It's a snowdrop silly

Der! Those "crocus" shoots of course were not crocus (croci?). They are snowdrops as I found out this morning when I was rewarded with my first flower of the year. The iPhone kind of made it into a blob drop but never mind. The snowdrops were not very successful last year and I had forgotten that I had planted some here. It coincides with a nasty cold snap that has come back for today.

Snow again

Argh! Yesterday it started snowing again. What a spoiler after a teasing week to 10 days of milder weather and tantalising crocus tips peaking through the soil.

As I looked out my window at work, the largest fluffiest snowflakes that I'd seen all winter drifted down.

When it snows like this in December we get all nostalgic, romantic and full of Christmas spirit. It's all "Oh-ah, look it's snowing!". When it snows like that when we are now less than 30 days from spring, the sentiment is more "Arrrrrgggghhh. More f'ing snow."

It is still on the ground as a dusting at home but as I look out the window at work today there is not a speck left.

And that is how I like it. I have mentally shifted out of winter and into spring and I do not wish to go back.

Seeds are here

Despite abysmmal failures with seeds the past two years, I have decided to give it another go with natives and easy to grow (so they say!) seeds brought from companies who are based in my region (or colder). Two boxes from Johnny's Seeds arrived today. Some of them I can sow direct.
My soonest pack is 8-10 wks before last frost. Last frost is 5/15 so I have 'til end of last week in March. I guess I should've bought some onions etc but with the landscape class happening in March and the ensuing planning (and hopefully some actual doing) I'm loath to start raised beds or whatever for veggies.

Bricks

Made good progress with the bricks. Between a couple trips on the way home during the weeks and a few yesterday, I think I moved about 1,000 bricks (4,000lbs!).

Been Reading

To get through the winter and gather ideas I have been looking through some landscape and garden design books. Here are my faves:

The essential garden design workbook / Rosemary Alexander
This book really breaks down and shows you how to analyse and evaluate your space. I especially liked her pointers about using prominent points on your house to define areas and to work up a grid for the design based on proportions of the layout.

I am still reading this book but it really helped solidify my own design style - tending towards a natural look that includes what landscape types see to call "found objects".





Keith Davitt has two books, they are a little repetitive on material but have some great ideas for hardscaping and patio materials especially. They are "Hardscaping : how to use structures, pathways, patios & ornament in your patio" and "Beyond the lawn : unique outdoor spaces for modern living".



Because I knew I would be getting through a lot of books, I chose to go to the library instead of drop a bundle on books that I may or may not like. Everyday I drive by the New Canaan Library and although I don't live there I decided that that would be a handy place to go. Talk about good karma: New Canaan Library is fortunate to have the Susan McDaniel collection, a collection of books put togther in memory of an ardent gardener by her family and friends. I feel very fortunate to have this resource - it is the best of the best landscape and gardening books - and also think it is a great way to remember someone. For more on this collection read here: http://newcanaanlibrary.org/research/mcdaniel.small.pdf

First sign of spring

The snow has been disappearing at an amazing rate. Even the large heap that I inadventently piled on the crocus (croci?) has disappeared and this morning as I walked to the car I peered closely and saw these 2 shoots. What a spirit lifter.

Growing from Seed

I really suck at growing things from seed. I have tried the past 2 years and never got anything to survive long enough to go into the garden. I had decided not to try it again, however, I still need to add plants to the garden (my thinking is plant in the front and plan in the back) so I am ordering some seeds from Johnny's. I have learnt that I should by from somewhere with a similar climate, that are grown and tested there and to plant in a soiless medium. Hopefully this will help my success rate.
The decision to try again was motivated by my move into a new office at work (pic). It has a lovely large window and wide window sill and I was thinking the other day where I could put seed trays at home when it hit me - the office window is the perfect place. So I will throw down $100 or so and await arrival.
Although the pic looks somewhat arctic, the snow has actually all melted in the past week.

Measuring the space

So for the class we have to arrive at the first meeting with an outline sketch of our space. This past weekend was mild so I walked off the measurements with Bob's measuring wheel from work and set to on trying to sketch it up.

