Shine A Light On It

There have been a lot of improvements at Goodin's Folly as the holidays approach and it's been really fun because all of them are things that we can see, as opposed to things that are under the surface.

We found this light fixture on a salvage yard's website.  Ironically, we drove past the place when we were in Nashville over the summer, but didn't have time to stop.

Rob hung it this morning and you can see in the background that we painted a few weeks ago.  (More photos of that later.)  You can also glimpse a bit of the refinished wainscoting, which I just love.

Devil Is in the Details

The window seat has been completed to match the wainscoting in the dining room.  Now we just have to get it stained.

The lids have special hinges that hold them in place so I can put things in it without getting my fingers slammed.

There is so much storage, I could put a body in here.  Hm...that could be useful some day!

A Seat to See From

Music room windows

This spot has been begging for a window seat since the day we moved in and it's finally getting one.

We found a cabinet maker to do our kitchen and decided to try him out on a smaller job.  He's been fantastic.  The outside of the seat is douglas fir, but the inside is melamine, so we'll be able to clean it easily if something we are storing spills.

I'll post more pictures later this week, but here's a teaser....the front of the window seat will match the dining room wainscoting. 

The basic frame of the seat

French!

We bought a pair of salvaged French doors to hang between the living room and music room.  (It sounds so snooty to say we have a music room, but that is what that weird office-y room off the living room is.)

Rob hung one, but we need to plane it a bit to make it fit correctly. We also plan to replace the glass with frosted glass for a bit more privacy as the music room is going to be our bedroom for a while.

In the photo, the door looks like a perfect match for our newly refinished wood trim, but in reality, there is still quite a bit of work left to do on it.

By dumb luck, we were able to get hardware that worked with the mortise that was the same shape as the long-gone original door plates.  Bonus!

Swatch Time -- And I'm NOT Talking about Watches

In case you thought we splurged on a Rothko, I can assure you we didn't.

These were supposed to be color swatches for the kitchen, but the top is too light and the bottom, too gold.  We've elected to use the top one as a ceiling color throughout the entire first floor.

Happily, we do have a winner for the dining room (and living room.)  The grayer of the two greens, the one closest to the woodwork, will be covering our walls in just a few weeks.

Remarkably, we have chosen an interior color scheme that is almost identical to the exterior one.  We are nothing, if not consistent.

"Stick"-ing Around

Last December we planted a cottonwood tree in the back yard and it was literally just a stick in the mud.

It's filled out quite a bit in the past 10 months.  I have hopes we may even get some shade from this guy next summer.

Tabled

I've been meaning to post this picture for months.  Sigh.  I'm slow.  All that bare dirt is now covered by my nemesis Bermuda grass.

ANYWAY, this is the gardening table Rob build me out of the pallet the siding for the house came on.  We got the idea from a coffee shop down the street and it has worked out great!

Harvest

I thought the tomatoes would be done by now, but I managed to harvest half a basket yesterday.  We had some with burrata for lunch yesterday and the rest went to the sauce for tonight's lasagne.   I'll probably get one more basket before the weekend.

There are these weird orange critters on the plants.  I thought they were eggs of some sort, but today Anne from the HaFoSaFo blog explained they're spider mites.  Yuck!  I'll be clipping them out of the remaining plants this week.  Sigh, the joys of gardening.

Stripping!

We finally hired Mary Gandsey to strip the paint in the dining room since, for the last two years, it's looked like this and left little chips of lead paint anytime anyone got near it.  Big difference, huh?  I'll post some pictures of what it looks like stained later this week.

Gardening Georgia O'Keefe Style

We bought this Sacred Datura up at Theodore Payne.

The  overall plant is not very big, but every other night or so, it puts out a single bloom that lasts a day.  Given the plant's size, I'm really surprised at the number of flowers it's produced.

They are supposed to smell amazing, but the scent is so faint from a single bloom that I can't say for sure that is true.

Rob says he can't wait to see what kind of insect pollinates these.

It's Just the Cutest Little Cantaloupe EVER!

We have had a lot of volunteers in the garden, many of them melons.

The cantaloupes are SO tiny.  They're ripening on the vine to sweet perfection.  Can't wait to get some prosciutto to go with these.  Yum.

All the Pretty Flowers

Elegant Clarkia

I've been so bad about posting, I'm playing catch-up in a lazy way.  Here's a bunch of pictures I tool of the backyard at various times.  Depending on the month, something different is in season.

Margarita Bop

Margarita Bop

Five Spot

Monkey Flowers

Monkey Flowers

Native California Onion

Tansy Leaf Phacelia with Sunflowers

Yarrow

Here Comes the Sun

Rob planted a sunflower in a crack in the driveway.  It finally bloomed.

The Pits

We planned to make a dry creek bed with infiltration pits that would help the runoff perk back into groundwater.  We had the bobcat dig out the beginning of the infiltration pits, but Rob got too busy on his hiatus to finish them.

You can see in the shot, taken after the rain, the general path the runoff will take once the creek and the pits are done.  (You can also see some poppies Rob transplanted from the front yard to the backyard and, to the far right, a rather large "twig" that is actually a Nevada Cottonwood tree.)

Unfortunately, the unfinished pits became a watering hole for some large critters -- like the coyote that left these prints!  We were able to figure out where they were getting through the fence and block it, though.

On the Level

Been traveling a lot for work and haven't had time to post.  Looking at all the photos, there's been A LOT of progress, so now that I'm home, I'll start getting you caught up.

We had a bobcat come in back in December to regrade the back yard.  We added a hill in the middle and did the initial work for the dry creek bed and infiltration pits we want to put in.

It looks like a big pile of mud here, but over the next few days, you'll see how pretty we've made it.

Nothing Says Basement...

...like a pool table!

We picked this out months ago, but have been waiting for the C of O, so that we could actually have it delivered.  Today was the day!  Woo-hoo!

Less Is More

The paint is off the china cabinet doors that Rob salvaged and the glass has been repaired.  Hard to believe that under all that white paint was a gorgeous brass handle.  We are going to have the most awesome kitchen cabinet doors EVER.

Getting Lucky!

Had lunch with a friend in Chinatown and picked up some new, lucky bamboo for the front porch.  We'd had bamboo for years and it died shortly after we moved in; the pots have been sitting empty on the steps, but no more!   And just in time for the new year.