Landscaping - 2009

This is the year for getting a lot of the big landscaping projects completed. We've been lucky that February & early March have been so dry (yes, dry-dry-dry...) because I can get out & do short bursts & build up a bit of stamina for the busy-ness of the upcoming summer....

A friend had a really good suggestion for me back in January while we were contemplating my huge list of outdoor projects. Work from the house outwards to the edges of the property. Get the house finished, planted & growing so that in a few years it will be further along & more enticing to visitors. I had it all backwards! I kept hacking away at the property perimeter - which is never ending - & becoming disheartened by the barren look around the house. I honestly doubt we'll ever have lush grass all around the house - not really what I want - but the clumps of rock & debris left-over from construction was driving me insane.

A good starting point for me was right outside the back door - my dad was out for a visit this past week, so he helped me with this bed. I started chucking all the rocks that were here under the deck to build up the back of the bed & we had this log that we hauled out of the front ditch - cut to fit & it's perfect! Just to the left of the photo is the hillside with lots of great top soil - so we just started to carve the hillside down to fill the bed. This photo is taken early in the day, but gets wonderful afternoon sun - the time of day in which we were working on it, but by 4 p.m. it does get rather chilly still. I just kept at it & planted it with a white hydrangea, an African fuschia (or sp: fuchsia), lavendar, gladiola & some other mystery bulbs that will identify themselves later this spring.

The next HUGE project - which has me grumbling lots - is the front flower bed under the deck. As you can see in this photo, I want to use the left-over log pieces of yellow cedar for the front support of the bed (our loft stairs are made with the rest of this wood). I need to tilt them on their edges - round side facing out - but need to get some rebar (metal rods) cut to pound into the ground to keep them in place. The slope needs to be cut with the dirt to be thrown back into the bed. The sides need to be shored up with some type of rock wall - no shortage of rocks here....

Well, one step at a time....

We ordered in some square lattice (the usual is a diamond shape) & yesterday Phil & I cut it to fit & stained it with Cheerful Morn - the same colour we used on the outdoor cedar trim & pine soffit. Now all the junk is hidden under the deck & it looks a bit more complete.

One step at a time.....

Window Treatments

I know we said that we would not be installing curtains or blinds in the upper level of the house - want to enjoy the view & the sunshine as much as possible. But in reality, the winter sun is so low in the sky that it just blasts into the house; blinding us at the table & turning the house into a furnace. I laugh when I look at the interior thermometer at 10 a.m. & see it's already 20 degrees while outside it might only be 5....opening the sliding doors for a few hours became quite normal for us this past February.

We found these awesome blinds at JC Penny (of all places - definately NOT Canadian & no Canadian store had anything even closely resembling these products nor could they match the price). A brown mesh blind that allows us to see out, but reduces the glare. Now we can sit at our table again!!

There is a fleeting thought that we should have purchased 2 more for the 2 middle windows as it still gets rather warm inside....will give it the summer to see how they work out (the summer sun only comes half way into the house instead of fully like the winter sun...).

Renters for the Suite

Well, for the last few months of winter, Phil has been using the suite as his work room - meaning all his wood cutting tools were put to use so that we could finish up the window & door trim. Luckily I had enough bed sheets to cover up the kitchen cabinets, the stove & hood vent & the couch. As you can see - it turned into a disaster!!

Phil would spend a bit of time down here through December, January & February - when he wasn't working on computers for other people or out doing other things. It wasn't until we received a request from someone looking for a place to live for 2 months that the fire got lit under Phil - it needed to be ready for occupancy by February 27th.

Phil worked liked a mad-man all that week - working full-time at the Science Centre & then coming home to put in 3 or 4 hours downstairs cutting wood for all the trim work - we hadn't even started the trim downstairs at the start of the week....

I was allowed in to clean on Thursday - giving me just over 24 hours to turn this disaster zone around....

The end result is quite nice - a few pieces missing here & there, but you'd have to be told where....also, didn't get a chance to repaint the floors, but there's always later on in the year.





This is our lovely wall of doors - there is actually one more to the left out of the picture...







Our front windows with some Dutch lace - am still not certain that we'll ever get regular blinds on these - want as much light down here as possible since the deck overhead reduces the summer sun drastically.

Winter Projects con't

February has been one of those months where the weather is just plain weird! It's my favourite month in that we get at least 14 days of sunshine, but mixed in with all that is rain, snow & general winter weather.

An easy project that we finished was to install some rope along the top edge of the wall where it meets the ceiling. An awkward angle to try to figure out for wood trim & it took Phil less than an hour to get it installed with his nailer.

There are 2 continuous pieces that run from the front of the living/dining rooms up the loft half walls....

....and through the loft to the back wall.

Am wondering how this rope will age - we didn't treat it with anything....








The next big project Phil just completed was to cut & install the window trim for the upstairs. We have 2 HUGE windows along the front & the one beside the dining table. (this is a close up of the dining room window & rope trim)






After Phil finished, I followed behind with some wood filler to hide the nail holes & applied a couple of coats of tung oil.
(I am just about to apply the tung oil to the trim around the sliding glass doors).




One tricky detail was how to deal with my cast iron plant hooks. Remove them from the wall & re-attach with a piece of wood behind or cut the top trim piece to go around the hook.... Phil cut around the hook... Hope it wasn't too much of a pain...

Will have to take photos of our window treatments when they arrive in the next couple of weeks. While we love the winter sunshine, because the sun is lower in the sky at this time of year, it can be brilliantly blinding - making sitting at the table almost unbearable. Then the temperature in the house starts to soar - ha, ha, ha - you say. But at 10 a.m. it can reach upwards of 20 degrees. And this is February. I have to open the sliding glass doors & we retreat to the back office if we want to work on our computers. What a waste of the view!! So we are getting some mesh roller blinds for the 2 big windows & some sheer curtains for the sliding glass doors. I'm not worried about the upper 2 levels of windows - at least for now. This should help also with the summer heat (not that we are inside during the summer) but also protect the paint & furniture from sun damage. Who'd ever thought we'd be complaining about sunshine here on the 'wet' coast!!