a hymn for trim

Progress!!  Several seemingly eternal drawn-out projects are finally coming along or completed.  Happily, one in the FINISHED category is the dining room.  We lived for months with it blocked off by plywood...but we finally have floors, walls, and even trim!

We had a pocket door installed between the dining room and the mud room (which is where we keep the litter boxes and the dog crate).  It's hard to see here, but one of the bottom panels is removed from the door, so the pets can go in and out as they please. 

An old exterior shot shows more detail.  The old dining room was tiny, with a low ceiling and only one window.  You had to go outside onto the covered porch to access the mother-in-law quarters that became Todd's office space.  We ripped off the old dining room and back porch(es) and added a much larger dining room that encompasses the old dining room plus the back porch.  The garage is now connected and we love it. 

So much light!!

I bought a low wood table at IKEA for some plants...and I'm going to get another one when we go again.  I love it.

I'm trying to add more house plants in general, despite my abysmal record with keeping them alive.  A Dracaena trifasciata (snake plant) is perfect for our dark kitchen.

Because the house is so dim with its long covered front porch, I didn't want to have any curtains.  We've got bamboo roll-up shades in the living room but rarely use them.  Definitely no curtains in the new dining room...but I did decide to add some long cotton plaid curtains in the bedroom for a little softness.  I'm really loving how it looks.

I also added several chairs to the front porch.  We've already got a pair of adirondack chairs, but I bought a couple of simple faux wicker patio chairs.

Claudia approves. She sleeps in them all day long!

We also added a couple of wooden patio chairs for the other end of the porch, and a new patio set for the back of the house.  It will be so nice to eat amongst the flowers!  :)  Even with a canopy, though, it's a bit warm right now for outdoor meals. 

And drumroll...the barn addition is nearly complete!  We added about 600 square feet.

Concrete floor and electricity are coming within a week!

I am going to love my view from my future potting station!

I've been thinking a lot about views lately.  I can see quite a bit from my office window...

Next year, this view will be amazing, with the tall cut-flower garden!  I can't wait! I'll be trimming up that apple tree to give an even better view.  Right now, I'm just enjoying all of the late summer flowers...

...and plotting, always plotting, for next year.

Have a great week!

room with a view

It's been so unrelentingly hot and dry that my garden, already prone to droop and sprawl by summer's end, has been looking especially sad.  I'm glad I put in some Cherry Brandy Rudbeckia.  I'm not normally a red flower person, preferring purple, pink, white, and green, but I couldn't resist this vibrant color.

My dahlias, too, are thriving.  I've never planted them before, but they are going to be a mainstay from now on.

Claudia is always with me when I'm working in the garden.

Not only does she deliver that weekly dead vole, but also provides wonderful company while I'm weeding.  She's a special girl!

It's been too miserably hot to work outside much, but last night's much-needed rain provided a great excuse to get my fingers in the dirt.  I wasn't alone...this horned passalus beetle was quite busy, too, on his little errands.

This type of beetle is known as the 'bess beetle,' which comes from the French word baiser, or to kiss. They rub their wings against their abdomen to make a kissing-like sound, although I don't think I would classify it as such.  Still, it's interesting to hear a beetle making any kind of sound, and they're fun to watch.  They can pull 50 times their own body weight! 

Lots of bees around too.

I've probably mentioned that our fields weren't maintained by previous owners and are absolutely overrun with weeds.  It's a huge pain, but sometimes you do find something interesting.  I recognized the closed flowers on several bushy plants as moonflowers.  They only open at night and have an amazing fragrance.  Another benefit?  These funky seed pods.

I think they're absolutely gorgeous.  I'm going to bring some into the house for my fall decorating!  So far, I've basically dropped the ball on seasonal decorating, mainly because we've been so busy and most of my supplies are still crammed into a storage unit somewhere.  I've managed some dried hydrangeas in a basket...

...but nothing else.  I'm excited to add these pods!

Some other interior excitement...WE HAVE SET UP OUR DINING ROOM TABLE (although Todd is currently utilizing it for a paperwork station).  We've been without one for over FOUR MONTHS.  We've got flooring down and just need to put up the trim to complete the room.  We love it!  Here is the "before" from previous owner...a dark, tiny room with a low ceiling, one tiny window.

Here it is now, in its trim-less glory:

We completely demolished the old room and rebuilt it with a much higher ceiling, made the room slightly wider, added big glass doors at one end to bring in more light, widened the kitchen doorway for the same reason, and doubled the room length.  The little room at the end is a mud room, and the door you see leads into the garage.  We added those so that we could walk directly from the garage into the house, and Todd could access his office without having to go outside (unlike before).  We still have work to do, but are excited about these changes!

