Some R & R Just Waiting To Happen!

Due to some great luck at discovering our roofing contractor was available for some small work, we hired Veritas again for a deck expansion.  We have lived for years with a teeny tiny deck - just big enough for 2 chairs to sit and enjoy the view of  Perkins and the back yard.  With gas prices on the rise, it makes it tough for us to get to the far-flung areas we enjoy going to for relaxation.  Making the back yard more restful makes much more sense.

I had 'before' pictures, but mistakenly deleted them a moment ago, so you will have to use your imagination.  Here is the deck on day 2.  Day one was spent pouring the footings and figuring out the measurements.  Day 2, as you can see, was spent framing the deck, with joists a foot apart (good for lots of jumping kids).  Speaking of jumping, we will most likely have to rid our yard of our fabulous trampoline.  Looks like the fall area will be too small to be safe.

Underneath the new deck, John and I are talking about building a patio - most likely for the downstairs neighbors.  They now squish themselves into the small area you might be able to make out on the concrete in the picture - by the fence.  It's about a 4' square space that they put 2 chairs and a BBQ.  It would be nice to have them spread out a bit.

We are looking forward to finding deck furniture, umbrellas and such.  We sold out elliptical machine this weekend (with the gym membership, why have it?) and will use that $$ for 'new' stuff off Craig's List.  I was talking with my neighbor this weekend, and found out she went to school with 'Craig'.  Wow.  He's a real person.  Talk about getting your 15 minutes of fame...

So I am busy planting all the plants from last weekend's over-purchase.  I am so busy these days that all I could do with the tomatoes is put them in larger containers until I can find new spaces for them.  Better that than let them dry out and die - they're heirlooms.  The deck will have planters with lettuces and herbs - I can't wait!

Summer is here and the yard work begins

The sun was shining, and the air was getting warmer.  The weeds have climbed up toward the sky long enough.  It was time.  Definitely time.  The mower came out (attached to a 10 year old looking to earn some cash) followed by the typical yard tools: rake, shovels, trowels, etc.  It was time to get to work.

Sick of looking at the side yard down the driveway all overgrown (and no doubt all our neighbors are sick of it as well), I decided to mulch it heavily to get rid of the weeds for once and for all.  We purchased two lovely blueberry bushes from Home Depot to put in, then I added 2 tomato plants.  The rest are spiderwort and irises.  All day Sunday, I put down newspaper and old decrepit yard-waste bags, wet them thoroughly and covered them with pine mulch.  By Monday, when I wasn't quite finished with my supposedly-small-but-turning-huge side yard job, my family came out to join me.

This is what we began with:

This is why I needed to get going on the preparing of beds:  The Gore Estate Plant Sale.  For those of you gardeners in this area, you know how I drool over this sale every May.  Some of you even get to watch me trip over myself just to get through the aisles of heirloom herbs and flowers - most of which are only $4 each.  I always overbuy, making the following week miserable as I struggle to get it all in the ground without losing anything.  And I never make it.  I always lose something.  But I tell you - it's worth it.  Definitely.

A Job Well Done

The roof is completed!  We have a brand new, absolutely smashing, charcoal-colored roof!  It is truly a sight to behold.  I know I am biased, but this really is lovely.  (It's a roof...Jill).  I know - just  roof to you, but a world of safety for us.  No more drip drop on our heads, no more worries about rotting roof boards or animals getting in to roost.  We're done with that for now.

Here's the back - much better (and neater) don't you think?  You didn't think that was all OUR mess before...did you??  Actually, during the roofing, a big dumpster took up a large part of the driveway, and we were able to toss a few eyesores in.

If you look real close in the photo below, you will see one of our feathered friends trying desperately to get in the roof where they had a nest.  I feel bad forcing them to find other real estate, but you know - the rent's going up here, and they need to move on!  

The flowers are starting to bloom in our neighborhood.  May is almost here, and I couldn't be happier with our roof (I can go on and on about it).  However, it is time to move on ourselves to our next project.  This one will be part landscaping, part weatherizing.  You see, we can't make up our minds about how to do our windows in the living room, but we know we need them done.  And the front walkway is cracked to pieces from the past winters, and needs replacement.  I will keep you posted on what gets the next dibs.   

Guttering for Attention

Who knew gutters could be so exciting?  You should have seen me when the gutter guy showed up.  You'd think I had just won the sweepstakes.  John just shook his head and laughed, You really enjoy this, don't you?".  Well, yes I do, in fact.   I promptly grabbed the camera and ran outside.

This truck pulls up, gets into position, and starts pumping out aluminum in the shape of gutters for our house.  It starts as a flat roll in the truck, and then rolls through a press or bender to be shaped accurately for the length of the roof span.  

The gutters look fantastic on the house don't you think?

All shiny and new.  I hardly recognize that that is OUR HOUSE in the photo!

