recovered from drafts//new plants 2020/2021 - house plants

Looking back on 2020 & 2021, I'm not at all surprised that most of my new plants were houseplants.  So much time (too much time) was spent indoors, and I did my best to bring the outdoors in. My spare room is slowly becoming a sunroom, and I love it. 

My favorite new houseplants are the cuttings from my Grandmother's sun porch.  There's the quite prolific all green spider plant, as well as a some smaller variegated versions... all pups from the same mother plant.  The crown of my cuttings has to be from my grandmother's Mistletoe Cactus, rhipsalis.  This one took more work to root, and was a slow grower at first.  It seems to have taken hold though, and I'm looking forward to year two! 

I have a new aloe plant from my mom, and it's doing much better than my previous aloe plants.  Friends visiting from out of town brought me a little poinsettia from friends, and it is living it's best life. I also picked up a prayer plant from Ace Hardware, and it's doing very well hanging in my living room. 

That pretty much rounds out the new houseplants from 2021.  There were some air plants and a miniature orchid that didn't make it, RIP. 

hellebore - midnight ruffles

I've started buying 'fancy' hellebores.  This is 'Midnight Ruffles' from Green Thumbs Nursery here in Chattanooga.  It didn't bloom its first year, but has settled in, and has some pretty snazzy blooms. 

Now I need to plant the yellow ones I got last spring...I'm sure they'll be much happier in the ground than in their 4" pots.

2014 projects - mark one off the list

Ta-Da!  I now have lattice on my front porch.

This is part privacy screen, and part structure for my Confederate Jasmine to start climbing on.  I grew Confederate Jasmine when I lived in South Carolina, and it tops my list of favorite plants.  It smells amazing, is drought tolerant, and doesn't require much care.  The new growth doesn't love the cold, but once the vine is thick and woody, it gets pretty tough.  It's a fast grower too, which is wonderful, since mine was too young to handle our unusually cold winter this year.

The lattice was about $20 from Home Depot, and it's painted plastic, so I don't have to worry too much about it weathering.  Since it may not be permanent, I hung it on nails with wide heads.  I used roofing nails, but most nails would work.  Pretty simple project, and the price was definitely right.

Cross another one off the list!

kitchen progress - step 1 complete

Ladies and gentlemen, I now have a functioning ice maker.  I feel like an idiot for not fixing it sooner, but oh well.  I HAVE AN ICE MAKER!

The first part of my kitchen project is complete.  In addition to my amazing functioning ice maker I have a new pull out, under sink trash can, a vintage-inspired bread box for my spices, freshly painted cabinets, and a valance and some pillows & a valance made from the Chattanooga Toile.

Chattanooga Toile y'all

The biggest part of step one was the cabinets.  I thought the hardest part of this job was going to be painting the insides of the top cabinets.  It was time consuming, but not as time consuming as trying to paint both sides of my 1700kazillion cabinet doors.  Even with all 3 leaves in my dining room table, I only had room for 4 large doors and 3 skinny doors at a time.  It takes a lot of time for paint to dry when it's 12 degrees outside.  Even my dehumidifier was like, sorry, I'm not going to be able to help you.  None of the work was hard, per se, but waiting for paint to dry on the doors was the most time consuming part.  One coat of primer, and two coats of paint on both sides of the doors = a lot of time, when you can only do a handful of doors at a time. What I thought was going to take a week, ended up taking the better part of 3 weekends, lesson learned, but it was worth it!

Before

Ta-Da!

I'd say this is an improvement.  I love my little bread box, and my milk glass lamps from Chattanooga Auction House are perfect. (More about the Auction House)  I had debated changing the knobs on the cabinet doors, but the contrast has grown on me, and I really do like the painted flowers, and mirrored outline. 

The next part of the kitchen project is the wall opposite my kitchen sink.  This is where I'm going to put floor-to-ceiling built in cabinets.  The pictures below show where we've been and where we're going.  There is an IKEA run in my future, and another weekend or two of working in my kitchen.

Side note:
I did learn a trick to painting around hinges.  Use two pieces of tape, and fold the edges like you're wrapping a present so that things stick and lay flat.  Wrap the flat part first, and the round part second.  Simple, and effective.  I was quite proud of myself for figuring that out.

#snOMG

SNOOOOOW!  It's about time that we were rewarded for all this cold with a little white stuff :)  It's not a lot of snow, but it's just enough to make for pretty pictures.

So without further adieu, let me take you through my day!

10:00 am - Ombre' finally made it to Chattanooga!

1:00pm - Snow in the parking lot. After a successful trip to Armando's.

2:30pm - Still at work, more ombre'.

5:30pm - Driving home. The benefit of staying at work is empty roads.

6:00pm - Snow in the driveway!

Animal tracks, my place feels like a zoo sometimes.

I can't bring myself to lock my shed.  Bunnies need a place to stay warm too.

Doesn't it look so pretty now that it is painted?

This rhododendron is cold, but should be ok.

There will not be a bonfire tonight.

My front yard.  I am a little sad the pond decided to thaw out yesterday.

