On the Other Hand, It Was

Here it is over a year later, and I haven't updated on my progress with my front room.

No, I didn't fall off the ladder and concuss myself.

No, I'm not done with the room yet.

Yes, I did strip the inside of the front door yet another time and redo it.  This time I skipped tinting the shellac altogether.  Instead, I ordered some dark Bysakhi buttons and brushed on the usual five or six coats.  I think it looks pretty nice now.

This picture was taken, of course, last year before the wallpaper was removed, the rest of the woodwork was stripped and sanded, the ceiling repaired and painted, and before the walls went through not one, not two, but three faux-finish paint jobs.










Here's version No. 1, with a frieze in Valspar "Brilliant Metals" gold (two shades) and the field in the Brilliant Metals over Olympic One semigloss tinted Valspar color "Hazy Dawn."  That was last March.

Way too intense.  See my Instagram feed at kate_horstman to see how incredibly yellow it was.

People liked it.  I got nice comments from designers in Italy and other cool places.  But it didn't work for me.








So, version No. 2.  Painted it over with the Valspar "Honeymilk" color I was going to use for the trim, thinned down the gold glaze a little, and tried again.

This was popular on Instagram, too.  I painted the trim, and even got my stencil cut and started my acanthus leaf border.

That took me to late April.  I tried to like it, and it would have been really cool in a bigger space in a different house.  But the bright yellow-gold made the red William Morris wallpaper in the living room look muddy.  It just didn't play nicely with the rest of the downstairs.  Aaaaghhh!!!

What-to-do, what-to-do?  Well, back before that fateful night in 2013 when I snagged that mistinted gallon of Brilliant Metals Gold for $4.50 from the paint desk at Lowe's, I had always thought I'd paint my front room a pale green.   I'd dropped that idea because I thought the dining room wallpaper had a greenish tint and two light green rooms would be too much.  But on the wall the DR wallpaper doesn't look green in the least.  So for the front room, maybe that color was back in the running.

Brought chips home and thought and compared and thought some more.  Memorial Day, I picked up a gallon of Olympic One in Valspar "Lunar Tide."  But I did nothing with it till the end of June.  That's when I slapped a coat of primer on the yellow-gold and started over.  The Lunar Tide went on in mid-July.

It looks a lot grayer in photos than it really is.

Lived with that for a month or so.  It got along better than the yellow gold had done, but it lacked something.  Depth, maybe.  And just in time, I discovered that our Lowe's was selling off the quart jars of Rustoleum "Metallic Accents" glaze in Sea Shell for around $5.50.  I'd looked at it when it was marked down to $22.97, but that was still too much.  $5.50 I could manage, and I snagged a jar (should have grabbed both of them, but hindsight and all that).

And after experimenting a bit and three or four applications, this is what I came up with:

Didn't like the way I'd positioned the acanthus leaf border on the long section of wall, so I primed it over and did it again.  It's a lot more balanced now.

And here's more or less what the room looks like today.  

It looks a lot better on the phone . . .

Anyway, that's the update.  The reason I'm blogging about this now is a) guilt, and b) the fact that I was about to post a gripe about this project on a non-house-reno-related forum, and I thought, "Blast, girl, if you're going to spend time doing that, why not do it on the houseblog where someone might actually care?"

And here's my gripe:  That the major, sexy parts of this job are done, and the tasks that are left are fiddling and tedious and inglorious and altogether necessary.  Meaning I have to replace some little pieces of busted baseboard and shoe moulding.  And install a floor outlet behind the piano.  And clean the paint drips off the laminate floor.

And before any of that, I have ten windows to make new stop moulding for, which means twenty copes.  And I hate cutting copes!

But using quarter round for window stops, coping and all, will be easier and safer than ripping 1-1/4" stop mould down to 5/8" wide.  And it'll look cool.  I'll paint it the same color as the cornice so it'll stand out, and once I get the old shutters stripped, I'll paint them the same color and hang 'em up in the front windows.  Something like this:

But oh, heavens, I wish this project was done!  Maybe now I've gotten this rant out of my system I'll go down and cut some 45-degree angles for the jambs.  I got the head mouldings, all ten of them, measured out and cut the other day.

Begging your pardon if this post is a mess.  I haven't the time to make it beautiful.

Wheel-Spinning

Sitting in its corner, pretending to be done

It will probably shock you to learn that the tall living room bookcase I started to redo in black last Christmas still isn't done.

