When Last I Left You…

 

… nearly two months ago (how does that happen?) Chris was in the beginning stages of renovating my new studio. Since then I’ve learned just how much patience projects like these require! Tons! I’m itching so badly to get into this room that the pace of progress couldn’t possibly be fast enough. My poor boyfriend! I am, however, very pleased with the progress that has been made. I’m only doing the impatience dance because I can picture how great this room is going to be when it’s complete!

 

Ater leveling the building, it required a  bunch of new studs and some reframing work for a new window.

 

It’s a nice big picture window with a small section that opens out into the courtyard. 50 bucks at the Re-Store!

Chris decided to vault the ceiling to promote a more spacious feeling.

I had no idea he was  going to remove the whole wall until I walked out of the house and found it like this!

 

He is going to reside the entire exterior. It’s going to look so cute!

Window is set & wiring is done. It has nine outlets. NINE! Next up… insulation!

 

Hmmmm where did I hide those photos of the insulation step?! Errrrr… Next up? Sheetrock! This is tough work. I only helped with the panels on the ceiling and it was awful!

 

This is tough work. I only helped with the panels on the ceiling and it was awful!

 

Taping, mudding, sanding….

 

and here’s where we are today! Just a little more sanding to be done then time to prime and paint! The walls will be white and the  trim will be black (surprised?) and I have some fun with color planned too!

It’s going to be such a peaceful place to work… I can’t wait!

A Blank Slate

 

When I first heard about this house being available, one of the selling points was this little  detached garage that had been enclosed many years ago. It appeared to be the perfect size for an at-home office/studio. When I first viewed the house, the room was being used as storage and so I didn’t notice that the floor was a very rough concrete. On the day the floor was poured, Gary tells me, he was instructed by his mother and step-father to meet the concrete truck delivery guy here while it was done. He had no idea until he arrived that he should also have arranged for a team to help spread it. SO! as you can imagine, the two men scrambled and did what they could before it dried. The result is a floor which basically rendered the room useless for anything other than storage - without the kind of work that falls far outside the limits of my DIY skills repertoire.

Enter SUPER-BOYFRIEND!  Of course that floor is nothing that will stop Chris, so I’m happy to announce that renovation of my own personal studio is underway! As it turns out, it appears there is nothing that stops Chris- not ant infestations and definitely NOT an altogether crooked building!

Here is how the room looked when it was finally emptied of all of the STUFF waiting for my attention.  The only thing I’ve done is paint that door black. Otherwise, this has been a storage room for all the things I didn’t have room for inside the house. (By the way, how’s that for a daily commute?)

Chris  is responsible for the torn press-board, his first glimpse into the can of worms!.

 

Exposing the roof! It’s now going to have a vaulted ceiling.

My work station will be along this far wall kitty corner from the windows. One thing I am excited about is more control over the light in the room while I am editing photos. The slightest variations in light in a room make a huge difference when editing and I end up spending way too much time modifying images. Definitely looking forward to this benefit!

 

Removing the insulation revealed a nasty ant infestation. I’m so glad I wasn’t home to witness this!  

 

I also returned home to learn the building was not straight (two inches off!) and got some humor from the attempt to remedy that state of affairs using the truck : ) Mostly I was cringing while waiting for the whole thing to collapse!

  Where we are now… needs lots of new studs!

I was trying to show how rough the floor is. Suffice it to say, Maverick LOVES rolling around on it! You can see below how much the concrete dips toward the corner.

The new floor is going to be concrete with a turquoise stain and radiant heat. I think it is going to look pretty cool!

   The big guns… tow chain and come-along!

 

How it was…. leaning to the right a couple of inches.

How it is now… nice and straight!

  I’m going to try to remember to take this same shot every morning to document daily progress : ) Currently studs are being added and additional straightening tactics are being employed. It’s going to be so fun watching this project unfold!

Green Beans for Dinner Tonight!

 

Chris is cooking up our first harvest of green beans as I type… oh how I love this part of gardening!

How Does Our Garden Grow? Mid Summer Report

I suppose it goes without saying that our first year of real gardening has been an adventure in trial and error!  So far the best outcomes have been with the peas and lettuce, and we did yield a fair bit of broccoli although we discovered upon harvest that some of it was infested with nasty little bugs. Yuck. The potatoes appear to be doing really well, but we won’t know about that for awhile yet! Those root crops are a test of patience! Last night Chris attached the final boards to the potato bins and is bringing home the remaining dirt to fill them tonight. We keep finding little mole hills around the bottoms of the bins and were afraid our precious fingerlings were being devoured before they saw the light of day, but our neighbor Jerry assured us moles are meat eaters. Maybe he’s actually doing us a favor and dining on tater loving pests!

 

Maverick likes to supervise our work in progress.

They can go no further. I hope there are several pounds of potatoes growing inside!!

Other plants showing future harvest are the tomatillos, peppers and tomatoes. Hopefully we’ll get to make a few batches of pico de gallo!

This isn’t exactly how I imagined things when I planned the garden. I purposefully planted the tomatoes in the sunniest corner, then for some reason thought it was a good idea to put them next to the peas… which block all of the morning light from the tomatoes! I thought the peas would be over and done before they really affected the tomatoes. I was wrong! The last pea harvest is coming soon though, and we’ll get those tangly vines out of there ASAP! They’ve all but destroyed the beautiful trellis Chris made! And I thought the other side of the trellis would be climbing with cucumbers and beans right now, but the cukes have not done very well at all and silly me bought bush beans as opposed to the climbing pole variety. The garlic appears to be kicking butt, as do the Walla Walla Sweets. The leeks seem pretty small to me and the green onions still stand at about three inches. I don’t think we’ll be eating any of those!

This is the second year I’ve planted Joe’s special variety of cilantro and I just don’t like it. It’s leggy and it bolts like crazy and it just doesn’t look like cilantro. As you can see here it has taken over the whole corner of this bed! I’ll be pulling that out soon.

 

We returned from a long weekend to find the deer had spent a long weekend munching on all sorts of good stuff around the yard…. strawberries, beans, lettuce, hostas. Yesterday  I chased away one who dared nibble on a bunch of red romaine right in front of our eyes! Not quite sure why “spray deer repellant around garden” was not on our list of things to do before we left town. Oh well… next time!