Green Dreams

Our early burst of spring weather has gone a long way to lift spirits around here. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and little green things are poking up through the soil. For a gardener, this time is sacred. For me, this time is a much needed tonic.

Last fall, before we gathered the leaves for mulch, I planted a few bulbs. Daffodils, grape hyacinths, tulips, gladiolas... and a few more that have escaped my memory. I am awaiting the results with a mixture of reserved anticipation and wiggly-puppy delight.

My seedlings are behind schedule already; Tuesday I finally sent in my Veseys order. I laid out the vegetable garden on paper a few months back, but with everything that has happened since then I've been unable to work on it until now. This year I'm planning more variety, a more complex layout, higher yields and some special attention to the beautiful details.

2009 was my first year out in the homeowner/gardener category. I tried to grow quite a few different things; some worked, some did not. Some vegetables, such as corn and squash, I planted just so I could say "I grew that". This year's plan is a bit different...

The tomatoes (both beefsteak and cherry/grape) were a big success. I plan to continue that this year, expanding the tomato crop to include both vine and roma tomatoes. With one plant per square foot, this summer's layout will be two beefsteak plants, two vine tomato plants and three roma for sauce/canning. I'm also going to try my hanging baskets again, this time with vine tomatoes that will (hopefully) be less weighty than the beefsteak and allow the plants to develop better. I also read the instructions (harrumph!) this time around and will use the proper soil mix for the hangers. From Veseys, I chose Roma VF and Sweet Cluster to add to my tomatofest. I will also be growing leftover Tiny Tim and Ildi Cherry and Grape tomatoes in planters. Those were fantastic.

Other leftovers that will reappear this year include Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce (3 squares), Fat n' Sassy Peppers (4 squares), Sweetness III carrots (5 squares), Parade onions (2 end pieces and interspersed amongst the larger plants) and Salad Bush Cucumbers (2 squares). All did pretty well for such an awful growing season. I want to try them again in a hot dry summer... which I am convinced this year will be. I've added Stonewall cucumbers (3 squares) which I plan to use in salads and for homemade relish (yum!).

The next purchase was completely on a whim. Red Zepplin onions. Seriously? How could I not?? Those 2 squares will be strategically placed amongst the more tastier greens to keep the bunnies over the hills and far away.

My layout is a bit different this year as well. Since the physical garden is slightly larger than two feet wide, instead of making over sized squares and leaving a lot of (potentially) wasted space, I will instead ring the outside of the 12"x12" squares with a strip a few inches wide. In this space I will plant my aromatic herbs; not only a welcome addition to my kitchen but they will also aid in animal control. On the list this year are cilantro, basil, oregano, parsley, rosemary, thyme and dill.

The rest of the yard will also benefit from my recent splurge. To delight the eye, I've indulged in my weakness for dahlias. For the various pots that I plan to strew about the place, I've chosen Karma "Prospero" and a very unique variety named Edge of Joy. They are both very striking.

Karma "Prospero"

Edge of Joy

I've also ordered some calla lilies. Two varieties, both lovely in their own way. Crystal Blush is a classic white calla with a kiss of pink, while Majestic Red is a rich burgundy which will add a lovely splash of colour for the years to come.

Majestic Red Calla Lilies

Crystal Blush Calla Lilies

To finish the order (ostensibly to get my $25 discount, but also to add some colour to my front garden) I purchased some Begonias. Lovely, ruffly, shade loving and (supposedly!) dirt-simple to grow begonias. Of course, I chose red from the Non-Stop variety.

Non-Stop Begonias

I won't forget some old friends either... Once the bulbs have bloomed and I am working the soil, you'll find me flitting about the yard sprinkling lobelia, nicotiana, mirabilis, sunflower and morning glory seeds into any bare spots. Sometimes the best results are totally unplanned.

We will see what happens this summer, but it will prove an interesting journey. With a little bit of luck and some half decent weather, it should create the oasis of calm that it is intended to be, while providing some much needed nourishment for the soul.

