Monkey Business

We planted two different kinds of Sticky Monkey Flower in our front yard.  One is a rusty brown and the other is a bit rosy.  We also planted Blue Witch and two different kinds of lilies.  All of them are supposed to be good under Engelmann's.  Boy is it a lot to learn.

We're hoping to have a woodland garden with a bit of a meadow.  Time will tell.  Right now it looks more like a dirt patch with a few green twigs stuck in it.

Weeds! And Not the Fun Kind!

We hired our neighbor to rip all the weeds out of the backyard.  He's a third of the way done and we're going to be filling the green bin for months.

We're hoping to plant our watermelon and pumpkin patch back here and, when Rob goes on hiatus in the fall, do some serious landscaping.  More on that later!

Porchville

The devil is in the details.

The trim has been installed at the edge of the ceiling and the antique light we bought has been hung.

There's No Place Like Home

So, nearly two years later Casa de Shithole is now more casa than shithole.  Hurray.

Got a short memory for what it used to look like?  Click here.

Plumbing Progress

The pipes are in for the plumbing downstairs and the hot water heater vents have been run up through a wall in Rob's office.

Bit by bit, step by step, we are getting there.

I might have a bathroom and laundry room in my basement in the next month or two.  

Oops.  Did I say that out loud?  Because this time LAST year...

A Very Unscientific Experiment

We're having sticker shock over the cost of the electrical for the basement.

First, the electrician's bid came in at almost TWICE what it cost to rewire the whole house and upgrade the panel two years ago.  That doesn't include fixtures.

Second, we want LED lights and the fixtures that give off the warm yellow light we like cost $300.  Our lighting plan calls for 25 of them.  Ouch!

Right now we are using a Philips EnduraLED bulb with a standard base.  It gives off the light we like and, at $25, the price is right.

To see if we liked the way it looked recessed, we took a six inch flower pot, covered it with aluminum foil to simulate the reflective surface of a recessed can and turned out all the lights in the living room.  It gave off a very nice light with a 6 foot radius where the light was strong enough to read by.

Now I just need to figure out some way to simulate a lens covering the bulb.  If we like how that looks, we've cut our fixture cost by over 80%!

Taking Shape

This is the laundry room.  The white tubes are for the radiant floor heat.

It's really fun to watch the walls get framed in.  It's starting to feel like we might actually get to live there.

Strangely enough, the space feels A LOT bigger now that it's divided up.

This will start out as our bedroom, but ultimately will be Rob's studio.