Catching up -- part II

I've simply gotten out of the habit of blogging. So I am going to do yet another catch-up post and highlight a few of the smaller projects we've been doing in the past year.  Even with my best intentions from January, I didn't continue, so now that it's summer and I don't have as many things on my plate, let's see if I can get back in the swing of things.

To get ready to look at catching up, I looked through the past couple of years of posts, and realized that I did a lot of little things that I never added in.  One thing that made a big difference was taking out the last two big, ugly air conditioners.  We do have one still in the bedroom, but the other two (one in the kitchen and one in the guest room) were not only ancient, but didn't even work.






The first one I took out was in the kitchen -- just had HAD it one day and I had a large sheet of glass, so we wiggled and jiggled the old behemoth out of there and reframed the open space.  I thought I had taken pictures.....but here's one of the end result.



It's so nice to have more light coming in, and to not have that unsightly AC unit there.

The other one we replaced was in the guest room.  We did this one later,  and we decided to use one of the other two glass panels that we got when we updated the front door.  So I like this one a little more.



I still have one more glass panel, and may replace the kitchen window with it, especially since sometime this spring one of the panes in the current window developed a crack somehow.  So I need to either replace that panel or just replace the whole thing.






The other big thing that we've done in the past year is to paint our bedroom.  Our bedroom is the last room that had the original beige paint.  We have a lot we want to do in here, but most of it involves adding a bathroom on and reconfiguring the room. So we were thinking that doing anything in it's current state would be a waste of time.  Then we were lying in bed, thinking yet again how much we hate the beige, and decided we should just paint since it's only 20 bucks or so and we'd feel better about it.

We wanted something fun and bright, so these are the two samples we got.  We did a quick poll on Facebook and we ended up using the one on the right.  I'd looked through a lot of Pinterest pics to see how each color would look in a room with furniture similar to ours, and we decided to go with the brighter color.














Here's what the room looked like before we got started:

Dreary, even during daytime.  We pulled all the furniture out, scrubbed everything down, then got it painted.  Soon enough - it looked so much better!

It's so much more fun to wake up to this!

One thing we did differently than in the other rooms was to not add the crown up along the top -- because we are going to redo this room eventually, I didn't want to go through the expense and hassle of putting crown molding up, but we did run a piece of molding all along the top edge about 5" down (the same as we've done in all the other rooms), and paint it and everything above white and glossy, so it has a bit of a look of a finished molding.

You can see it along the top edge here.  I also took both of the bedside lamps outside and spray painted them, from the brassy finish they had from our house on Bosart, to a nice flat black that looks more like the bedframe.

This isn't a very large room, and we've got a king sized bed in it.  So just putting this brighter color of paint has made a huge difference and made it feel so much fresher!



The other thing we did when we fixed up the room was to put a box over the ridiculously large cable unit. We built a box from some leftover plywood, then painted it to match the wall.  Not only is it large and bulky looking, it has an orange flashing light that is irritating, so this way, the box covers the whole thing and it's not as noticeable.


I would also love to take the AC unit out of the window, but with the past two summers, we're grateful to have it on hot days.  I talked with Dale about taking it out of the window and embedding it in the wall so we aren't taking up one of the windows (and maybe enlarging the window), but again, since the long-term plan for this room is to add on and make half of this room a bathroom, we don't want to put any big work into it.




Other small things we've done around the house ---
Added a ceiling fan in the living room (to replace the stupid "boob" light we had in there),

Added curtains to the patio pergola -- we got these at IKEA - some inexpensive 9.99 panels, and a wire system to hang them on.  These have been great to keep the sun at bay, and makes it really nice in the afternoons when we want to kick back and relax on the sofas --

and we got a hot tub! 