"Garden writing is often very tame, a real waste when you think how opinionated, inquisitive, irreverent and lascivious gardeners themselves tend to be. Nobody talks much about the muscular limbs, dark, swollen buds, strip-tease trees and unholy beauty that have made us all slaves of the Goddess Flora." ~Ketzel Levine's talkingplants.com

A Garden Update

I was updating my Flickr page today with some new photos of the garden in preparation for this entry and I realized that my garden has really changed in the last month. I've been frustrated with it at times... especially when I would go out in the morning and find something savaged by a squirrel or bird. I've replanted my sunflowers several times and had to replant and reseed a few other things. I still haven't gotten any squash to sprout. However, my tomatoes have really grown and what corn wasn't pulled out is doing very well. The rest has to just catch up a bit.

Tomatopia: Ildi and Tiny Tim.

My cucumbers are doing well. My plan is to grow them up the gazebo once they get going. My leftover tomato and pepper plants seem to be doing very well too.

Salad Bush Cucumbers, Peppers, Big Beef Tomatoes and Oregano

The new vegetable garden needed a few additions. Since the birds and squirrels keep having a go at it, I decided to fight back. I went to the dollar store and spent $20 on twisty, flappy, noisy things that would move in the wind and generally keep the critters out of my corn. So far so good. Quinn thinks they are marvellous.

Motion Sensor Guard Froggie

All in all, it's coming along. You can see one variety of lettuce is doing pretty well, while the other is busy annoying the hell out of me (I grew both in a box on a balcony last year without much light and they did fine, so I have no idea why ideal conditions are not working for it). You will also notice a lot of specks in the garden; those aren't weeds, rather they are bits of chives and onions that I chopped up to help with the pest control. It worked pretty well actually until I was able to hit the dollar store for my whirly treasures.

It's coming along...

I noticed on the way to work tonight that one of my planter boxes on the porch is sporting a few lobelia flowers. I look forward to the nicotiana and asters blooming as well. I planted some morning glory seeds in a cedar barrel a few days ago and they are already a few inches high (they are destined to grow up the side of the zeebo). I'm also pleased that my lawn is looking a lot less patchy these days... you can add watering the lawn to my list of simple pleasures. For some reason, after a busy night shift, it's very soothing to go out and water everything. I'm so tired by that point that my mind stops whirling and I can listen to the birds and the windchimes and really hit that state of zen before going to bed. I look forward to doing that tomorrow (well, today)...

I know, it's not one of my more exciting notes... but then again, you're probably not a gardener. :)

"Garden writing is often very tame, a real waste when you think how opinionated, inquisitive, irreverent and lascivious gardeners themselves tend to be. Nobody talks much about the muscular limbs, dark, swollen buds, strip-tease trees and unholy beauty that have made us all slaves of the Goddess Flora." ~Ketzel Levine's talkingplants.com

Welcome to My Garden

Way back in January, while I sat at home and did very little, thanks to some virally induced PVC's, I dreamed of my summer garden. I lovingly perused the Vesey's Catalogue, picking this variety over that and planned what I was going to grow. I also designed an L-shaped garden for the corner of the yard that would house all my tasty veggies.

Well, it was time to make my dreams a reality.

On Saturday, with the help of our fabulous friends Skye and Erik, we built our garden. It took 11 hours of some back (and often head) breaking labour, but by God, it is a thing of beauty. We had several projects going at the same time actually, so it will take a little explanation (as if you were expecting any less, no?) ;)

My yard is sloped...like a neanderthal's forehead. This in itself really shouldn't pose too much of a problem, except that our neighbour behind us is another six to eight inches below us. As a result, my yard is slowly washing into theirs and without intervention, might have me walking out into my very own eroded wasteland one morning. There was also a "pit" on the one side of the gazebo... a sudden ankle breaker of a drop that you could not see as it was covered in grass until "whoops!" you were stumbling around in it. I knew that in particular would pose a problem for me, never mind anyone else. I would also be remiss if I did not mention now that my fence is a) crooked, b) uneven, c) in need of attention and d) originally constructed by drunken morons. It's lines wave gently back and forth across the span that is my yard. It's hypnotic, really.

