One For the "That Did NOT Just Happen!" Column

So, this is Patty:

Patty O'Furniture.  She's Irish. 

I built this little side table, oh, about five years ago, from a pile of scrap 2x2s that I had sitting around the garage at the time.   It was a great little table for the back porch, and it sure went through the ringer in the four years it was out there.  It got used as a table, a step-stool, and a chair; had all four corners of the top chewed off by a puppy (guess which one!), and even spent a couple of weeks underneath a large plant I was trying to keep off the ground.

Eventually, I replaced it with a round one, and moved it into the garage where it became a stool at my workbench.  Lately I'd noticed it was getting a bit wobbly, so I stopped sitting on it, and started thinking about repairing the loose joints and replacing the pieces of the top that had been chewed.

However, yesterday, as I was moving some things around in the garage (I was digging out an unused weight bench, which I sold via Craigslist yesterday, along with another exercise machine), I went to slide it out of the way with my foot, and it totally...

The thing went down like a house of cards - every. single. piece. came apart!  I hadn't realized it was THAT loose!  Wow!  Kress and I just stood there gawking for a second, and then burst out laughing. It was kind of epic, hehe.

Bye, little side table. Nice knowin' ya.


.

The Oldest Wildebeest, Part IV

FINISHED!  FINALLY!

only took six and a half years. 

The light's all funky in this pic, and it makes the stain look weird;  but this is just to prove that the damned thing is finally done, LOL.

Next stop:  art on the wall!  Nifty little sidekick accessories!  Oh, and FISH!

For the time being, I'm enjoying watching the cats take turns hurling themselves towards the top of the cabinet only to find out too late that the lip isn't nearly wide enough for them to get onto.  They pretty much just bash against the tank and fall off, as though someone's throwing cats at the aquarium.  (They're not hurt, don't worry).

Actually, before the fish thing happens, I'm going to be working on a couple of other things.  A bit more organization in the garage, a thing with a sofa, and some more furniture building.  Stay tuned...

.

The Oldest Wildebeest, Part III

Last weekend also saw some of the final stages of the aquarium stand coming together:

L-shaped  outside molding on the corners,
being filled and sanded, nail holes filled.

Kress helping with the staining

First coat:  Ben & Jerry's  Minwax's  Deep Walnut 

Second coat, also Minwax:  Old Maple, in a one-shot stain &
polyurethane.  On its own, the maple is really yellowy, but the
combination is sort of a warm, dark, almost-cherry color. 

The top got a VERY thick layer of clear sealant, to water-
proof the top in case of spills or leaks from the tank.  

Drying.  Sure is dusty in there.  Which is what happens when
you  build a  frame and leave it in the garage for seven years.    

Next steps:

1. very light buffing with a very fine sandpaper to remove any residual nicks and bubbles in the finish, just in case there are some I can't see
2. Attach the doors, and the knobs to the doors
3. Attach the slidey-feet so the wood won't mar the laminate in the house
4. Put it in the living room, and begin working on the aquarium itself!  

Almost there...

.

Garage Re-Org Proceeding Apace

The East and West walls have been flipped, as per the sketch I posted the other day.   The garden stuff, and the festival storage stack, have been moved to the West wall where the water filter stuff is;  and the entire workshop/woodshop has been moved to the East wall, which you can see here.

I improvised the shelving with some random junk I had in the garage:  four cinderblocks (from a balcony garden in an apartment a decade ago, some long 2" planks buried in the lumber stack, and a black shelf that I'd built for books a million years ago that had just been taking up space and collecting random @%^# in a corner of the garage.

The walls and ceiling have also been primed.  Yay!  All of this took me six full hours last weekend, but it's done.  Next step, please.

Although, I did discover a bit of a problem: the tape on the sheetrock on the ceiling in another corner of the garage was wet.  Not dripping - and I found no evidence of a drip anywhere underneath the spot - but it was wet enough that it diluted the paint around the tape.  And it hasn't rained heavily in like two weeks, so for it to still be wet, there had to have been standing water in the attic.

I have a roof leak.  

fuck. 

I guess it's not so bad when you think about it - the house is nearly nine years old at this point.  Stuff was bound to start happening eventually.

.

And Now A Long Post About Plants!

Or, rather, about my front garden:

Before: 

I loved this garden, don't get me wrong.  I just really wanted a small, sort of cottage-y thing out there instead.  And since most of the plants in it worked already, it just took a little tweaking.  Okay, kind of a lot of tweaking.

nice trash cans, neighbors, thanks. 