We were keeping an eye on Craigslist and one day someone had one for free -- it's a Softub, and I read into them and realized that it would be perfect for our situation - our electrical box is full and we can't add a 220.  Softubs take a regular 110 outlet, and they're super lightweight to move and take care of.  So we missed out on the one for free, but we kept our eye out and ended up getting this one for $300.  We use it pretty much every day!  We did have the motor go out last month, and that was the real test -- the repair to rebuilt the motor was $600 -- did we really want it - and we decided that yes, it was completely worth it.   I love going out there first thing in the morning and getting caught up on FB and email and everything else before getting in the shower and getting ready for the day.  And I think it's also helped my skin feel so much better.  We have the water treatment schedule down and feel great about the whole thing - so we're really glad we got this!

OK -- so that's a lot of catch up  to do.  I have more things that I've been doing, and this week, we've been working in the yard, so I can do an update on how our front yard looks two years after our initial lawn to garden conversion.  I'll also get caught up on vacations and projects -- lots to write about!

It's been a hot week

Here in Long Beach, we usually get a couple of hot weeks during the end of August, and they rolled in right on time.  We closed the windows, turned on our window ACs (we have two of them, woo hoo!), set up the fans and just figured we'd be in the house for the day, maybe catch up on some tv watching on Netflix....and darned if the power didn't go out!  At the same time, I saw this ad on CL free for a Chinese fan palm (Livistona Chinensis), and the guy said to come on out, so we loaded up some gloves and ropes and took off.

He said in his ad that this tree was about 18" in diameter (trunk) and about 5' tall and weighed about 400 pounds and we'd need a truck and some rope.  On the drive over, we talked about how we thought he was probably not close to how much it weighed - people are always saying how big or heavy something is on CL and it's always no big deal.  I mean, it's a big deal to them, but not to us.

But this guy knew what he was talking about!  This tree was huge!  It took the three of us multiple tries to figure out how to get it on our truck, but we finally did.

Even this picture cannot capture how tall it was.  Hmmm...maybe this one:

Just for scale, I'm 5'5".  It was really really big and really really heavy.

Then the guy gave us a tour around his property. He's all involved in the Palm Society, and he invited us to the meetings.  He knew a ton of stuff about palms, but after touring his property and seeing his trees, we were pretty scared that this tree was going to end up enormous!  All his trees were huge, it was like a jungle in there.  And the scariest part - he'd only been there about 11 years, so all of the trees were about 10-11 years old, and seriously, they were huge.

But, after looking at a lot of information online about this tree, I feel confident that it is going to be the one we need for our yard, and that it won't grow as huge as some of his crazy large trees.


Getting it OUT of the truck was a  lot easier than loading it up.  We got it rolled out, loaded on a dolly and plopped into its new home in no time.  Well, we did have to take a time out to cut a couple of branches on the avocado tree, but that was just a little blip.

That avocado tree will be leaving sometime in the next year or so.  It's a very messy tree, it drops leaves and branches and avocados all over the yard, and we don't want it making a mess for our future pool.  We want a tropical type of backyard, so this tree is going to take it's place.  It will take about a year for it to get fuller and recover from the transplant, but I think by this time next year it will be a gorgeous full palm.  Here's a pic of what we are looking forward to:

Even if it grows fast, it will take 10-12 years to get too large, and we are not afraid to remove it if it becomes unworkable.  The guy who we got it from said, "sometimes, a chain saw is the best solution."  And that's a guy who is ALL about palms.

Another thing we worked on for the yard is something I saw on Pinterest -- I want to attract birds and butterflies, and I thought if I added a birdbath to the front maybe I'd get some birds visiting.  So I was looking around to see a DIY birdbath, and I ran across this one:

 

Not really what we need fro the front yard, but I liked it anyway -- so last week we did a thrift shop run and bought a few vases, bowls and platters, and this is what we came up with:

A little fancier than most of the stuff we like, but it's sparkly and nice and hopefully, it will give the birds a second thought when they fly by.  Behind that is a cordyline plant that we got off CL, but right now he's looking kind of wilted.  Hopefully, both the palm and the cordyline will bounce back and we'll continue to collect plants for next year's big backyard project. 