There was also a pole in the corner that the former owners had a street sign on top. I thought it was just resting there until I went to move it one day and with a small tug came off it's mooring, which is in effect, a two and a half foot spike. I had originally designed it to go in the garden to hang planters and run beans up, but that was not do-able in the end. The spike had to go.

The master plan was this: pull back the sod in the pit, dig out the garden, fill the pit with the dirt from the garden, replace sod, build the garden. We have steaks and beer. Giddie up.

This corner needs a garden. You can see the pole and under the hanging pot of fuschia is the start of "the pit". You can see I had started digging out the spike that held that pole up.

Saturday morning, I got up at 6 to putter around a bit before the Quinnster got up and started running around looking for Ty and Erin. We tidied up a bit and I headed outside to find something for me to do first. I started grubbing up the sod in the pit by hand, which was going pretty well actually, considering I only had a trowel to work with. It went faster once Skye and the shovels arrived.

Meanwhile, Sean had started work on excavating the spike in the corner. It took him no time at all it seems to rip the thing from the clay. The kids kept themselves occupied. Ty and Quinn proved once again, if you give a couple of guys a nice sunny day, drinks, snacks and an easy chair, they will have a great time.

Say cheese!

The rest of the construction went in a series of stages. First the pit needed a set of "retaining" boards to keep the new backfill in the yard.

One retained pit.

As that was finished, the area designated for the new garden had to be dug out. The dirt from that was to go in the pit, to make it more or less level with the rest of the yard.

I am helping.

Once the garden area was dug out, old rotten boards had to be removed from the fence and new ones added to "retain" and form the back wall of the new garden. You can see them going up in the next photo:

Caution: Children and Adults at Play. Wait, they were there a minute ago... Must be break time.

With the pit now full of dirt and sod from the garden, the rolls of sod were replaced and tramped down as best we could. The result is amazing... No more pit!

We are pit-less. Yay!

Now came the really tricky part; the aforementioned neanderthal slope of the yard meant that in order to have a level garden that matched up with the existing one, there was going to be a lot of geometry. A LOT. Thankfully, Erik is a whiz at this sort of thing and we were able to puzzle through what was needed. In order to be three rails high, it really had to be four on one end (most of which was buried) and five on the other. That's a lot of levelling. I suck at levelling. Skye and I went to RONA and bought a hose instead.

The garden slowly takes shape...

From there, it went together fairly quickly. Erik and Sean worked on it primarily as Skye and I had our hands full keeping the kids busy, fed and away from the power tools.

Sean measures up.

Little by little, my garden took shape. As each rail was added, I felt happier and happier. It was almost if by it's construction alone, the garden banished once and for all the depression I felt during the winter; the feelings of despair that arose as I was sick at home and unable to do much more than walk across a room without becoming breathless. It was gone and my garden was becoming more than a pencil wish on graph paper.

Entrenched...

Finally, the construction was complete!

A Marvel of Modern Construction...

The yard and garden, from start to finish took just over 11 hours. We fired up the BBQ and cooked up a feast worthy of our labours; steak, asparagus, corn on the cob, baked potatoes and sour cream with two kinds of ice cream for dessert. Oh yes... and BEER! After a long dusty day, it went down really well.

Sunday morning found me shuffling outside to start filling my garden with black earth. The final tally goes something like this: 32 bags of black soil from the co-op, one bag found in our magic garage, one giant bag of peat moss. That's a lot of dirt! Once it was filled, I had to lay out my strings. Since I decided to use the Square Foot Gardening method, I had to find a way of marking out my "squares". I used one continuous piece of string and a staple gun... much easier than nails and tying a million knots. It meant more geometry however, as I had two choices: 1' squares with a decorative border around the outside, or larger squares. I opted for larger squares.

Quinn is delighted too

I had 4 hours Monday morning to plant my garden and was delighted to find that it only took one! I guess Mel knows what he is talking about. I spent the rest of the time planting my hanging tomato planters and generally cleaning up the yard. I even planted some "leftover" nicotiana around my maple tree in the front... why not?