A couple weeks back we also had one white oak taken down in the back. it was looking very wet at the base and the bark was coming off. Of more concern was that it had grown at a 70 degree angle right over our neighbour's house. At over 90ft tall, it would have totally crushed their house had it come down. So although we don;t like to cut down anything, we made the decision. I had Chris, the arborist, keep me two 4-5ft lengths of trunk for a bench and a water trough project I have in mind.

So I guess between them and the bricks, I am accumulating "things" for the garden.

Bricks

So to distract myself while I wait for the class to start I was looking through craigslist and saw an ad for old bricks in a nearby town. Long story short, I am lugging possibly 1800 used bricks from a house in Wilton up to the house. There is no UHaul big enough to take them all so I am using the Honda Element. I can carry ~ 150 bricks at a time. It;s not the most efficient way per se but it breaks up the work and therefore means that it is manageable for me.

I can't remember how many I have lugged up so far - all the trips blur into one. It might be almost a thousand bricks. 4,000lbs. At first my left arm felt like it would fall off but it has stopped aching and is over the initial shock. My lovely neat brikc piles fell over as the snow underneath them thawed.

These will be great for edging projects and I think I will temporarily pave the area where Bob had the barbeque. It is edged with 4x4s but has just dirt inside. So I will do a down-and-dirty temporary job once we get to March/April. Tamp the soil and lay brick on soil so that the barbee doesn't have to stand on dirt. It will also be a good experiment to see how brick looks back there.

BBG Landscape Class

We have had a week of mild weather and the 10" of hard-packed snow is almost all gone. Also I received confirmation of my class registration and some advance homework - a questionaire about the garden and the need to draw a plan of it as it is now.

I have been looing through copious garden design and landscaping books from R'field ad New Canaan libraries. New Canaan has a fantastic selection in the Susan McDaniel collection. A collection donated to the library in the memory of an avid gardener. I have been gathering ideas of what I like and chomping at the bit with the mild weather to get going on things in the garden before the class.

Landscape Design Class at BBG

So being without ginormous disposable income to lavish on a designer/landscaper for the garden, I looked around at the start of the year for a landscape design class that would help me formulate my own plan. NYBG had a class both at NYBG and in G'wich Bartlett Arboretum had one but I ultimately settled for a class at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. It is called "Your Garden Tutorial: Section A: All About the Space!"

I might regret signing up for a class that meets at 6pm Thursdays in Brooklyn when I work in Stamford, CT but the class is all about actually working on a hardscape design for your own garden. So I dropped my $$$ and signed up.

Info on the class is here: http://www.bbg.org/edu/adult/

So ...

... it's almost 3 years since Bob and I bought the house. I have worked on the front garden. I was amazed that after the 51 yrs that the previous owners were here there was no color in the garden, sort of a classic IMHO American landscaping with green shrubs. So over the past 2-3 yrs I've planted snowdrops, crocus, daffs, moved hostas and an azalea, cut back soem shrubs, ripped out the over grown yew and replaced with perennials, reseeded and patched the lawn) in the front and it still needs lots of work.
The great part about a 58-year old yard is that there are lots of big well-established trees and shrubs (10-12 80ft white oaks, one each of flowering cherry, dogwood and crabapple, a hedge of forsythia and 10 ft high rhodies, a pieris japonica, a duextia (sp?), a couple of azaleas, euonymus and mountain laurel).
However, the back has all this greta structure 80ft up but is a fairly blank square with no borders. It was grassless when we moved in and I have worked on reseeding grass, adding lime and leaf mold, getting the 90ft white oaks cut back to let in some light and that's been about it in the back.
So this year is the year to form a Master Plan for back garden so that whatever I do over the next 10 years all contributes to an overall plan rather than be piece meal.
Can I do it seeing as my only gardening experience is growing up with parents and an aunt who have amazing gardens. Well, that is what this blog is all about.

Ugh, no marks for blogging for me ...

... yikes, as we approach our 3 yr anniversary in the house, I am well aware that I have not blogged in friggin' ages. Many apologies - partly we were busy on projects getting the house ready for THE wedding. Does that get me off the hook? So there are lots of projects and photos to update the blog with just need to get around to it. I promise.

Yr 2 - Day 299

Countertop is in!! Just need the final plumbing and she's good to go. Oh and for some reason the Electrolux Icon induction cooktop won't power up so someone is coming to check on that.