No, I guess it wouldn't shock you to learn that the tall living room bookcase I started to redo in black last Christmas still isn't done.

Oh, it's refinished, finally.  Took forever to strip off the crummy oil-based black paint job over white primer, but sometime this summer I finally got that done.  And about a week ago I finally got the black shellac to the point where I like it.

Give it a couple-three days to harden up and cure, and it should be all ready to reinsert the shelves and put the books back in. Right?

But what do you do when you can't remember where you put the shelf hardware or how you even held up the shelves in the first place?

This bookcase has had many shelf-support solutions in its long career.  It came with these bent heavy-gauge wires whose ends fit into little holes in the sides of the bookcase.  Grooves were routed into the side edges of the particle-board shelves to receive the bent part of the support wires.  Trouble is, that method didn't keep the bookcase sides from pushing out from the pressure of all the books and records I keep in it.

The round piece is brown under the shellac, of course

So back in the '80s a woodworker friend of mine retrofitted the shelves each with four plastic disks that receive a screw which fits into a plastic sleeve sunk into the carcase sides.  This did a good job of keeping the whole thing together, but didn't allow for any adjustments to the shelf spacing. From photos I took before I unloaded this bookcase I know the shelves didn't all correspond with the sleeve locations.  And I definitely remember there being some brass shelf spoons I took off.  But I couldn't remember where the aitch I put them last December.

By Thursday or Friday of this week I found them, in the tray of my toolbox.  But only four of them, enough for one shelf only.  And I can't find but three of the twelve black screws I should have for the other three shelves.

And maybe it doesn't matter whether I can find any of this or not.  Because . . .  because . . .  even with some replacement screws I found (intending to paint the heads black, no problem), with the black finish I can't see to get the screws into the sleeves in the sides of the carcase!!

I've been trying the last three days, and it doesn't matter:  Night, day, with a worklight, without a worklight-- with my lousy eyesight I simply cannot see where anything is.  And yes, I shellacked the white plastic sleeves black as well.

Dig the scratches.  And the plastic sleeves I can't seem to hit.

I've already made a mess of my new shellac finish, since the plastic cams or whatever they are that are routed into the shelves have a little protrusion that fits into the sleeve on the bookcase sides.  That didn't matter when it was finished natural teak, but now that it's shellac, I've got scratch marks all over.

Actually, the only reason why I'm not throwing tools across the room and screaming at the top of my lungs is because it is shellac, and therefore repairable.

But I still can't get those screws lined up.

So what should I do?  Get my friend Hannah* to come hold the worklight so maybe I can get at least two of those screw-in shelves in, and thereby return the favor for all the weekends I helped her with some computer work she had to figure out?

Maybe I should invest in some more packs of black metal shelf supports and put all the shelves on those. Oh, and Dremel off the protrusions so they slide in smoothly.

But then the bookcase might go back to falling apart on me once it's reloaded.

Or maybe I could solve that problem by working out something with wires and turnbuckles that'll go behind the books and keep the sides together.

It's too damned complicated having to do all this for a 35 year old Scandinavian Modern particle-board bookcase.  After all, isn't my time worth something?  Better I should have just chucked it and bought a new one.

But I've been online again looking at the price of new ones, and my time isn't worth what they would cost me.  $300 and up for things that aren't built as well as the one I've got.

Maybe I will look into turnbuckles.  It'll give it a high-tech industrial feel.  Just right for my Victorian/Arts and Crafts living room.  Right.

Meanwhile, I'm feeling very, very stupid.  And spending a lot of time I don't have just spinning my wheels.

Dabbling in Dirt

Having considered the matter these past few days, I've determined that literal dirt, like the figurative kind, is best kept to oneself.

It started with an idea I had last Wednesday.  Obviously, when it came to the excess dirt in the south garden bed, shovelling it into the cart and then bagging it up or whatever was not going to work.  Then, too, the possibility of coming with a pickup truck seemed increasingly remote.  If I were going to get this soil to my friends' house, I'd have to think of another way.

Well, how about this?

I took one of my big wheeled trash bins, and lined it with a 45 gallon lawn bag.  I then shovelled the dirt into it-- twelve scoops per bag worked out all right--then wheeled it over to the side of the yard, tipped the trash bin over, hauled out the dirtbag (sorry, couldn't resist), and slung it up on the rock mulch under the Norway maple.  Where it could lie pending further ideas.