I looked at my yard one last time before going indoors for my pre-night shift nap, and I was very happy with what I saw. Yes, my back and knees are aching, yes my finger hurts from where I nearly ripped it off hanging a tomato planter... but it was totally worth it. Is it a sense of ownership? Of pride? Maybe. It think it's a little deeper, a little closer to the heart... As I took my last look before I went indoors, it came to me;

It's a sense of home. An elusive thing, to be sure... but a most welcome and magical feeling.

I am home. In my garden.

The finished garden. Now I need to seed the lawn and hang trellis strings and...

“I never had any other desire so strong, and so like covetousness, as that.... I might be master at last of a small house and a large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life to the culture of them and the study of nature.” -- Abraham Cowley

Comfort Levels

Been a while.

It hasn't been for lack of trying either... I've just been in one of those ruts lately where I slow down for a minute to catch my breath and what pops into my head really isn't worth repeating, especially in mixed company. Life, well, it's been a little too interesting lately to be comfortable.

I'm not one of those people that has to have everything tightly compartmentalized; those people tend to go down like the Titanic with every little bump. I usually try to go with the flow. However, when aspects from my life (or rather a relatives life) start spilling into my work life, it tends to make things more than a little uncomfortable. That generally causes my work life to overflow into my home life again and it becomes quite a vicious circle. There has been much consternation as of late... sleep has been lost, doughnuts have been consumed... its been a mess.

There always has to be one of those moments that comes so out of the blue, it leaves you scratching your head. (Why is that?) Mine came in the form of a paranoid former colleague (and supposed friend) who gave me a verbal spanking for attempting to do my job (my mistake, evidently was using it as an excuse to chat up old "friends"). I'm not going to pretend to understand where this person is coming from, and to be honest am not interested in doing so. I just know that her little diatribe really hurt my feelings... but, if the truth be told I shouldn't be surprised. If you keep a vicious old dog, one day it will bite you.

One can't overlook the usual suspects as well: fatigue, lack of money, unpacking woes, family stress... it all adds up. I talk to so many people in a day and am the bearer of so much information that I feel cluttered. It's as if all that energy sticks to me like velcro and weighs me down. I can feel it as I walk, like I'm covered in a million post-it notes. You can almost see them flapping in the breeze some days, I swear. It's an awful feeling, one that makes me quite isolative.

To keep the boogums at bay (and it has been a dreadfully long winter), I've been finding much solace in my garden planning. Although I don't have a lot of money at the moment, I'm also spending a lot of time online looking for pieces/solutions/stuff for the house. This has really helped, actually, as I can now budget and plan for these purchases and I know I have just the right thing, instead of picking something up and finding a better one down the road. Its just having the patience to save up for it. I've found a third project to round things out a bit: Quinn's birthday party. Since I may have only a few minutes a day to think about these things, I've taken to carrying a soft covered binder with me; my "project book". That way, if I come up with something while I'm at work, I can jot it down for later or spend a few moments of my "break" time contemplating something organized. That helps tremendously with that cluttered feeling.

Things are brightening over all, however. Every day seems a little better, as the days are longer and warmer. I went out into my garden on Saturday and was delighted to see little green things poking through the soil. I have no idea what will grow in the existing gardens this year, so its a bit like Christmas... but without the eye tic. The air is fresher and full of promise and my lawn is greener every day. I have a brand new leaf rake and some pruners. The first warm day this week, when the grass is not too wet and I'm not working that night, you'll find me in the yard, raking and pruning. That will go a long way to shake the "psychic clutter" that I've accumulated lately as well. Physically I'm much improved; I now am only out of breath when I go from the basement to the top floor. That was a big milestone. I'm also a few pounds lighter, and plan to be much more so in the coming months.

The trick, as always, is in the balance.

Now, if I can only find something to help me cope with all this salad...

Dreamin' Green, Part II

Earlier I outlined my designs for the new "L" shaped garden I plan to have built in the spring, now it's time for the rest of my mad plans (to make up my goal of "more than half the yeild in less than 1/8th of the space").