The view to the old kitchen the day we viewed the house. (where the old stove is is where the new oven is.)








The Old kitchen now.








New kitchen - wheeeeeee! (The pendants and sink are approx. where the old wall used to be)

Yr 2 - Day 299

Countertop is in!! Just need the final plumbing and she's good to go. Oh and for some reason the Electrolux Icon induction cooktop won't power up so someone is coming to check on that.

Build Fireplace Mantel Reprive

This is a do over of an article about how I built my own fireplace mantel. It's now painted gloss white and the brick work is refinished (see entries below).







It's done - Bob will have somewhere to hang his stocking. I bought the lumber for everything but the pilaster molding and top and bottom blocks - that came as a pilaster kit from Lowes (?). I got some good guides to how to do the structure from here

http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/hi_fireplace/article/0,2037,DIY_13914_2269267,00.html

and here

http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/pages/bw0011.asp

and here

http://www.doityourself.com/stry/buildfireplacemantel

Faux Brick Finish on Fireplace Reprive

This is a republish of a post from January 25th, 2007 for Houseblogs.net Fireplace tagging thingy:








Slowly getting back into some projects after a lull over Xmas. Have mainly been concentrating on the kitchen project but last night I took on the brick surround on the fireplace (yet again). Last effort was four coats of paint stripper and no brick in sight (first two coats were an environmentally-friendly stripper that you left on for 24hrs til it changed color, 2nd two coats were a chemical stripper but still no luck.
I headed to Lowes and got some heavy duty (50) sand paper for the Mouse and also a bunch of brick red paint swatches. I sanded the brick a bit and results were mixed - some of the paint came off easily but some was on there for good so I decided I have to do the faux paint. Back to Lowes but this time I had matched the swatches to the actual brick tones and bought 3 sample pots of paint ($3.98 each and a "pouncer" brush to stipple - couldn't bring myself to drop $15 on a sponge). The mid color that I painted on first was American Century Tropical Nut, then a stippling of the just slightly darker Cliveden Henna Red and then a stippling over that of a slightly lighter color - Florentine Clay - that I softened and dispersed a lot more with the brush to get that kind of effervescence white sheen that you get on bricks.
I think the results were pretty good - the flash doesn't help the photo. I painted on the medium shade first and then stippled the darker tone on top and then stippled the lighter tone over that being sure to really work it so that it looked like a soft smudge and not edgey. The samples only came in satin but I didn't want to buy a quart of flat so I might have to hit it all with a matt clear top coat. Just need to go back tonight and get a cement color for the mortar and then I can start priming/painting the mantel/wood surround.

Went back to Lowes tonight with another matching color swatch but wanted to check if there was any ready-made mortar in a tub that I could use as the painting was going to be a pain. Luckily Lowes had Quikrete Textured Mortar Repair ($1.99) - think grey bath caulk with sand and grit in it. So I just smoothed that on with my fingers in to the mortar groove and wiped off the edges of the brick and I think it looks fab. It really needs a wash coat to cut the new and clean look, to give it a bit of grime so I will have to look into that but apart from that it was a much easier, quicker project than I had anticipated.

I have since added a faint glaze as I thought everything looked too new and clean cut. I went back to Lowes and picked up a small bottle of their premixed Antique Glaze, it's in the Faux Painting display area. I was originally going to darken some individual bricks to give it the reused chimney brick look but I just faintly added some "dirt" all over - bricks and mortar with an old towel and as with the paint colors worked it really well so that there were no hard edges or obvious splodges. Fireplace mantel has since been painted gloss white.

Year 2 - Day 282

It's always good to pause and reflect.








Before






After minus fridge, DW, countertop and cooktop

Year 2 - Day 282

3" hole, 6" duct. You do the math.










Ay carumba! The range hood is up but not without much crunching of brain cells, wringing of hands and of course the able help of Bob. Many challenges as usual. 1) our ceiling is only 7'6" so with the hood at the recommended 28" above the cooktop that left us with just over 14" to get the duct up, through a 90 degree turn and out the wall; 2) The center point for the range hood was right on a stud, a stud which happened to be the LH stud of a panned in stud bay that was a return for the HVAC which couldn't be violated; 3) The outer edge of the range hood chimney was about 3-1/2" from the center line and had a 5/8" flange that sat against the wall, this gave us an effective useable space for the outgoing duct of approx. 3"; 4) The duct collar coming out of the range hood was 6" circular and centered on the range hood so that also compromised the fit of the ducting.