I think there's 16 or 17 bags here, all told

Did three bags like this on Wednesday, and was thinking of asking my friends if they knew anybody with a truck who'd be willing and able to help.  But Thursday came and I was looking at my front yard.  At the need for soil in the new garden bed where the sod as dug out.  At the rest of the lawn where I've dug out all that soil to try to root out the nutsedge.  I'd planned the make up the difference with compost, but unless I wanted to commit myself to a major tilling operation, that wouldn't make sense.  Even if the yellowjackets let me get to it, it wouldn't make sense to try to grow grass in compost.

So I shifted gears.  Mentally, I mean.  I kept on loading up the bags-- even though it was raining when I started and I wasn't all that thrilled about it-- but with a different destination in mind.  For while I dislike being an Indian-giver (i.e., making promises then going back on them), I see I need the dirt from my backyard in my front yard more than my friends in New Brighton do in theirs.  And as depressing and onerous and Volga-boatmen-convicts-hauling-the-barges a process somehow schlepping those bags of dirt to my front yard would be, trying to boost them into the back of my PT Cruiser and unloading them again in New Brighton would be even worse.  Not to say impossible doing it single-handedly, but close to it.

Got the tomato bed flattened out before time to head for work. So at least that was done.

Almost there

That afternoon, too, I talked on the phone to my friends, explained the haulage problem, and begged off.  Happily, it was okay with them-- I think half of it on their part was wanting to do me a favor and give me a place to put the dirt.

That was one very heavy problem solved, or at least eliminated.  Still had to figure out how to get the bags into my cart to get them round to the front.

But today, I discovered I could turn a defect into an advantage.  A defect in my backyard walkway, that is.  There's a place by the Norway maple where one walkway slab sits a good inch or more higher than its neighbor.  So if I tipped the cart over on its front end and dragged a bag of dirt into it,

I could brace the wheels against the walkway lippage, like so

and pull it upright with the bag in it.

That done, I could empty the dirt into the cart, ready to take around front.

So good for me, I got seven bags of vegetable garden dirt (primarily a mix of compost and sand) into the new front garden bed.

While I was at it, I rejiggered the brick border at the toe of the slope so it'd come out square,

Swiped a couple of matching bricks from another part of the yard

and mixed the remainder of a carton of Preen into the lower part of the new garden bed.

We'll see if it does any good-- it was pretty old.

If I had nothing better to do I'd also figure out how much the average shovelful of that soil weighs and calculate how much dirt I moved.

But I do have better things to do.  Like plant stuff in the dirt I shifted.  But that's a separate post.

It Never Fails

Well, after studying over it and contem- plating it and poking at it ever since Memorial Day week- end, I put in a plant order with Wayside Gardens early this morning.

Was not that easy a process.  The biggest hassle was trying to come up to the minimum order to qualify for free shipping while incorporating only plants that'd make the biggest impact.  If I were flush with cash I would gladly have sailed on past that benchmark and loaded up on shrubs and perennials at up to 70% off.  But no.  Even as it is, I'm making this order on faith that this investment will turn out to be worth it later.  Made my final decisions early Thursday morning and was ready to submit my order, once I would receive the free-shipping promo code they were supposed to send me via email for signing up on the site.  But there was some sort of hitch and the code never came.  Waited two days, and by last night some of the plants I wanted were sold out.  Annoying.  I'd get even more annoyed, except that my computer has been working really slowly lately and my email software is even worse.  It's just possible that the registration message to Wayside never got out.

Never mind.  The plants I wanted most were still available, and I came up with replacements for the ones I couldn't get.  And found another promo code via a Google search that was better than the one I was trying to get before.

So the order is on its way, as of 1:55 this morning (I know it is; I got the confirmation).  It includes

• (2) Berberis "Helmond Pillar" European barberry shrubs (to flank the gate from the back yard on the east side of the house)



• (3) "Royal Candles" speedwell plants 

(3) "Blacknight" Alcea rosea hollyhock plants (as I pursue my never-ending quest for something tall for the back of the front border)

(3) "Millennium" Allium ornamental onion plants

(1) "Ostbo Red" Kalmia latifolia mountain laurel shrub (Pennsylvania's state flower-- this'll go over by the west fence, probably where the useless woodpile now is), and

(1)  Asteromea mongolica Kalimeris double Japanese aster.

All at very good end-of-season closeout prices.