After During:

Changes:

• removed the giant Rosemary. Sad, yes, but it was overgrown for the space and crowding things out, and starting to suffer, itself. 
• Re-located the Loropetalum
• Bumped the border out into a somewhat-convex line instead of a concave one, adding about four square bed feet to the front. 

•  Relocated the Indigo* from the "inside" of the bed (by the front walk) to the "outside" where the Rosemary was
• added a French Lavender in the same corner
• mulched with fresh compost from the bin in the backyard
• added a white Easter Lily in the center back (on sale, $6!) 

The front of the bed IS a very slightly convex, and smooth line, I promise.  Those dumbass stones make it look all wonky, though.  Those will be going away very soon, and replaced with...something else.

The Loropetalum now lives next to the #$%^& electrical box in the front yard.  It's going through some hellacious transplant shock;  I really hope it makes it. :S



So, the garden is nowhere NEAR finished, and won't be for a long while.  There's a TON of work to be done, and not just in smoothing out the border and dealing with the stones.  There's a little wattle fence to build (out of the rosemary branches, and some prunings from the backyard that I saved from last Fall), and a bunch of stuff to plant.


Plants in the garden right now: 
white Yarrow (Achilea millefolium)
"Before the Storm" and a pale purple German Bearded Irises (Iris germanica)
Australian Indigo (Indigofera australis)
French Toothed Lavender (Lavandula dentata)
a white, single-petaled Rose, unknown variety (clearance plant, hehe)

Next steps...
Remove the stones and replace with a new edging, show you when it's done. :)
In the Fall, when it's time to divide Irises, I need to remove about half of them to the back yard, and then spread the other half out around the bed more evenly, instead of in three big clumps like it is now.

Also want to add: 

A red rose to fill in the rest of the corner where the Rosemary was, along with the Lavender and Indigo.  

More Lilies to accompany the one I planted in the center back, for height and drama back there
Some Larkspurs and/or Delphiniums in the back, too
Strawberry plants in the hanging baskets (to keep critters out of them)
Some small herbs and bulbs to fill in around the ground - Thyme, Anemones (coronaria and blanda), etc.
Either a birdbath or small statue, or some combination of both

buttery-white (and over-exposed) rose in the sprinkler :) 

.

A Short Post About Plants

Since I couldn't decide what exactly to do with the herbs I got at the Zilker Garden Festival a couple of weekends ago, I went ahead and put them in pots on the back porch, for now.  I can still transplant them into the ground later if I want to, provided I don't wait so long that it gets too hot. 

from the bottom up:  Jamaica Hibiscus, Applemint,
French Lavender.  The last one is the Lemon Balm
I found in the yard a few weeks ago.  

the French Lavender. 

White Yarrow, a survivor of the ex-herb garden, still in its
original spot.  I could move it, but I kind of like it where it is.
It's almost monumental. 

Meanwhile, I really love the front garden bed this year.
Really pretty mix of foliage types and colors.   

And the rose is doing spectacularly well, with almost no help
from me at all (all I do is deadhead it). 

.

Folding Sofa, Lightly Used, Needs New Cushions

You know what else I want in the living room?  This:

This is World Market's "Studio Day Sofa" (actually a photo of the slipcover they sell for it in "Mallard", which I guess is a color now, and not a duck.  Looks teal to me).

I have one, actually - or rather, I have the frame.  Long ago, back when I was newly divorced and possessed of a house with no furniture in it, I picked one of these up as a floor-model markdown for cheap.  While it was fantastic for one person to sit on, it didn't make even adequate main seating.  More than one person could sit on it if it was folded out (both arms lay down flat), but if one person got up, the other person was dumped onto the floor as the whole thing seesaw'd up into the air on the vacant end, since the feet are so close to the middle when folded out.  Whoops.

That said, I think it would make a fantastic auxiliary piece for extra seating, or for an out-of-the-way little reading nook type of thing.  It would be a great replacement for that dumb little Ikea mini-couch thing I picked up for free intending to spruce up but never did.  It's smallish (62"x33"), low enough to feel divan-esque (only 25" high at the back), and awesomely versatile.