Otherwise, I've been doing a little baking, mainly from our "ugly" apple tree.

They make delicious desserts, though!

I still have my junky sewing machine so I haven't been doing much quilting, but I'm putting together a few small things.

It's nice to work on these small projects, and I always have good company.

Have a great week! 

a vole-t from the blue

Late summer...a time for relaxing, enjoying the beautiful flowers...and a little teeth-gnashing and fist-grinding as well.

They're ba-a-ack!

Every flower from this root system is infected with pernicious eriophyid mites.  See the green sprouting in the centers?  These flowers are goners and my only hope is that cutting the stem back to the ground keeps these mites from spreading. 

And speaking of pests...aphids.  Aphids!  My foxgloves are infested.

They may look like an anime character come to life...

...but they are major trouble and desiccate the plant.  I hate using chemicals, so I sprayed them with Dr. Bronner's castile soap.  They seemed dead (but still clinging) the next day, so I gave them a good shot with the hose.  It was pretty satisfying.

I probably say it every year, but I'm really looking forward to fall.  I'm trying not to look for signs yet, since we're about a month away, but I keep noticing hints.

Acorns!

Geese in formation, or very nearly...

An occasional fall-colored leaf...

...and it's the time of year for spiders to come creeping.  For a while, I cleaned our front porch of webs every morning, but they're just back again the next day.  So I let them be.

(The next couple of photos are not for the spider-averse!!)

We've got a female orb weaver in our front window, absolutely massive.  By day she huddles in the exterior window frame crevice...

...and by night, she sits in the middle of her web and waits for food.  Yesterday, I noticed two very oddly-shaped spiders near her sleep-spot.  Is it just me, or does this remind you of the position you'd take when watching Saturday morning cartoons?

It's a male and the same species as the female but much smaller.  At first I thought he was dead...maybe a post-mating snack for the female...but I gave him a little poke and he sprang startlingly to life.  Apparently this is just the male sleeping pose.  She will probably eat him pretty soon...I check every day!

There's a lot of things happening on the porch besides the mini-dramas of spiders.  Claudia has been vigilant about catching rodents.

I originally thought she'd caught a mouse, but closer inspection revealed it to be a vole.

Voles are terrible garden pests, eating bulbs and plant roots.  Claudia is earning her keep for sure!

Construction dust continues.  The pond behind our property is undergoing a major expansion, so the back fields are full of bulldozers and dump trucks.

On our property, there's constant hammering and activity.  Construction is ongoing with both the barn and house. We don't quite have a dining room yet.

It seems like our little house is just full of holes right now.  The electrician is running new lines...

...and the mud room is waiting to be walled in.

Meanwhile, I ripped the carpet from the stairs and am trying to decide how I want to finish the job. I like the look of painted stairs, but might just go with some kind of wood cladding.

I can't put my craft room fully together until our drywall guy does the finish work on a just-moved window (and, of course, I unearth the rest of my craft items from storage)...but at least the cats are getting some use out of those Kallaxes!

I did put the finishing touches on a little space in my office, though, and for an amazing price.  Have a look at my new puzzle station! 

I scored this wooden adjustable draft table at a storage unit sale for THREE DOLLARS.  I bought some felt and velcro at JoAnn's ($8?) and Todd affixed it to the surface of the table (it's removable, so I can use the table for watercolors later).  The side table is metal, with drop leaves.  I found it for $10 at the IU Surplus Store.  Spray paint was $5.  So this amazing station came together for around $30!  I have a lot of trouble with neck and shoulder pain, and the felt - which the puzzle pieces cling to - allows me to look straight ahead instead of staring down.  It's a huge work surface...nearly 4' x 3'.  The puzzle above is 2000 pieces.  Here's how a normal 1000 piece puzzle fits:

There's even room for the box lid, which naturally clings to the felt surface.  I'm very excited about this little oasis amid the chaos!  I'll upgrade the rug and chair when I have time, but for now, it's perfect.  I used to start feeling pain after about 20 minutes with a puzzle, but this completely eliminates the problem. 

We HOPE the dining room is done by next week, and then we'll tackle the flooring and painting ourselves.  We HOPE the barn is done within three weeks, and then we'll empty our 6 storage units and finally move all of our belongings and business merchandise to our property.   Then it will just be a month or so of finishing touches.  Done with everything by Christmas?  A girl can dream!

Have a great week!