I know the roads are going to be horrible tomorrow, but I'm enjoying the snow while I can. :)

Update 1/29/14:  Here is what the pond looked like this morning on my way to work.

progress

I started 2014 with a few goals for my house.  Specifically my kitchen.  I'm happy to say that I got the ball rolling this weekend.

When I first moved in to my house, my kitchen was a beige-y flesh tone.  The walls, the cabinets, the trim -  everything thing looked like dried out calamine lotion.   Good for hiding dirt (maybe??), but less than appealing.  The first thing I did before I moved in was paint the trim white and the walls an almost white yellow.

What a difference some paint makes.

Painting the walls was a huge improvement, and I left the cabinets for another day.  This past Saturday was that day.  I have never painted cabinets, but believe it or not, it wasn't that bad.  I ended up painting more than I planned, so I'm happy.  I'm just lacking the final coat of paint on the doors to finish the first cabinet!

Before - calamine cabinets.

So far.

The ultimate January goal is to paint cabinets, and install a pull-out trash can.  I'll have to move my refrigerator to paint, and the bonus project is to get some new line and connect my ice maker.  Do you know how long it's been since I've had a working ice maker???  At least 4 apartments, and almost 5 years ago.  I CAN'T WAIT!  It's going to be like having a new kitchen.

The February goal is to install floor to ceiling bookcases on the wall opposite my sink.  I took some measurements this weekend, and the bookcases I picked out from Ikea are going to work.  I found a nice tutorial online, so I'm going to add molding to make the bookcases look more like built-ins..  This is a rough sketch of what the wall will look like when I'm done.

Like I said, rough sketch.

This is where is pretty much what it looks like normally (with some curtains), so again, this will be a big improvement.

Photo taken a month after I moved in.

cheers to 2014!

here

Welcome to 2014.  We have survived the holidays and made it to another year.  Cheers to us!

My holidays were fun.  The tradition of Christmas Eve at my house (aka the old homeplace) continued, and more friends than normal were home for the holidays.  The group is rarely together at the same time, and it's a blast when we can hang out.  It's been a solid 2 weeks of hanging out with people I don't see enough of, and I loved every minute of it.

I also got Chromecast for Christmas, and its been great.  My tv is new, but my laptop is not, so they don't communicate directly.  My plan is to get a computer with a TV tuner & Microsoft Media Center eventually, but I traveled in 2013, sooo yeah.  Now with Chromecast I can stream from my laptop, or a few certain apps on my phone.   If ESPN would work on it's streaming quality, life would be amazing.

Speaking of amazing...I want this year to be amazing.  I don't usually post resolutions, I just give the year a general theme that has ended up sticking and carrying over to the next year.  2011 was (Re)Discover Chattanooga, 2012 was the year of my house, and last year was #travel2013.   All of these are things I want to continue doing in 2014.  I haven't come up with a theme yet but here are some the things I want to accomplish this year:

1. Work on my house.  I did a decent amount of work on the inside of my house before I moved in, but once I moved in, my focus turned to the outside.  The immediate goal is to work on my kitchen, but I would also like to decorate my living room and paint my bathroom this year.
2. Plant flowers.  You know, the ones that bloom and come back year after year.  I've mulched and prepped beds all around my house, and this year I want to actually put things in them.
3. Post for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day every month.  This is the one group posting 'thing' that I have done, and hate that I got all slack for most of this year.  2014 I will be back, so prepare yourselves for at least one garden post a month.
4. Loose another 25 pounds.  I am trying to get in better shape without compromising the things that make me happy, or doing things that make me miserable.  That means I eat and drink too much when I hang out with friends, and I never run.  In 2013 I was able to stick to those rules and loose 25 pounds, here's to doing that again :)

So yeah, the only things that stick out as a theme right now are super cheesey...things like Just Do It, Get 'er Done, or Live Life to its Fullest.  I can't handle any of those things, but when the right theme presents itself, I'll let you know.  In the meantime, tell me about your resolutions/goals/plans for 2014, hopefully I'll be inspired!

Garden Update

If you're reading this post, I just want to say thank you.  I have fallen back into my inconsistant nonexistant blogger habits, and if you've stuck with me through it, I really appreciate it.

So in the past month or so I haven't been out and about around Chattanooga much (I missed Southern Brewers Festival, the Tennessee Whiskey Festival, AND Wine Over Water), but a lot has been happening on the home front. Outside my house, inside my house, and all over the yard.  Here's a rundown of projects we've been working on, and I'll go into detail about each one in the coming weeks.

1. My house is painted!  You may have noticed that my house itself has been absent from my garden pictures thus far.  That's because the paint was peeling and falling off the back of the house.  The house is now painted, and we are at the cleaning up after my painter stage of the project.  It looks SO much better.
2. My living room has gotten an unexpected remodel.  What started with painting the back of my built in cabinets turned into new crown molding, work on my ceiling, and a whole lot of painting.
3. I now have an area that shall henceforth be known as 'the woodland garden' 'the shade garden'.  We have turned one random azalea and a few volunteer plants in the woods into an area that has a some structure (the tall plants are now in the back) but is appropriately disheveled for my liking.
4. My day lilies can breathe!  The only significant flower bed that existed when I moved into my great grand mother's house was a row of day lilies that might be older than I am.  While you think that might be pretty, (and they were) you have to remember that day lilies multiply, and these were way past over crowded.  Side note: if anyone wants day lilies, PLEASE let me know, I still have hundreds!  I'm not even kidding.
5. We've also done some work in the gardens around the kitchen and the driveway.  Some of it has been general maintenance, and some of it has involved transplanting.

