clematis bloom in a few years, I think being around the corner of the shed, it just doesn't get enough light. This year's the exception. Looks like it could be an Earnest Markham. 
This blog entry has been viewed 372 times
My Little Bog
Category: Pianolady's Gardens | Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 11:17 pm When I decided to remove my ponds a few years back, I kept one lined and turned it into a small bog garden. Plants include corkscrew rush, blue rush, impatiens, and fox red curly sedge. 
This blog entry has been viewed 463 times
The Ones That Get Away
Category: Pianolady's Gardens | Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 2:46 pm It's cherry picking time, a time I have a love/hate relationship with. Love picking them, hate pitting them, love eating them. The picked cherries hog all the space in the refrigerator, pitting makes a sticky mess on the counters, and gets cherry juice on the lenses of my glasses, not to mention the clothing stains. But it's all worth it, since I continue to do this year after year. The best looking ones are always the ones you can't reach, it's my donation to the birds as I'm not getting a bigger ladder. 
I just keep reminding myself that without this... 
There wouldn't be any of this... 
This blog entry has been viewed 589 times
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