Saturday: Finally back to the garden (4/21/12)

And our heads were somewhat cleared of fretting every day about house details, and we realized, "OH!  We have a garden in the back yard!"

I'll see if I can circle around, somewhat in order.  With carefully placed yellow decor (dandelions), we see the Weeping Norway Spruce (?), and the now-huge table-top pine that Jack's parents so graciously bought for us.  :)

Underneath the pine we have some fuzzy pulsatillas...

Then the wisteria bonsai, which has seen better days.

Itty-bitty irises...

A really huge arisaema...

A primula and epimedium (checked Wikipedia to make sure I spelled that right and came up with this:  ..."also known as Rowdy Lamb Herb, Barrenwort, Bishop's Hat, Fairy Wings, Horny Goat Weed, or Yin Yang Huo")

A cypripedium...

And another...

Orchids (?) and a primula...

A funky flower I can't name...  (although I'm kind of wishing I could call everything a Horny Goat Weed...)

Delphinium...

Polygonatum...  (and an ancient hellebore)

Primulas...  (which are apparently making a certain nearly-naked woman very sad)

A bog flower I can't name....   /moraea?/

Other itty-bitty irises...

A yellow spiky thingy...

And a white iris.  *phew*

Monday: Chimney proportions (4/16/12)

We came to the revelation quite a while ago that the chimney didn't match the proportions that were intended in the original drawings.  The width matched, but it appears the builder read this to mean that he should match the original chimney height, which is understandable, but nowhere near the height indicated in the drawing.

The first photo shows the drawings from straight on and the actual photo adds perspective...  So all you can see from the other side of the street is the chimney damper.



When you go off to an angle, you can see a bit of the top... but this does match the original height of the chimney.

So the architect did some sketches and we're considering a chimney cap that will cover the clay flu and damper and get back the proportion that was originally intended.  A couple of guys came to try measuring out a prototype.  Should be interesting to see this come together...

Wednesday: Renovation lessons learned (3/21/12)

OK.  Jack was right.  Putting things in see-through bins was an excellent idea.  If we really wanted to go looking for something, we could find it.

Jack was wrong.  The plastic bins didn't keep the mice out.  They actually only got into one bin - the one with the semisweet chocolate.  And that's the only thing they ate.  I guess the semisweet chocolate slowed that guy down enough for the trap to get him...

And it was really a bummer having to throw away almost every single pantry food item because they had been packed away for 14 months.