Oh, and by the time we got home and got this tree in the ground, the power was back on, and we've been relaxing in the AC since then!

Livistona ChinensisLi

Livistona Chinensis

Front walk done

We returned the broken pavers and have the replacement put in place, and the walkway looks great with all the gravel added:

Several of our neighbors have stopped by to admire it.  I think what they're really admiring is progress, since it's just been a big dirt pile for the last month.  But we'll take it.  I went through and raked the dirt in this small area, along with most of the rest of the yard, removing all the clumps and rocks, and it is ready to plant.  I was really excited, I thought yesterday was going to be a big planting day, but then this happened on the way to exchange the pavers:

 

Stupid bad ankle! I was getting into the car, twisted my ankle, fell and broke my toe.  Sheesh!  It's going to take a few days until I can use a shovel so I can get some of my big agaves dug up and put in this area.    We did get some boulders yesterday, however - here's one group:

I think I have to move these forward, but I have to give my foot a little time to repair before I can do that.  In the meantime, we have gotten some more plants, which are temporarily in our "holding area" in the backyard:

The large green agave in the center, the firesticks, the assorted succulents here, they'll all go in that smaller bed.  We also picked up a couple of large plants for the other half of the yard, these we paid for but they were on sale so we went ahead and got them -- a giant bird of paradise for 58 dollars:

And a red banana for 35 dollars:

This one we put in a pot, and haven't decided if it's going to stay in the back or move the pot into the front yard.

We also responded to a craigslist free listing for two sago palms.  We've wanted some of these, but they are really expensive. We had to go dig these up, there are two of the, the trunks are around 2' high, with fronts about 6', so they would have cost us a couple hundred each.  They are looking a little weary from the transplant, but I think they'll be fine.  The inner row of fronds are nice healthy green.  We may put these in the front, depending on how full the yard looks once we get it going.  They are extremely slow growing, so they'll stay about this size for a long time.

So, I was hoping there would be somewhat of a reveal today, with all kinds of plants put in place, but it looks like it'll be in a week or so. 

Slacker!

Well, I'm a slacker about posting anyway.  I have been doing things, just been very bad about recording them.  But after a long day of working on the yard, I am going to update my project status first.

First, the labyrinth.  It's mostly done, although after getting the path laid and the plants in, I have decided it would look awesome to have a nice hedge around it, so I'll be looking for a deal on some boxwoods in the near future.  But for now, this one can be considered 90% complete.

 So, the last time I posted about this, I'd just started by marking out the path.  Then I went through and tamped down the walk path.  Above you can see how the compacted dirt path looks with the soft, turned soil for the borders all fluffy and nice.

 Then we got a load of decomposed granite.  I wanted the path to stay unpaved, but it'll get weeds and it'll get muddy, so a load of DG as everyone out here calls it, was just what we needed.  I spread that out, then compacted that, too.  Unfortunately, now I can't walk on it barefoot, because the DG isn't soft.  Boo.  I might have to put some sand on top of that.  Anyway, we also planted and then mulched the plants, and then put some starter food on it.  This picture about was from about 3 weeks ago, by the end of summer, I think most of the plants will have grown and merged together to create a living border.  At least that's the plan.  And again, I think a nice little hedge around it would look really cool.  I was hoping to find a cool fountain for the middle, but I'm trying to do this really super cheap, so I am just lurking around craigslist free hoping to snap one up.  Missed one the other day, but I'm persistent!

Another thing Dale and I are doing this summer is trying to fit in some little mini-trips to places we've not yet visited.  So we took a spur of the moment trip to Las Vegas and Hoover Dam, because I had one free night from my hotels.com acct.  We upgraded, and stayed at the Bellagio.   And we ended up going on the HOTTEST week of the year!

Whew! and that wasn't even the hottest temperature we experienced, it got up another degree, but my picture of that is blurry.

