Garden goodies

My poor lil red wagon has a busted wheel and rusted through (sniffle), Never fear, I have an upcycle in mind for it.

Looky looky at my new toy! This is a wagon on steroids. (I seriously want to do the Tim the Tool Man grunt right now). This bad boy can haul 700 pounds. Oh yes! I have lots of projects swirling around in the scary-murky depths of my brain. The garden cart can be pulled or a simple flip of some cotter pins and it can connect to the back of the lawn mower. Which would be great except the hubbs doesn't like the way I mow and he hid the mower keys--I am NOT kidding!! gggrrrr...All the sides fold down and it makes a great for when you need to take a break too. I LUUURRRVVVEEE it!

Most of the pretties are in place. I can't wait for the flower boxes to fill in and steal the show. When doing florals in boxes and pot don't forget to use the thriller's, fillers, and spillers rule. Thrillers usually involve height, color and smell. Fillers are usually greenery. And spillers is all all the drapey stuff. 

Just wait until everything fills in!

This is a simple arrangement which used Dracena as my thriller (spikey height) I added petunias (pink petals with a yellow throat) which will also have a sweet light fragrance, yellow salvia for visual contrast, and I added 2 kinds of greenery for for the spillover effect. I would have prefered lantana but could not locate any at the 4 nurseries I visited. I had very slim pickin's to choose from, which  I assume everything had been picked over due to  the Mother's Day to Memorial Weekend span.

I didn't prune my roses and as a result they are taking over the garden shed and possibly part of the yard. Two of my roses came from a friend's yard after she pretty much hacked them to death. I wasn't sure if they would survive but did they ever!

This is a fuschia rose (sorry no idea what type) Here is July 2011 when I was on the rebound after I planted it  (Sorry for poor picture quality it a cell phone snap).

Here it is 2 years later. Holy Hulthemia x Rosa Batman!

I talked the hubbs into 3 more raised beds. He was kinda snarly about it grumbling he was not gonna have any yard left to mow. Um really?! There is still 335 feet left--he is such a crybaby sometimes, haha

I know the beds look kind of out of align but everything was levelled , plumbed and tamped before I finished. Blame this bad picture on my impatience and poor photography skills, haha

One thing we did differently with these raised beds are we marked the placement, the hubbs rototilled to a depth of 12 inches, I sifted rocks and debris, removed any weed/grass clumps, graded the soil, placed the frame, layered in news paper, mixed my soil (4 parts garden soil-sifted, 1/2 part composted moo-nure, 1/2 part mushroom compost, 1/2 part peat, 1/2 part sand), filled the beds (each bed is 4ft x 4ft x 7 inches) then I used the excess ground soils and grass clumps to pack around the exterior perimeter of the beds (to a height of 3 inches). I had some bowing and slight warping on a couple of my beds from last year. I was more careful in the placement of the cedar planks this year. If there was a warp to the board I turned it in so the weight of the soil bed would push against it. The idea is it will be enough to make it "straighten" out.

Well that is all I have for y'all now. What is gonna on in your little slice of paradise?

My not so fancy corner office

I must have some kind of gypsy blood. Or ants-in-my-pantsitis. Because I am constantly moving stuff around. I had taken over the dining room as my office which at first was great because I could spread out but that ended up not working because that is also the puppy prison. And the dog really did eat my homework. And my office chair. And my credit card. And my curtains. And my...well you get it.

I tried working upstairs in the spare bedroom but I am not gonna lie, it was far too comfy. The smushy bed and all those pillows--um yeah I usually fell asleep, which is great for bedtime not so much for project crunch time. I mean seriously, could you stay awake in this room and study?



So then I thought instead of using the little folding TV tray table why not move my Grandma's desk into the  living  room. But that meant something had to go. I sacrificed the big comfy recliner. It was old, the foot mechanism was sticking,  it wasn't so comfy anymore and quite frankly was just plain big. Grandma's desk has made the rounds between various family members and is a little worse for wear. Someday I will refinish it or something. I just haven't got there yet.

I stacked a child size bookcase I purchased at a thrift store to give it a hutch look. I like that it is off center so I can tuck in a basket of pens (possibly some candy canes--don't judge) and my phone in the little nook.

The chair I am using as an office chair is an old wooden folding chair and is NOT comfortable at all. A quick fix involved 2 old throw pillows and apple green standard sized pillowcases to use as "slipcovers". I wouldn't fall asleep in this chair but at least my butt is no longer doing so. And I don't  have to get up hunched over like a turtle because my back hurts from sitting on slab of wood.

I had to spend FOUR hours cleaning, organizing and decrapifying my living room to make room for everything but I probably needed to that anyways.  The room feels much more open. Overall I think it looks nice tucked in the corner and fill what would otherwise be an awkward space.

Tovah approves this blog post, haha

A 2 hour delegated project

I think it was sometime in January when the glass exploded on our patio table. And explode it did. Little shards of glass spewed everywhere. I am STILL finding glass chunks in the yard and in patio crevices. So none y'all best go barefoot around my house...

The table  is an odd shaped called a boat or bow shape. I have found it is cost prohibitive to purchase new glass.  Well the hubbs and I hemmed and hawed about trying to determine what is the best course of action--try to repair the table with a new top or purchase a  new patio set. Since glass and plexiglass were out of the question, we looked at having plywood cut to fit, then sealing. However the lip of the table was 5/8 inch thick and there were no supports for the wood. It would have sagged. Not to mention that table was almost 20 years old. So we bit the bullet and agreed to purchase a new table, chairs and umbrella.

Ummm easier said than done. The sets we found in our price range was light weight metal and not what we (and by we--I mean me) have in mind. I looked at all the big box stores (Home Depot, Lowes, Walmart) and everything I liked was over a $1000--um no can't afford that.

Finally one day I was at Target and I thought why not. I might as well see what they have. And then I saw it. The perfect table. Oil rubbed bronze with a tile table top-- it was on sale AND in my price range. I used my Target card and saved an additional 5%.  The table is HEAVY. The best part is the table top. It isn't glass and if anything happens to to the tiles I can buy new ones in ANY color to replace them. omg I can re-decorate my patio table?!

We live right around the corner from Target and once we came home I decided I wanted a set of rocker swivel chairs to match. So we went back and bought those. Now I have 6 chairs (4 regular and 2 swivel). 2 of the regular chairs are moving to the front entry porch and there is a project that goes along with that. It took the hubbs about 2 hours  to assemble everything. The market umbrella was purchased at Kohl's. On sale for $69.99, I had  a 25% coupon and $40 in Kohls cash. Out of pocket expense (before taxes)  was $12.49. SCORE! This is the first time in 23 years we have had a brand new patio set and we absolutely love it.