Our gazebo is on a raised platform in the corner of the yard. The gazebo itself sits in the middle, allowing for space around the outside on three of the four corners (the fourth is taken up with a planter type thing housing what I think are current or possibly blueberry bushes). There is plenty of space at these three corners for some large planters or groups of planters, which is exactly what I intend to do. I have two large cedar containers (moved here from the apartment) that I will put on two of the corners with Salad Bush Cucumbers.

Salad Bush Cucumbers

I have two large urn like pots that are destined for cherry tomatoes (at least; I will probably add more). I chose two varieties this year: Tiny Tim which I have had great success with in the past and Ildi, a yellow grape tomato that I tried last year. It was the only tomato that got to the flowering stage before frost killed it (I was late starting them and if you remember, last year was not optimum for growing anything, let alone on a north facing balcony).

Tiny Tim Tomato

Ildi Tomato

My herb garden will not be in the traditonal sense either. Other than some Lavendar Lady to plant by my garden gates, my herbs will be in pots scattered about the yard (depending on how much sun they need). I've had little pots of basil and oregano and the like for years; although they don't yield much, it a treat to cook with herbs that you have grown yourself. On the list this year are: Sweet Basil, Cilantro, Bouquet Dill, Oregano, Italian Dark Green Parsley, Rosemary, Sage and German Winter Thyme.

Lavendar Lady

Just to allay any fears, I'm not all about the veggies this year. I've also chosen quite a few flowers to brighten our happy home. I plan to purchase two large urns for the front porch; in them I plan to grow Ballet Mix Asters and White Fountains Lobilia. I actually got both to bloom last year on the balcony, so a deck drenched in morning sun should provide a happy home. While I'm out shopping for brackets, I plan to pick up some to hang my window boxes off the front railing; in those will go more lobelia and Perfume Mix Nicotiana. In one of my crazier ideas, I will get yet another large planter and either grow the Morning Glory Trio up the side of the house by the garage or up one side of the gazebo. We'll see how I feel in the spring.

Ballet Mix Asters	White Fountains Lobelia
Perfume Series Nicotiana	Morning Glory Trio

Finally, in the "fill in the cracks" category are two old favourites of mine. In the front garden there seems to be a rose bush, some garden lights and little else. For now, I will add some Bleeding Hearts which will (hopefully) bloom in the spring. To fill in any gaps in my flower beds this year, I will sprinkle in some Mirabilis (or as I grew up knowing them "Four O'Clocks) of the Four O'Clock Mix.

Bleeding Heart

Four O'Clock Mix Mirablilis

That should keep me going for now. Other than trying a pepper plant in the remaining Veseys Revolutionary Tomato Planter and a field trip to a local nursery for some fuchsias and to investigate peony bushes, that is it.

You may laugh, you may scorn... but I have been waiting a lifetime to have my own garden paradise. It will be a lot of work, that I do not doubt. It will be a labour of love. Yesterday my friend Skye placed our seed order; both of us are determined to make our gardens a success. I have a spot already picked out in my living room for my seed trays (many of mine have to be started indoors early). I'm already starting to tap my foot impatiently waiting for our package to arrive...

As the summer winds on, I can totally see us sipping something lovely under her gazebo or mine, looking out at our handiwork and sighing with contentment. It's better than any spa, better than any retreat. I can't wait.

"The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses." ~Hanna Rion

Dreamin' Green, Part I

It's that time of year again. After all the Christmas paraphernalia has been put away and winter's chill starts to erode all hope, there comes a new season for gardeners.

The season of The Seed Catalogue.

Like many, I have been pouring over the coveted Veseys catalogue for weeks, visions of vegetables dancing in my head. As the snow continued to blanket everything, I planned my summer greenery. This is the first year that I have an actual yard in which to garden, so you can imagine my state of botanical bliss as I weighed this variety over that and hybrid vs. heritage.

