Big Summer Project Has Begun

A few weeks ago, I had the thought that perhaps I should paint the exterior of The Dump before the next rainy season as there are some areas where the paint has failed and bare wood is exposed. I wondered how long it would take me to do this by myself as asking mom to help would be far different than asking for her help on an interior painting project.

Imagine my surprise when she pulled into the driveway mere days after I'd had that crazy notion and the first thing she said was, "We should paint your house this summer." I wasted no time on taking her up on that offer! We pulled paint chips that very day and narrowed it down to what I thought was a good color. Samples proved otherwise, so the color selection process continued.

Since I have a series of 3-day weekends coming up (Memorial Day, 4th of July, and a bunch of random Fridays we now have off as a token remuneration of our recent pay cut), I decided to get moving. Here are some progress pics from this past weekend:

Saturday - Scraping (not much since I have lead paint under there), patching and attempted gutter removal. Discovered the gutters will not come off AFTER we had demolished the downspouts int he removal process (oops!). No photos of this since it looked even uglier than before. Color was still uncertain at this time.

Sunday - Everything is primed and ready to go. Color rapidly selected and paint purchased (since the paint store would be closed on Monday). You know it was bad when a passing neighbor is totally impressed by the primer coat:
Monday - Eaves, rafter tails, fascia board and gutters painted white (with the "help" of my new power painter. Very messy, but good for getting into all the nooks and crannies of the eaves. I could not have done it without the help of a crew consisting of Mom, Uncle Tom and my beau, AT--thanks everyone!), window and garage door trim painted green so I could get the padlock back on the garage door:
Tuesday night (wanted to snap a pic before I ran out of daylight) - Yellow done on front wall so that I could unmask the front door:
Wednesday morning - All cleaned up, unmasked and looking perky in the morning light:
Obviously, there is still a lot left to do, and this is only the first side of the house! However, it's a massive change and I think it will go a long way in boosting The Dump's curb appeal.

Once again, I'm reminded of the transformative power of paint. I heart you, paint!

Yard work

So, it's been a while since I last posted, and I've been really busy in that time.

I painted and laid a new vinyl tile floor in the laundry room but I don't seem to have any real photos of that. I know I took some with my phone, but they aren't blog quality, so you'll just have to wait.

The weekends of the past month have been focused on the yard (aside from the weekend I lost to a business trip). Namely, I was keen to get my veggie bed going so that I will have some chance of having something edible before the season ends. I spent a weekend pulling weeds and working the soil and then planted the following weekend.

I went a bit crazy at the garden center:
6 types of tomatoes
a 6-pack of corn
a 6-pack of basil
Parsley
1 Cucumber
1 Zucchini
1 Crooked neck squash
1 sugar snap pea
1 watermelon
a 6-pack of lettuce

I'm pleased to say that I made it all fit:


Also a few weeks ago, I discovered buds on scraggly rose that I had pruned in January 2008, but had largely ignored since then. This weekend I got a pretty trellis and tied it up to the end of the front porch:

Cute, non?

And to round out this yard-loving post, my CA wildflowers are late to bloom, and not as well synchronized as I had hoped, but pretty nonetheless (I had wanted an explosion of blue lupine and orange poppies together, but the lupine is almost finished and the poppies are just beginning to open):