This picture shows the final solution: having hummedand ha'd and visited Lowes and HD and searched the web, I visited a plumbing supply place that I passed on hte way to my Drs. I explained my challenge to a nice chap at in N&S Supply, Danbury, CT and out of the many ducts he showed me we found a 90 degree elbow that was 6" round on one end and 6" oval on the other. This was like it was custom made for me! The vertical oval was 3" at it's widest section (see 2nd top picture) - just enough to go through the gap that we had. I had to shorten both the 6" round cone part and the 6" oval part to get it to turn a full 90 degrees in the 14" that we had to work with. I sheet metal screwed it and aluminum taped it to stop it breaking apart when we shoved it through the wall. I also extended the oval end so that it would extend all the way through the wall.



Here it is in all it's friggin' glory. We hung the range hood part first and then Bob suggested I elongate the hole in the wall upwards so that I had play to push the duct through the wall and slide it over the range hood collar. He also suggested I cut the back of the duct into a couple flanges to assist it over the collar. Bob I know you are a genius so here are your props for that. With those tweaks done the two ducts defied all physics and the 2" offset that was between them and slipped together like a charm. The only loss was that we couldn't do the chimney in one piece but you can barely see the telescoping overlap. I also had to trim down the wall flanges on the chimney as they where touching the duct on the LH side and preventing the chimney sections from nesting correctly and making it look shitey instead of fab.










So today I just had to finish off the outside. As usual still not a straight forward job as the siding wasn't level so I filled it in with some siding offcuts (see there's a reason why you shouldn't throw anything away until the whole job is done) turned the opposite way to the boards so that I got a flat surface so that the plastic cover would sit flush with the siding. I also had to customize the plastic duct vent as it was made for 6" round. After filling in the gaps around the duct with insulating foam, I cut the duct extension into flanges so that it I could sheet metal screw it to the siding. I then aluminum taped over all screws and seams to fully seal the duct exit and then screwed the plastic cover to the wall and caulked where it touched the wall. I have burnt more brain cells on this project than I did on moving the window but I think the final result has been worth it.

Year 2 - Day 282

Ay carumba! The range hood is up but not without much crunching of brain cells, wringingof hands and of course the able help of Bob. Many challenges as usual. 1) our ceiling is only 7'6" so with the hood at the recommended 28" above the cooktop that left us with just over 14" to get the duct up, through a 90 degree turn and out the wall; 2) The center point for the range hood was right on a stud, a stud which happened to be the LH stud of a panned in stud bay that was a return for the HVAC which couldn't be violated; 3) The outer edge of the range hood chimney was about 3-1/2" from the center line and had a 5/8" flange that sat against the wall, this gave us an effective usuable space for the outgoing duct of approx. 3"; 4) The duct collar coming out of the range hood was 6" circular and centered on the range hood.
This picture shows the final solution: I explained my challenge to a local plumbing supply store (N&S Supply, Danbury, CT) and out of the many ducts they showed me we found a 90 degree elbow that was 6" round on one end and 6" oval on the other. This was like it was custom made for me! The vertical oval was 3" at it's widest section - just enough to go through the gap that we had. I had to shorten both the 6" round cone part and the 6" oval part to get it to turn a full 90 degrees in the 14" that we had to work with. I sheet metal screwed it and aluminum taped it to stop it breaking apart when we shoved it through the wall. I also extended the oval end so that it would extend all the way through the wall.











Here it is in all it's friggin' glory.










So today I just had to finish off the outside. As usual still not a stright forward job as the siding wasn't level so I filled it in with some siding offcuts turned the opposite way to the boards so that I got a flat surface so that the plastic cover would sit flush with the siding. I also had to customize the plastic duct vent as it was made for 6" round. After filling in teh gaps around the duct with insulating foam, I cut the duct extension into flanges so that it I could sheet metal screw it to the siding. I then aluminum taped over all screws and seams to fully seal the duct exit and then screwed the plastic cover to the wall and caulked the where it touched the wall. I have burnt more brain cells on this project than I did on moving the window but I thinkthe final result has been worth it.