Deck

Blogging is going to be slow the next few weeks. We are working on staining the deck, and we have a whole lot of deck. The problem is, when staining a deck, you have to do two coats, and both coats need to be done within 48 hours. Then you need at least an additional 24 hours after that to let it dry without any rain. In April/May in the midwest, 3 days without rain is a rarity. We've got the top portion done and it looks great! We can't work on it this weekend because it's supposed to rain on Sunday so we wouldn't be able to stain on Saturday and we won't have time to do two coats after work tomorrow. I think this is going to be a long long process. But it will be totally worth it... once we are finally finished!

Flowers in Your Hair

Today was a long day of hard work. V got up and started power-washing right away. After about 5 and a half more hours we are finally finished!

I went to the grocery store and Home Depot (for more flowers!) first thing in the morning and then got started planting. All total I planted 27 flowers and 2 hydrangea bushes. It took me about an hour to dig the hole for the first bush. I don't know what I was doing wrong! Then V came and dug the second one for me in less than 10 minutes. It was helpful but mildly frustrating because he was so much faster. But, other than that one hole I dug and planted everything by myself. It would have been easier and faster if V had dug all the holes for me but I'm perfectly capable of digging holes and I don't think he should be stuck with all the yucky jobs just because he is stronger than I am. It's very satisfying pulling in the driveway and knowing that the reason the garden looks so pretty is entirely because of my hard work. Unfortunately our bushes don't look like the photo above just yet, but hopefully in a few years they will.

Party Deck

Our backyard has no grass. It's all pool and decking. I know most people wouldn't like it but V's one request in a house was to have a pool and the decking provides a great place for loungers and an outdoor table and a hot tub. It's also a lot lower maintenance for the most part. However, the old homeowners apparently haven't cleaned the deck in a long, long time. So our current project is power-washing the whole deck and then staining it. We've probably spent almost 8 hours power-washing and we have about another 4 left. Then we have to stain the entire thing. It's turning out to be a much bigger project than we thought. But I think it should make it look much, much better once it's finished. Poor Little Caiti runs away as soon as we turn on the washer and doesn't come back until the end of the day. Inky has become pretty used to it. Today she explored the cord and hose attached to the washer and then sat on her adirondack chair watching me wash the deck until she got bored. Luckily they are starting to become more accustomed to loud noises.

Flowers!

We finally started buying plants for the front of our house! The old homeowners had ugly overgrown evergreen bushes that did nothing for curb appeal. V ripped up one and we are going to rip up the other two in the next few weeks. But we were excited to get some color in front of our house so I went ahead and bought plants to fill the spot under the picture window in front of the house and along the path walking to the house. So... here they are!

Our big splurge is going to be the flowering bushes. I wanted to do a color scheme of pinks and blues in the front. We got two Hydrangea Twist-n-Shout bushes. They will be either pink or periwinkle depending on the acidity of our soil.

In front of the bushes is going to be a bunch of columbine flowers. They range in color from white to periwinkle so hopefully they look nice with the hydrangea regardless of what colors the flowers are.

And finally, along the path is going to be a bunch of deep rose blanket flowers.