Rockin' Out!

It's finished! Well, almost . . . .



When Chris and I began talking about our backyard garden as we moved into this house, it always felt like a "someday" project. Then, this spring we decided to get it together enough to plant, which we did just in the knick of time. Through the summer we added the fence, the trees and some additional landscaping.

It has always been our plan to put rock veneer over our existing concrete retaining wall, but that was on our 2011 list. Until, a few weeks ago, when we had a "what the heck" moment and decided to just do it.

Before we began working with the stones, we had to level out the face of the concrete wall with some concrete blocks. Boring work, but fun to get over with and onto the next step!





Once the wall was level, we bought our first load of stone veneer.



Each stone was unique, so we had to trial and error through the process to find the best fits. It was tricky, but very gratifying to puzzle everything together.



The concrete slowly disappeared . . .





until it was gone.



Now came the fun part. I hate to brag, but I am quite the mortarer. I think I may have missed my calling.

Chris was pretty good at it too.





And that's it! So, much to our surprise we're a few simple steps away from having our garden FINISHED! We never thought this would happen, but very much look forward to the feeling of completion.

We plan to build steps in the next few weekends - that's the only remaining major project left. We decided not to use the stone steps we originally bought - so you'll soon see what we've opted for instead. Then, next spring we plan to landscape the area around the steps, and get a fountain to enjoy while we sit in our little garden.

At Home

I've very much enjoyed following a blog another local couple is writing about fixing up a home they recently bought in Hyde Park - a neighborhood we considered when we were looking for a house. I love their description of how they ended up making the decision to purchase their urban fixer upper, and frequently reference it when people ask how we ended up settling in this neighborhood that we've come to love so much over the past 18 months.

Once upon a time -- that is how all stories with happy endings begin, so we hopefully and earnestly proceed -- a man and a woman, very much in love, dreamt of dwelling in a home with slightly more space. More space to be, more space to raise a family, more space to host friends and family. Longing for space, they were challenged by the roots they had planted in carving out their place in the city -- a street of good neighbors, in an urban neighborhood that felt like living in a small town.

A place where people know one another, not just because they live close to one another, but because they live closely -- invested in one another’s lives and well being in a place of both rare beauty and occasional danger. This useful setting, with the tension necessary for actions difficult and improbable, is how slightly over a year ago a crumbling 122 yr old house became our odessey. This is our story.

Dwelling: 3918 Holmes St.
(http://web.me.com/webslingermd/Dwelling_3918Holmes/Welcome.html)

A Quick Step Up

Truck loaded up with heavy rocks.

We added 8 inches of height to our retaining wall this summer. Since then, we have have been Jonesing for some steps to help us get up to our garden.

The original plan was to build some steps with lumber, like a deck style. Then it was railroad ties. Then rock steps. Then it was cedar beams.

Anyways, we always try to find cheap ways to get our projects done. Today we found a pile of limestone rocks at Habitat ReStore. Our original estimate for this project was around $400. We got the rocks for $4 each, and ended up only spending $72 bucks for the project. Saving money makes projects like this so much sweeter.

Here is a quick before and after.

Before


After

Holy Wallpaper!

At some point in my lifetime wallpaper became a 4-letter word. And it deserved it! It suffocated us with overwhelming florals. It occasionally was fuzzy, or metallic, or hot pink. Perhaps most offensively, it was the bears-on-bicycles-with-balloons border I spent hours upon hours removing from my walls when my family moved into a new house years ago.

When we think wallpaper, we think one word - REMOVE! And that makes us think of sticky glue, scraped up walls and (worst of all) the possibility of multiple layers.

BUT . . . . I'm seeing wallpaper more and more lately, and despite my greatest efforts not to I'm just loving it. I love the bold repetition. The smooth texture of the paper. The large scale pattern repeated throughout an entire room.

Long story short, I forgive wallpaper for its history of wrongs. I want some wallpaper.

So, imagine my delight when I came across Alluminare - a company that allows you to customize colors on wallpaper patterns! My worlds have collided. My options are no longer limited to patterns available in the gold/burnt orange/red tones I love - I can make ALL wallpaper my colors!


A winner? We love the warm yellows and reds in this very simple damask pattern.

We'll introduce wallpaper to our home with great moderation, by putting it first in the half bathroom we're about to gain with our remodeled kitchen. We want to do wainscoting on the bottom half of the walls, and paper on the top.

In the meantime, this website is really fun to play around with.

Bathroom Reading

Chris and I are nothing if not planners. Crazed, obsessive, fanatical planners.