I loved watching the gutters go up, all with new downspouts.  We are currently searching for soda or juice bottling companies in the Boston area to get used barrels to be made into rain barrels.  I know we can purchase them, and have located some nice ones for $65 each, but free sounds so much better!  Supposedly, with heavy rains, the barrels can fill pretty quickly, so you want to get several and 'tie' them together.  Not having to run the hose during the summer for the garden sounds pretty good to me, though I'm sure the kids will be disappointed about fewer water fights at watering time!

I love our new roof.  It's looking great.

This is the beginning of our second journey into major house repair.  We decided to hire the roofing company Veritas, owned by Michael Portanova.  We hired them a couple of times before, when this roofing fiasco first began.  They were able to do some patch-up jobs for us, but the problem was much bigger than any of us knew.  

When we returned from our trip to Maine this week, we came home to several men on the roof, ripping it apart, sending the debris down to the yard below.  A dumpster had been delivered, much to our tenants' dismay (at 6:30 AM), and all sorts of cloths had been tacked to the bottom edging of the roof to keep everything going down where it needed to go.  This picture is from around 3pm, Wednesday.

We were quite grateful that there was a second entrance into our house since this is what we tried to go through:

I was a little freaked out to find all the mess - pretty sure the roofers would leave it for me to pick up.  There's just no way they could get every last piece.  But John assured  me that they do this every day - they know how to get it all up efficiently.

Rounding the back of the house was quite something.  Again, I felt a little panicky because I saw all the mess and worried that they would leave it (They don't).  This is at about 4pm on Wednesday afternoon.

It's quite a feeling - knowing that we will not have our indoor irrigation any longer.  Everything will be sealed up, tight as a drum (in fact, some of the roofing areas will actually have rubber installed, just like a drum!).  All the gutters and fascias will be replaced, and eventually we will invest in rain barrels to collect water for the plants.  What a relief.  What a true gift we have received to get this done.  

I will post more pictures this evening to capture what has happened today.

Redo, Rehab, Renovate, Recycle, RETHINK?

Have you visited our living room this past winter?  Our wonderful friend, Jennie, will attest to how chilly it can get, even on a warmish evening.  Those blasted windows let in so much 'fresh' air that you have to sit with a sweatshirt (hood up) and blanket just to carry on a conversation without chattering.  And that's after we attempted to plastic the windows.  And it was our friend Jennie who came up with a possible solution to our window problem: restore your windows! These folks talk about fixing the problem windows and adding a new storm window.  The idea is that the amount of space between the storm and renovated window has more insulating properties than your typical replacement window with 1/4 inch insulating space. Sounds good, but we'll see.  They come out next week to look at what we have and I'll keep everyone posted.  We love the idea of recycling windows rather than replacing, but honestly, there's only so much chattering we can do each winter, not to mention our dwindling social life due to the drafts, so this will have to be better than glorified storm windows.  

Anyone out there have any experience with this yet?

Gardening by Numbers

I have this wonderful ability to get carried away with planning.  I get so carried away that I get overexcited, then overwhelmed as I plan my little heart out over the house projects, work projects, life projects, anything to keep me busy for the time being.  Lately, future garden projects have been filtering through my mind - especially when I walk from the car to the front door and notice that fewer and fewer plants are coming back each year after the winter.  How many times have I walked this walk thinking, "A row of roses would be great here.  Oh and how about a nice bench and stone path here.  That railing needs new paint.  The Rose of Sharon is leaning farther - we need to prune it and stake it back."  Enough. Take a breath!  

This year, I vow for a change.  Each day, as I walk to the front door, I look over the garden and give each area a number.  Each little flower bed or 'project area' gets a number, not to signify their importance, but to separate them from the 'whole'.  And each area must be small.  If it is a large garden area, it gets more than one number.  The idea is to keep each area small enough to take care of (dig up, plant, move, prune) in part of a day.  Next, I will note down those numbered areas and make some safe, simple plans.  The Rose of Sharon?  That's number 4.  All I need do to cross #4 off my list is stake it back to the house to keep it off the pathway.  There.  All done.  I typically consider my yard in its entirety, rather than in small increments.  Taking #4 off my list is a big deal.  It leads to another number (maybe #5, or maybe not), but I will take on that next number when I'm ready.  If I look at the yard as a whole project, I get easily overwhelmed with it's enormity.  Taking it apart makes it more digestible and exciting.

I realize this is the same with other life projects.  Some projects need to be completed in order, or in smaller amounts of time.  A garden can be left to unfold over months or years - not so the project with looming deadlines.  But how do stress and procrastination serve us over these projects?  Can't we also take them apart in small pieces and accomplish the same task?  Is it wrong to feel a sense of pride at completing the smallest task toward the greater whole?  Somewhere it must have been decreed that stress and anxiety was the way to go for those of us on deadlines as so many of us continue to work this way, even though it makes us sick.

Back to my garden and the feelings I was getting while walking to the front door.  I vow to develop my number plan to take the anxiety out of coming home to undone projects.  And when stress comes knocking at my door, I'll tell it to 'take a number'.