First, we went to Hoover Dam, and went on the tour.  We wanted to go on the deluxe longer tour, but it was booked and we would have had to have waited another 3 hours, so we just went on the shorter one through the power plant.  It was really interesting, and nice and cool inside.


I won't put all the pictures on here, but here's a cool shot:

A panorama of the Lake Mead side of the dam.  The water is down about 50 feet, which is really apparent when you visit, but not sure if you can tell in this picture.  Oh, and it was HOT!  We walked part way across the dam, but decided to drive across in our nice, air conditioned car.  We looked at all the outdoor exhibits briefly, then scurried back to the cool car. 

One of the things that I really liked was the terrazzo floor inside the power plant - they had inlaid designs that paid homage to the Native American history of the place.  This is a picture of a turbine, with a Native American influence:

 and an electrical outlet design , that looks somewhat like a rug:






We also got out and walked across the bypass bridge (the Mike O'Callahan-Pat Tillman bridge), which was crazy because we had to climb up eleventy billion stairs in the hot sun and then walk out across the burning hot sidewalk, but we did get this cool shot:

So that was worth it. 

We also saw this cool sculpture that pays homage to all the workers who completed this dam in only 5 years, 2 years ahead of schedule.  They worked 7 days a week, 24 hours a day and only got two days off a year.  But it was the Depression and they were glad to have a job.  And you know it had to be ridiculously hot like it was while we were out there, except they had no air conditioning to escape to!

This sculpture is huge, BTW, I don't have anything in it for scale, but it's really giant. 


We originally thought we'd also go to the Grand Canyon, but after realizing we were going during the biggest heat wave of the year, and there's really nothing at the Grand Canyon other than hiking, which would be completely idiotic in this heat, we decided we'd do that another time.  It's about 9 hours away. (Las Vegas is 3.5 hours from our house, and the Hoover Dam is 30 minutes from Las Vegas).  So that makes it a pretty easy trip.

Another big project we wanted to do this summer was sell (*sob*) my Karmann Ghia and buy a truck.  We've rented trucks so many times from Home Depot to do all kinds of things, and really, as cute as the Karmann Ghia was  (see! Look how cute:)

but it is not a very practical car for us right now.  And I've been taking the bus to work quite a bit, and driving it very minimally.  So it's been a bit of a luxury item, when what we could really use is a truck.  I listed it, had a bunch of people come and look at it, some really annoying people who want to low-ball bid, but finally sold it to a guy who was very happy to have a cute little car.  I think he's going to fix it up to make it more of a hot rod, but whatever! 

Then we had to go find a truck.  We looked at a bunch of really crappy ones, but got a really great deal on this 2002 Tundra.  It is in pristine condition, the guy we got it from really maintained it well, so hopefully it'll be a good deal.   And the best part is that we got the truck for $1200 less than we got for the Ghia, so we can buy a few extra things for it, and also pay for some of the yard projects.

We've already picked up a bunch of heavy stuff in it, so it's been earning its keep already.  And, like the Ghia, I will probably drive this only once or twice a week when school starts up again, as I plan on taking the bus often.  A full sized truck like this doesn't get great mileage, so it will be the vehicle we use the least.

OK, finally, what we got done today on our front yard.  In the past month, I've gotten the new walk path dug out, which was back breaking work but I've been doing it a bit at a time.  I somehow managed not to get any pictures of the dug out part, but a couple of days ago we got a free load of DG for the compacted sub-base, and this is what that looks like:

 This is during our process of spreading and compacting the decomposed granite.  EXHAUSTING, backbreaking work!  And after we got the DG compacted, we had our concrete pavers delivered.  We used 18 x 36s and 12 x 12s.  We alternated them so we had an irregular pattern.  There's a space in this first picture below, we have to re-route a sprinkler head tomorrow, and two of the large pavers arrived broken, so we have to return those and get a new one for this spot on Monday.  Tomorrow, we'll pick up another load of gravel (in our handy truck!) and fill the rest of the spaces between the pavers.  We originally thought we'd put groundcover here, but we really like the look of the little gravel, so we'll fill with gravel, and then gradually introduce the ground cover in between.