Believe it or not, you're looking at around 50 day lily plants. 
They were extremely overcrowded

It actually has been a lot of work, but the weather is nice, and it's a good time of year to be working outside.  I know it will pay dividends this spring, when I can show you pictures that will actually include my house!

o christmas tree

I love Christmas.  I love the lights, the decorations, all of it. Since this is only my second Christmas in my new house, and last year I had just moved in, I don't have a lot in the way of decorations, and everything is either a hand me down or homemade.

What I do have are lights and a tree...and they're awesome.

My porch lights are so awesome that they stay up all year and are a feature of my Sunday night porch nights.

My tree is also fairly fantastic.  This year's tree is not quite as epic as last years 'go big or go home tree,'  but with a little help from my friends, I did cut it from the yard, and I love it.  It has a more traditional Christmas tree shape and still reaches the top of my ten foot ceilings.

The comedic value of last year's tree was enhanced by how sparsely it was decorated.  This year I've gone to the other extreme, and most branches have 3 or 4 colorful ornaments each.  Seriously.  It's wonderful.  Plus 75% of the ornaments on the tree are older than I am, which I think is pretty hysterical.  Apparently pink & blue & sparkle was what Christmas in the 70's was all about.
 
The only question I have left about my tree is whether to go all out and add vintage silver icicles to my tree...you know, the tacky, messy kind.  What do you think, too much or perfect?

pretty pictures of my yard

It stopped raining yesterday! It has rained A LOT this month. So far we're at 5.49" of rain, 1.54" above normal for this point in the month, and actually a freckle above the normal total for the month. It's been warm too, which is a mixed blessing because I had to unclog the pond drain yesterday afternoon. Wadding out into the overflowing pond would not have been fun if it had been any colder.

I took advantage of the fact our days are getting longer to take some pictures of the pond and my new yard. I hope you enjoy them :)

Looking up from the pond, you can see my house sitting up on a small hill surrounded by lots of trees.  A project for this winter/early spring is to clear out the underbrush.  This should give the larger trees room to grow, and enhance the view of the pond from the front porch.  I plan on spending quite a bit of time on the front porch this summer :)

This HUGE Magnolia needs more space

It's hard to see, but this tree lost it's top

 The driveway starts beside the pond, and winds around the hill to the back of the house.  This old rock wall lines the driveway beside the house, and there are quite a few hollowed out tree stumps lining the driveway at the rear of the house.  I like them, but I haven't decided if I'll keep them there or move them.  It probably depends on how heavy/sturdy they are.

A few years ago one of the tenants "helped" with the landscape and cut the box woods back to nothing.  They're coming back, but are in need of some TLC this year.  Any suggestions?

There are are two more sad looking boxwoods at the front of the house, along with some empty beds.  I know my Grandmother & Great Grandmother didn't keep them empty, so we'll have to wait and see what comes up this spring.  I have a feeling that there are bulbs in the bed at the side of the house, and that mulch/soil amending will be a top priority this spring.

Yes my Christmas lights are still up, but I haven't turned them back on.

These last two pictures are a testament to how unseasonably warm it has been. These poor little daffodils are barely blooming, and I've got bulbs coming up in one of the tree stumps with a pansy tag still in it.

I hope you enjoyed my walk around the yard.  I haven't shown pictures of the hosta bed at the entrance of my front walkway, the raised bed in what may be my only sunny spot, the empty beds by my garage, or the garden at the center of my circular drive.  This post was getting a little long, so I hope you can forgive me for holding those for another day!

NOTE  I had a version of this post written earlier today, but blogger's website and app do not get along.  I hope the second version is as good as the first.  I had to take a time out before I felt like writing again. 

Weather data from Weather Underground. 1/24/12.

tangerine orange & me

Growing up in Tennessee and then spending 10 years in Clemson, orange has always been in my life.  It was a favorite bathing suit color as a kid (neon orange can actually make you look more tan - who knew), and as a sports fan, I've enjoyed wearing both Tennessee and Clemson Orange.

I like orange so much that I've planned to use it as an accent color in my kitchen.  Yellow and green are the primary colors, but I like orange as an accent.

Not too bad, right?  I like Fiestaware, and have hand me down white and blue sets.  I want to expand my collection, so for Christmas I asked for more - so I can start phasing out the blue.  One of the colors I got was tangerine orange...which today I learned happens to be very close to Pantone's 2012 color of the year! How trendy of me! (You're allowed to laugh out loud, I am)

Chatt. Times Free Press Photo by Dan Henry, 1/16/12

 This should make finding gameday clothes much easier this year!

**Photos from World Market.com unless otherwise stated.