So this noon I walk over to our town's annual Garrison Day fair, and I make a point of visiting the booths that have plants for sale.  Got a new rosemary plant (to replace my old potted one I underwatered and killed over the winter) and some basil seedlings at one.  But at this same booth what else did I see?  Three (count 'em, 3) "Blacknight" Alcea rosea hollyhock plants, in gallon pots, for sale for a buck less each than the pint-potted ones I ordered last night.  It never fails!

Just for a moment, I considered running home and calling to see if I could cancel that part of my order, and replace them with something else to keep the discount, and . . .  No, forget it.  What's done is done.  

A grassy mess

And on a brighter note, what else is done as of this afternoon is rooting the grass out of the ground- cover roses and the ornamental deadnettle in the front border.  Figured I should do that before I plant anything more.  It's true the thorns will get you if they can, but I discovered that if you pull the trailers aside with a hand-held garden fork, the weight of the handle will keep them out of the way as you weed.  So the flower bed got a hair cut.

Gradually pulling it clean

Cleaned up

And I got the first third of the open compost heap turned.  Which is to say I pulled the brush off it and cut up the sticks to give to a friend to use for kindling.  Got too dark to do anything else this evening.

The compost heap is next to the fence.  The pile in front of it is turves from the front yard.

Kindling

What else?  I picked up a used thatch rake Thursday afternoon but haven't used it yet, and the trash haulers took the bags of nutsedge-contaminated soil I put in the trash to go to the landfill (not into the borough compost pile!).  So far, so good.

What I'm hoping now is that the plant order takes its time getting here.  I have so much to do before I can get them in.  And I still have those lupines, and the broccoli and eggplant I bought in May to plant, and the herbs I got today at the fair.  Not to mention the vegetable beds have to be cleared for seeds, and tomorrow I'm getting some tomato plants from the guy the kindling is going to.  So much to do, and I'm still fighting nutsedge in the front garden, and well, you know, life is so comic that the Wayside order will probably show up the day after tomorrow.  It never fails.

Marking Boundaries

Gratuitous existing front border shot

I don't need to tell chronic house renovators how often one can make a reasoned, cerebral decision regarding phasing on a particular project, then suddenly change one's mind for any reason or none at all.

In my case, I'd decided to put off doing much planting in my new front garden bed until the path and seating area could be done. But then I came across a really good sale on plant materials at Wayside Gardens' online store, which included items I've wanted for years.  Should I?  Could I?  Would I be more foolish to spend the money on plants now, or crazier to wait and risk the things I wanted not being available in the future?

I've been leaning towards doing it . . . provided I can come to a decision on the minimum amount of plant material to qualify for the free shipping offers that seem to come and go on the site . . .  But if I'm going to go through with it, I have to know exactly where I can put the shrubs and perennials I might be getting.

Which means defining where the shrubs and perennials won't get put.  So this afternoon out I went with the tape measure, the string, and a handful of millwork off cuts to use for stakes, to lay out the area that will be paved.

Since I'm working with curves I had to use a lot of stakes, and I ran out before I got to the other side of the bed.  Had to use metal plant stakes, and broken-off paint stirrers (which don't stand up too well). It has occurred to me that those pieces of 5/8" painted quarter round I put out for the Large Item Pick-Up three or four weeks ago could have been cut up for layout stakes.  And plant stakes, too, for that matter.  Oh, well.  Inutiles regrets.

Didn't take too long to get the general shape down and marked, a couple hours or so, though I had to tweak the shape of the path a time or two.

I tested the width with my lawn mower, and initally it wasn't wide enough.  No problem, move the stakes and shift the line over.

Once the stakes were in the right position, took the string and marked the line on both sides.

Frankly, I wish there was a longer path in relation to the size of the seating area, but it is what it is.  And how I pave it will make a difference.  Right now, my hope and dream is to do the paving in flagstones.  If I can get them free from some friend or acquaintance's land, all the better.  But that means the boundary line doesn't have to be precise.  And I want the flag at the west end to intrude into the grass past the brick border.

It'll also need a teeny-tiny "retaining wall" at the south edge, since the ground slopes as much as 6" in the 6' or so this area will be wide.  Rough ashlar limestone blocks?  Or nice Beaver County breadloaf-sized roundy rocks?  Whatever's cheaper!

Once the paving area was laid out, I had just enough time before getting changed for work to move the brick border to reflect the bigger radius I scribed and grubbed out yesterday.  This time I broke the line where the path will emerge, so only a couple non-matching bricks were needed.  Nice.

I think the enlarged curve looks a lot better.  What do you think?