We have a small yard. We also have a small boy who likes to run about our small yard, so we have to really think this through to get the highest yield possible (and still be pretty) in the small amount of space that I have allotted. Sometime during the late eighties, my mother stumbled across a book called Square Foot Gardening which has forever changed my thinking on the subject, but not hers. Now in all fairness, my mother constantly has this battle waging in her: to embrace the concepts of square foot gardening or listen to her farmers DNA which makes her stubbornly attempt to scratch life from barren soil. I don't seem to have this problem as what little farmer's DNA I managed to get will not offer any argument as I pick up the phone and have bags and bags of manure, vermiculite and Black Earth delivered to my door. But I digress...

The whole idea of square foot gardening is to level the playing field. Instead of spending years tending and rotating and trying to cook up the best growing soil possible for a few veggies, you remove the crap soil (in this case Brampton clay) and replace it with highly nutritionous earth. Then, by knowing a little bit about your plants that you plan on nurturing, you can plan out a much smaller, higher yielding garden. I watched my mother spend thirty years tilling and almost killing herself wrenching life from her huge clay-filled garden in the hopes of putting a few beans in the freezer for the winter. Uh uh. Not me. My goal is more than half the yield of her old garden(s) in Brampton with less than an eigth of the space and a helluva lot less roto-tilling.

So, what's the plan?

I have an existing flower garden in my yard that is made out of railway ties. It has a rosebush and some purple cone flowers and heaven only knows what else in it. I plan on leaving it alone for the most part, just so I can see what is in there. What I plan on doing is building an adjacent garden, continuing that one along the fence and wrapping around the corner to make an 'L'. That is the sunniest part of the yard and gets a lot in the afternoon (if the fading paint on the fence is any indication). That's where the majority of my veggies will go. There is a fence pole in the corner where the former owners had a street sign; I have incorporated that into my designs. Once the garden area is dug out and the pole re-planted, I plan on getting some metal brackets and hanging two of Veseys Revolutionary Tomato Planters with, you guessed it, tomato plants in it. They aren't really all that revolutionary as it is an old concept, but I like the adaptations they have made, including the water resevoir and it beats ruining buckets. The tomatoes I have chosen are called "Big Beef" and the picture makes my mouth water. At the base of the pole I plan to plant "Scarlet Runner Beans" which should run up the pole and drape the fence. I chose these over conventional pole beans as the numerous bright red flowers are gorgeous and attract hummingbirds. The beans are edible when small and tender and if you need seed for the next year, just grow some pods to full size.

Big Beef Tomato

Scarlet Runner Beans

In the rest of that box, on the outside of the beans, I have planned a spot for "Parade" Green Onions and "Lancelot" Leeks.

Parade Green Onions

Lancelot Leeks

In the small wing of the "L" I plan three different plants. This is the part where it gets a bit wierd as two of these plants I am only growing because I can. Alternating in this space will be Jerusalem Gold Sunflowers and Bon Appétit Corn. Yes, I said corn. That would be how my farmer DNA kicks in. Around the front of this part of the garden I will plant Early Butternut Squash. Call it my tribute to the "Three Sisters". The vines can snake in and around the corn and sunflowers (as the vines lay on the ground) and can spill out over the grass for all I care.

Jerusalem Gold Sunflower

Bon Appétit Corn

Early Butternut Squash

In the other half of the "L" will be more traditional crops: Lettuce, carrots and peppers. I have chosen two varieties of lettuce, both provided success last year.
Black Seeded Simpson and Greenvale Mix were hardy enough to grow in boxes on my balcony last year, so I should do ok with them this year. Sweetness III is our carrot of choice, while my peppers will be Fat 'n Sassy (just like me). :P

Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce	Greenvale Mix Lettuce
Sweetness III Carrots	Fat 'n Sassy Pepper

Whew! Seems like a lot... but I have barely scratched the surface. This covers my plans for the "L" shaped garden, but I still have my pots, planters and gazebo to divulge. There are herbs, flowers and all sorts of things to cover. Have no fear gentle reader, I will offer those shortly. In the meantime however, this gardener needs a nap.

Merry Christmas!

It happened on Saturday.

There I was, with my family all around, a glass of wine in my hand, a belly full of good food... there was a diamond waiting nearby for an unsuspecting finger, the tree glowing softly and my son's laughter as he played with his new toys. Then it hit me.