You can see the two cracked pavers above. 

We are pretty much exhausted, but we want to get this part done, it'll be a big boost for us to have part of this going!  We also can start planting the section between the path and the driveway, we have tons of plants ready to go!  We also have the drip system for that section, so that'll be the next part of our project.  And I'll try to get more pictures and posts on a regular basis!

No more grass....

Yesterday, we hired some local gardeners to bring out a sod cutter and remove our dead grass.  We had planned on doing this ourselves, although everyone who has been through this program says that this is the worst job ever, and if you're going to hire one thing out, it should be this.  We called over to Home Depot to find out about renting a sod cutter, and it would have been 89 dollars for the day.  Plus, it won't fit in a vehicle, so we'd have to rent a truck and trailer to bring it home.  We might have been able to rent it for four hours to save 25 bucks, but all in all, we figured we'd need plenty of time.  By the time we added it all up, it was going to cost us 150 dollars for the tool/truck rental -- and that was before we put in any labor of our own (plus dump fees for getting rid of the dead grass).  So we called a couple of places and were happy to hear the quotes - 350-400 dollars, which was entirely reasonable.  And best of all, they said they could do it the next day.  So now we have this:

yep, just dirt.  Our neighbors are also doing their yard, and they have only dirt, too, so we aren't embarrassing anyone too much!  This week we have to do a check on our irrigation system, which we will be converting to drip, but we do have at least one leak in the pipes near our neighbor's house, so we are going to fix that.  Then rototill and amend the soil. 

In the meantime, we went to a plant selection class, and as everyone was arriving, signing in, etc, there was a name and phone number projected on the screen, with the title: Free Dymondia.  We wrote that right down, and after class, we went by and scored 8 flats of dymondia.  Here it is in our holding zone:

 We also planted some up by the front of the garage, and around our labyrinth plot.  I spent the rest of the week digging/weeding/conditioning the soil, and now we are here:

we are busy tamping down the paths, and we picked up some paper to lay down a weed barrier.  Because this labyrinth won't be there forever, we are trying to do this as cheap as possible. We did pick up some plants, all the parats that are outlined by white flour are going to be planted, and the paths will be covered in either gravel, decomposed granite, or mulch, whatever we can score the cheapest (or free!  I love free!)  I have lots of plants around the yard that we can move over, or divide and put pieces here.  And I have to finish the surround of dymondia.

Originally, I had marked out a slightly different plan, but Dale said he wished we could figure out a plan where we don't go in, then just turn around and walk the same path out, so this one has an entrance and exit.

We fiddled around with the original plan until we got it to work out, then test walked it a few times.  I like this one, it starts off with a lot of zigs and zags, but as you walk it, the runs get longer and you end up more relaxed.  Ha, now that I look at that diagram above, it looks vaguely biological, like intestines! 

We also made a few kokedama, moss surrounded plant balls suspended from strings.  One of my students created a how-to video in our technology class, and I've wanted to make some ever since then.  (here's the video tutorial: https://vimeo.com/63858985)

So that's where we're at.  Tomorrow I hope to get the paper down on our labyrinth path, and maybe get started on the front yard as well --

We are approved!

We got our official notice today - we are approved for the Lawn 2 Garden grant, and we can get started on our landscape plan!  We actually started killing the grass 2 weeks ago --

Round up.  Round one.

two weeks later, and it looks like this:

it actually looks much worse now, after round two.  But yesterday, as per instructions, we fertilized the dead grass (!) to see if anything grows, and then, it'll be round three of Round up.  Then, rent a sod cutter, and pull it all out.  Probably next week.  We also decided to kill the grass in the parkway (hell strip), although we did not submit plans for it.  We are only going to get $3 per square foot for the first 1000 square feet, and the main part of the yard is over that.  So we are killing the grass on the parkway but probably won't be planting anything there for awhile.  Maybe just throw some mulch down until we decide to work on that, too.

