decorating plans

For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted a chaise lounge.  Really what's not to love about them?  I realized that this house may provide the perfect oportunity to buy one.  The living room is really odd shapped and a chaise would be a great way to add more seating for conversation while not blocking the TV for movies/TV watching!  I am seriously considering buying this chaise from Ikea in this print,  because it matches the colors for the room perfectly.  I think the print freaks out Mr. House though.  Since it's Ikea, you can always buy a new cover down the road!  We'll see, maybe i'll end up with the brown.

Seedy

In celebration of getting our keys yesterday (which did not happen), I excitedly ordered some seeds online from Johnnyseeds.com a company I had read about a few times before in various garden fora. I ended up getting Fennel, Leeks, cucumber, two types of tomatillos, muskmelon, watermelon, cilantro, and zucchini. I ordered them online because I have never seen fennel seeds locally, and you only have to walk along the river in summer time to know they grow well here.

We will see how those turn out when they arrive and get planted. I also plan to get some nasturtium seeds, and tomato seeds locally, since I know I can find them. Any other suggestions?

Since we do not have the garden beds built yet, no full grown plants have been ordered yet. Abbynormal and I agreed that we would not get every plant and tree that we want all at once, since we have so much prep work to do before they can get in the ground. Once we are more situated, we can plant the various other trees and bushes. Unfortunately, that may mean waiting until next spring.

I plan to order the blueberries (5 plants), hazel hedge (5 plants) and some raspberries and blackberries. These would come from Raintree Nursery, which is where I ordered blueberries for my dad a few years ago.

We will have to wait for the orange tree, guava, fig, and others.

I wish we got the keys yesterday! Then I could be working on the house, instead of taxes and car stuff.

Almost there!

This evening we signed the final papers for the house.  Honestly, am beginning to think that I haven't the slightest idea what is going on other that we have loads of paper to sign (sometimes the same sheet twice, or sign one paper then another verifying that we signed the first).  What I do know is that tomorrow we could be getting the keys for our very first house!  

annnnnnnnd commence with the freaking out . . .

Also, the tree in the back turns out to be grapefruit which makes me quite sad.

Raised Garden Beds

Part of the dream of owning a house is having a large vegetable garden. Since "large" in this context is only going to be say, 16x10, it really is not that large. The house currently has no vegetable garden, and that has to change. We are planning on moving a shed currently located in the south west corner of the back yard, and creating the garden in that space. With ample sun, and some shelter from the wind due to being in a fenced in corner, it should be ideal.

In this garden, I would like to have raised beds, and so I have been researching the best way to construct them. Note that this is "best way for my skills, tools, and capital", not necessarily the best type in the world. Each bed would have a soaker hose on its own riser spigot, and probably a gravel layer for drainage.

I had originally planed to go with redwood 2x6 boards, notched at the end to overlap, and secured with a rod inserted in pre-drilled holes, but at nearly $11 a board, this option would cost something like $132 for a single 8'x4' bed 12" high. Three beds would cost nearly $400, which is quite allot considering I would still need to buy some soil, gravel, manure etc.

After browsing around on the Home Depot website (closest "big box" home store to our house), I came to the realization that masonry blocks, or cinder blocks were probably the way to go. At only $1.38 per unit, a bed can be constructed for around $65, and it ought to be pretty durable as well. That brings the total price to around $200 including mortar. There will be somewhat more labor, and clearly getting 105 cinder blocks will be more complicated than getting some lumber, but this still seems like the best way to go.

So that settled, now I just need to figure out what plants to put in my 96 square feet. Any suggestions?

Curb appeal

We are trying to figure out a way to get rid of the massive amount of grass we have in our front lawn for two reasons.  First, it is a pain to try to mow it all.  Second, to save on water.  I love the idea of ground cover, but we were trying to decide just how to transition between the ground cover area and the grass area.  I saw this yard in Portland and snapped a picture.  I love how they did the transition.  Also I had not thought of putting in low lying shrubs to break up the ground cover.  The only thing that I would change is maybe to use river rock instead of the rocks they used.  We are in the river city after all!