The problem is that the cushion that came with this thing was thin enough that I could feel the wooden frame through it. I replaced it with a thicker, firmer cushion that I made from an old couch cushion, but when I retired the sofa to the garage for storage, I got rid of the cushion I'd made (one of my dogs had been sleeping on it while I was at work, and it was, erm, a bit funky).

Once I've got a new seat cushion for it (Ikea has a thin mattress I think I can work with, for only about sixty dollars), and some nifty throw pillows, I plan to put this thing into action again in place of the mini-couch.

Also World Market.  Also in "Mallard."  I have several of
these in different colors, including this one.  Looks teal to me.  

right?  

.

Living Room Music Area Post-Script

You know what's missing from this picture? 

1.  This: 

Ibanez AF75 full hollow-body archtop, "red sunburst"

2.  And this:   

my keyboard needs a nice table

:D

Suprise!Living Room Rearrangement!

My BFF, in response: "*checks betting pool*  Okay, who had...April 3rd at 7pm?"  

So, yeah - I was a bit frustrated with the living room situation.  I mean, it was cute, it was divided into two discrete usable spaces...but it just wasn't working.  For one thing,  There were only *2* usable spaces: the computer area, and the living room/tv-watching area.   There was also a pretty little meditation corner that I wasn't using, like, ever, anymore; as well as a gigantic work table set up to do crafts and stuff on that was just crammed into one side of the office area.  There was also no room at all for any of our musical equipment, like, at all.

Also, if I haven't ever mentioned it before:  I'm not a talented hula-hooper, but I'm an avid hula-hooper, and I had NO space indoors in which to do it (the garage is too hot, and too cramped; and the backyard is way too visible to the neighbors - I'm also a self-conscious hooper).

So this week, I decided something:  I don't care if the room is "balanced" or follows somebody else's design rules.  I like the things in it, but I needed them to be arranged in a way that was useful to me, and comfortable to co-exist with.  And so last night, Kress and I did this:

Basically, I flip-flopped the entire room, which opened up a much larger work area, with lots of floor space to hoop in, AND gave us room to move the musical instruments back out into the main living area, which is where we use them, and we both love having them on display. :)

Kress Vanna-Whites the new tv area, still covered with junk that
got piled everywhere while we were moving things around

still the same size as the old area, too - no actual space lost here

and nothing but space gained on this side!  computer, work table, AND music

also much more open-feeling than the previous arrangement

details and fill-in not finished yet, but will be soon.

It's weird!  And it's totally AWESOME.  We've really needed a *big* music space, and I've really needed a *big* hoop (and dance!) space.  We both really, really like it.  It's odd and "unbalanced," but it works for what we need.  And it feels comfy and perfect. :)

It's not remotely done - there's art and rugs and more window stuff planned, as well as:

• the big work table is actually going to go live in the garage as soon as we get the garage rearranged and painted the way we want it;  there'll be a little reading nook/sitting area back there in the corner; and
• the mini-couch, visible on the right in that last photo, remains, for the time being, stranded all alone over there.  I've completely given up plans to make it fabulous...I hate it.  I hate the shape, it's too hard, the back's too short, etc.  I'm trying to decide whether to replace it with similarly-sized but comfortable and flexible extra seating; or if I want to set up my new keyboard*
• Third option: keyboard and dedicated music practice area by the window, alternate seating area where the mini-couch is? 

*  I bought the keyboard from a friend recently, but I haven't had a place to set it up and start working with it yet.  When I brought it home, Kress asked, "...do you play piano or keyboards? I didn't think you knew how."  

     "I don't," says me, "But you know how I love to collect musical instruments and then not play them!"  

LOL.  I'm really excited about it, though. :) 

.

Zilker Garden Festival '12

Kress and I trekked out to Zilker Botanical Gardens' 55th annual Garden Festival last weekend.  As usual, there were plenty of plants for sale, all sorts of home- and hand-made artisan goods for your home and garden,  tons of food, live music, and gorgeous things in the botanical gardens themselves.  Take a look:

(pics by me and Kress)

In the Hartman Prehistoric Garden, complete with bronze Ornithomimus

In the Taniguchi Japanese Garden

in the Mabel Davis Rose Garden

"Chrysler Imperial" rose

a Mock Orange

Pink Bluebonnets! 

a "black" Nicotiana 

Kress and The Mother Tree, in the Japanese gardens.  He's holding the herbs we
bought from one of the vendors: a red Jamaican Hibiscus, Applemint, and French Lavender.

me on the Moon Bridge in the Japanese Gardens

.