I was home.

It felt really good.

Merry Christmas, gentle reader. May your hearth be warm, your table laden and your house filled with laughter.

Jxox

A Painting Project, Part 2

Holy doodle, I'm living on the Advil after this one.

It took me a total of three days, but Quinn's room is finally finished. Well, the painting that is... the furniture will come tomorrow with the big move and the pictures/art/cool things will be hung over time. I'm in no hurry to wreck my new walls!

So, where did we leave off? I think I was getting ready to paint the first coat of the green. It went on rather thinly (I guess as it is a lighter colour) but being green, it hid the purple very well.

After the first coat of green...


The closet is thankfully, no longer pink.

After cleanup, this (and the continued conquest of Mt. Laundry) had eaten up my second day. By Wednesday morning, I was itching to get going and get the second coat of green. Four hours after that, I took the tape off... and had to go around the room with tiny brush and touch up where the tape had pulled off some of the blue. That being finished, my friend Tracy helped me stick up the animal alphabet so that it was a) quasi straight and b) quasi balanced, two things that my astigmatism mess with frequently. It's so bad I have to use a level to hang a picture. No, really...

Animal decals, courtesy of Bang on the Door.

I rehung the mirror in the closet and hung the drapes on the window. Viola!

The now green closet with the mirror. Quinn can practice his funny faces to his heart's content.


The finished room... sans furniture of course.

I couldn't wait until the boys got home that night to check out my handiwork. Sean was suitably impressed and I think Quinn was too... it was hard to tell as he kept running around the room in circles, chanting the alphabet really fast and then falling down laughing. Maybe it's the new daycare provider.... :)

So there you have it. The purple princess nightmare is dead. That will be it for painting projects for a while... well, at least until the warmer weather. Now all I have to do is survive this move tomorrow and open a cold one at the newly christened Black Cat Bar. Sable would have been proud.

Wish us luck.

A Painting Project, Part 1

We move in on Saturday, but I'm already hip deep in my first renovation project.

As I mentioned in my last post, the house is newly painted in modern colours that I love. All but one room, that is. My bedroom is a lovely green, the spare room is a rich heritage blue and Quinn's room... well, his room was a pink and purple nightmare. Fit for a princess, but not my little prince.

A view of the closet. To quote Quinn: "It's so princess, Mom!"

It had to go. Now.

I had a lot of paint leftover from the nursery project and wanted to incorporate the dresser and rocking chair into his new room. After much deliberation, I decided to paint the walls with the blue and have a green stripe running midway up the walls and entirely around the room. Once we got to the house and discovered that the closet was pink, I decided to paint the closet green as well. The first thing I had to do however, was to try and nuke the purple with a layer of primer. After that had dried and cured, I measured out a foot wide stripe in the middle of the wall (you'll see why later) and marked it out with my new handy dandy plum bob/chalk line.

After the primer. You can see my chalk lines. It still looks purple.

The next half hour or so was spent taping off the stripe so that I could put a coat of blue on. I wouldn't be honest if I didn't add that it was tedious.

I has tape.

This is what the room looked like after one coat.

You can still see the purple.

I ended up passing out in a lawn chair (the only other inhabitant of my living room other than toys) as I waited for my family to arrive and check out my handiwork. They were pleasantly surprised. Quinn said "Wow! It's so blue!", which I took as the greatest of compliments.

After a nights rest (ha!), I started back at it today. The room got a second coat of blue and that killed the purple once and for all. You can see my new Ladybug on the floor there.

Much better. Die, purple, die!

I let that dry and cure and then ventured to rip off the tape. This is always a bit nerve wracking as I always expect half the paint to rip off with it. This time tho', things worked out pretty well.

Ready for the next round of tape.

While cleaning that up I paused and thought that it looked really cool with the blue and white, but had plans for green and must therefore press on. Then I remembered having the exact same thoughts when I was at this stage while painting the dresser. It must be the fumes.

More to come... I started the green stripe/closet today and plan on giving it a final coat tomorrow. My girl Tracy is coming over to help with the house and I hope to have it done by then.