So this is the plan we came up with. We visited a lot of yards and nurseries, and used the online resources to come up with the plants we wanted.  They're all numbered there, here's the list of plants:

1.  Pride Of Madeira             Echium candicans 

2. King Palm Archontophoenix cunninghamian

3. Strelitzia nicolai   Giant Bird Of Paradise

4. Compact Gold Coin            Asteriscus maritimus       

5. Century Plant, Maguey     Agave americana

6. Lamb's Ears           Stachys byzantina  

7. Mexican Bush Sage           Salvia leucantha

8. Pygmy Date Palm, Roebelin Palm    Phoenix roebelenii

9. Kleinia        Senecio mandraliscae        

10. Kangaroo Paws   Anigozanthos hybrids        

11. Shasta Daisy        Chrysanthemum maximum          

12. Dwarf Callistemon Callistemon 'Little John'

13. Lygeum sparteum  Esparto Grass

14. Leonotis leonorus  Lion's Tail

15. Calla Lily Zantedeschia aethiopica    

16. Agastache rupestris  Licorice Mint

17. Aeonium arboretum  Parasol Aeonium

18. Medio Picta Century Plant         Agave americana medio-picta

       Yellow Margin Century Plant   Agave americana v. marginata

       Agave parryi v. huachucensis  Huachuca Agave

19. Yucca elephantipes  Yucca Tree

20.  Pink Stripe Flax Phormium 'Pink Stripe'     

21. Rainbow Warrior New Zealand Flax     Phormium tenax 'Rainbow Warrior'

22. Purple Fountain Grass   Pennisetum 'Rubrum'       

23. Dymondia, Rock Ditty     Dymondia margaretae

24. Gazania hybrids  Hybrid Gazanias

25. Australian Tree Fern      Cyathea cooperi 

Some of these plants we already have, and while we have mapped them in at their mature size above, they'll be little sprigs when we actually plant them.   We did do a cheesy photoshop of how we think they might look --

 yea, someday.  But we were pretty happy with this plan.  

In the meantime, we also are kind of frustrated with the backyard.  Ever since we cut down the large tree that dropped SO MUCH TRASH all over the yard, we can't keep the grass alive back there (there isn't a irrigation system back there.  There is one in the front, although it doesn't work well, and we have to convert it to drip as part of this next process.  but I digress).  Anyway, it gets to be a desert back there.  So we are going to do a few things to tide the yard over until we actually get a pool put in.  We are using the front section as a holding ground for some ground cover --

dymondia on the right, and ajuga on the left.  We want to see how they do in the sun - the grass is particularly hard to grow right in this space, due to the heat from the surrounding concrete.  

Yea, that's some dead grass, and hard-packed dirt.  Lovely.  So what I did was pound a stake in the middle of the yard, run an 8' string out and spray paint a circle:

and sprayed RoundUp in the circle.  Which is almost redundant, but I tell you, when you WANT the grass to die, it's hard to kill.  So what am I going to do in that circle?

some kind of labyrinth!  I like this one (via Pinterest), but I have lots of other designs I have saved, too.  You can look at some of them here, or you can search 'back yard labyrinth' on Pinterest and see LOTS MORE.  

So I am going to kill the remaining grass, lay down some landscape fabric (or newspaper layers), and then cover it with mulch (which we can get free from the city), and then create the lines in our labyrinth with bricks, plants, rocks, etc.  I like this style of labyrinth, called 'Santa Rosa' --

I marked out 16' in diameter, so that should make a reasonable sized path.  

So.....more projects!  Will our kitchen ever get done?  eventually!  But it's so lovely outside, and I can't pass up a chance to make our environment a little nicer.