That said, in addition to our current and short-term house projects like the backyard garden and the kitchen remodel, we have big plans for down the road as well, including adding a master bathroom to our bedroom, and renovating our existing upstairs bathroom.

We love looking at well-designed bathrooms for inspiration. Here are some of our favorites.


We love the subway tiled walls and mosaic floor.


We're huge suckers for a nice checkered floor. We hope to replace our acrylic paneled shower in our existing bathroom with a substantial tub and tiled walls, much like this one.


Plans for our master bathroom include a free-standing tub. We love the contrast of black and white on this one.


Three words: marble subway tile.


While we won't have a slanted ceiling to deal with, we love how the tub with a side-mount faucet is central to the design of this cozy bathroom.


Beautiful tub and shower curtains!

Octoberfest 2: Around the House

In addition to our big impact, more expensive rock and mulch improvement, we got around to fixing a few things around the house. When we bought the house, our inspector suggested we seal all the cracks in the porch to keep water from getting in. We found a great caulk that looks and feel like brick mortar by Quikrete, and it really gets the job done well. The sealer blends seamlessly with the old mortar, dries quickly, and it can expand and contract (unlike mortar).

Sealed vertical gap

Sealed .5" gap between steps and porch

Becca's loves her flowers, here a few recent blooms.

Clamatis

Purple clamatis on trellis

Purple coneflower

She also attacked our elderly neighbors rosebush that was overtaken by poison ivy. We hauled off a truckload of thorns and hairy vines, hopefully soon we can update her landscaping. Unfortunately, Becca had a really bad reaction to the poison ivy, so the last week was filled with itching and more itching.

Recently cleared side yard of neighbor

Next week, we plan to continue fixing gaps in mortar, and Becca is going to plant more vinca in our back patio area. You can see the first round of vinca is spreading nicely.

Vinca minor

Octoberfest

Chris and I have an ongoing to-do list of outdoor projects to complete this fall. It's strange - it seems impossible that it could already be October, but at the same time we're beginning to feel our time to work outdoors this year is becoming numbered.

This has definitely been the summer of outside - we probably choose to forget, but only 6 months ago our backyard garden was an impassible jungle. This year we've added the patio and garden beds with sitting area, a privacy fence, a privacy hedge out back and new flowerbeds in both the front and back yards. We're loving every bit of it.

We began this weekend by framing in our bricked patio with landscaping edger stones. We went to one of our favorite places - House of Rocks in KCK, and stocked up on the gorgeous white rectangle stones, and put what we think is the perfect finishing touch around our garden bed area.







Then, we were finally able to mulch in our new trees as well.









Now we're rooting (bad pun, sorry) for the trees to dig deep and grow fast. Can't wait to see the progress next year.

MIghty Magnolia

Last summer for our first anniversary, Chris brought home a magnolia tree for me. A brackens brown magnolia to grow forever in our front yard.



I got him a garden gnome.



The tree was about five and a half feet tall when we planted it (about my height) and now it's about six and a half feet tall (about Chris' height). Great progress for its first year in the ground, I must say.

It's a bit of a strange tree, with enormous white blooms in the spring and big waxy green leaves that fall off in June. We sometimes have to tell people that no, it's not dying - its fall is June.



What I often forget is that it has a fall trick too when it makes the most amazing pods of bright red seeds where the blooms had been the previous spring.







Naturally, the squirrels love them. Stupid squirrels.

Carpe Autumn Part 2: Photos

Chris wrote about fall arriving in Kansas City - by far my favorite time of year! Here are the sites around the Jones house.


My pepper plants are going CRAZY - more than 3 feet tall and full of flowers and veggies. I"m loving it!




Our green beans have also come back since the heat broke. I'm living up to my childhood nickname - the Green Bean Queen.


I've pulled seeds from some of our flowers, as well as from one of our neighbors who invited me to make myself welcome. I read about storing them through the winter. Must keep them dry, dark and cool.


Our neighbor is a master gardener, and has been kind enough to let me ravish his deadhead flowers to steal seeds.


The coneflowers, sunflowers and black-eyed susans came from our yard.


I love digging into the center of the sunflowers for the seeds.






I've got them all packaged and labeled.


Chilling in the frigo until next spring.


Coneflowers: our flower of the year. We have white ones, purple ones, pink ones, yellow ones, tall ones short ones . . . . we love them!


Rosemary: our herb of the year. It was slow to start, but has grown like crazy!


Our sparse lawn, covered in grass seed and straw. Cross your fingers!