Pizza Oven

Fully functional (May 2012), not quite complete.

Backyard Fort

Completed summer 2011

New Laundry Room

Completed Fall 2011

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Here is the first of many pictures as I attempt to highlight the last two years.
Here's the new basement bathroom completed during the fall of 2011.

I Win

This week has been a test of wills and determination. Today universe I am the winner. I win, suck it. Yes, you leaked my toilet in the basement, the same night that we discovered our central air was leaking. I did not despair. I tackled the toiled with an arsenal of weaponry to leave Genghis Khan quaking in his boots.

Alas the weapons would not prevail. The frequent douses of urination had corroded the bolts. But the next night I came at you with a locking wrench and WD40. Yay, you gave way to me, after much grunting (which is usually reserved for sitting on the toilet not laying on top of it wrenching our the bolts). I wrestled you free and replaced the weakened seal broken by large arses such as mine. I prevail, not leaking and believe you me I put that toilet through it's paces.

I next tackled our leaky central air and we soon discovered the output nozzle was blocked. So we removed that only to have the unit belch out the contents that must have been gathering for quite a number of years. There were some problems with the seal of the nozzle as it's plastic and the output pipe is metal. I could not seal this thing for the life of me, and I really couldn't seal it once it cracked off in the pipe. !@#$. After a couple of minutes, I was able to remove the contents of the broken nozzle. Off to The Home Depot where I found a replacement part. This part was still not going in straight and I didn't know what to do. Until I had an idea. The output pipe is dripping into the Ale Pail, which is hooked up to the output hose draining into our sump pump.

Screw you universe, I win.


P.S. - Universe if you could see to it that you don't mention this to Brian and Patrick R., I would greatly appreciate it. I think this is somehow against the law of beer gods, but I'm not sure.

Backyard Renovation

Last year I was somewhat rushed to get the backyard completed before the NARI tour (first weekend in May). The landscape designer waited until the VERY last possible moment to do any of the work in the back because it was so cold there was a fear our plants would be given a death sentence just so we could have a completed backyard for the tour. Trying to plant anything the last week in April is tough in Wisconsin because there really isn't a whole lot of plant matter available. Kudos to my mother who was able to locate almost all of my perennials needed. The day that we did the flower install (I did the flowers, the landscapers did the bushes and prepared the beds - basically all the hard work) I still needed six grasses to complete the design. For the sake of time we went to a local nursery and were able to get the six grasses. Since they were the only six grasses in stock (left over from a job recently done) I wasn't too picky. I'm guessing that I didn't even read the tag. Last year the grasses were perfect, not too big or full, just perfect.

There is a saying amongst gardeners about perennials: the first year they sleep, the second year they creep, the third year they leap. Well, I think my grasses skipped year two and did their leaping last week.
This needed to be dealt with, and fast. There is a lot of pretty stuff back there you can't even see!
So, the question then became what exactly to do with these Jurassic Park sized grasses. I had about a dozen different ideas but finally settled on tearing up the side of the house that faces Jake and Tonya. This bed really doesn't have a focus or purpose. We used to have a really pretty vine on the trellis called a silver lace until the Japanese Beatles ate it all. There was a small hops that we had going but as soon as I had Brian's blessing to dig it up the bed cleared out. Since I don't really do a very good job of maintaining this bed, moving the grasses here seemed like a good idea.

Another "before" shot

Turned out this was a much harder job than I anticipated and needed the help of my three men.

Here's where the grasses ended up. I hope they take, Tonya is thrilled with how it turned out. Plus, it covers our strange, ugly, yet necessary sump pump set up. This is for our old, or original, sump pump.
Now we can actually see the butterfly garden! I hope to fill in vacated areas with appropriately sized grasses this week yet. One large grass remains for two reasons. 1. We only needed five plants for the side of the house and 2. We couldn't get it out. I'll deal with that problem another day...
The next plant on the chopping block may very well be my bee balm. While I think this plant is pretty I just have never had much luck with it. I'm already treating a nasty case of powdery mildew and it's only the end of June. This is the story of my relationship with bee balm. I'd like to replace the whole patch of it with pink coneflower. However, it's starting to bloom and I'm feeling guilty so maybe it will come out in the fall or as soon as the powdery mildew becomes too much to keep up with. The bee balm is directly behind where the grasses were so now with an increased air flow back maybe the mildew will be done for a little while.

Finally, here is the bed affectionately referred to as, "the Compromise." It became the recipient of a couple of plants that I didn't want to give away that were aside the house.

Weekend Warriors...

We have not stopped moving this weekend. You'd think that we would have moved everything back into the basement but alas, we didn't. You see, the weather was just too perfect for working outside to bother with jobs in the house. It rained Saturday morning so we were able to get the bookcase all put back together and that night we reinstalled the desk. Saturday afternoon, Sunday and Monday afternoon it was all work outside. The list of jobs to be completed outside is getting less and less so if the weather cooperates we should be, "maintaining and enjoying" by the end of next weekend.

I didn't take any "before" pictures but here is what we accomplished this weekend:

The ghetto trellis that was behind our garage is no more. After a substantial amount of nagging and convenient home projects by my brother and cousin, Brian was finally willing to do something about the disaster that was behind our garage. Granted, our garage sits almost right on the property line so there isn't much space to do anything which means little motivation on our part. There is still a disaster behind our garage but it's clearly not on our side of the property line. There is a rock wall that separates us from the guy behind us...can you see it in the picture?

This project should make my mother happy. Our neighbors and I cleaned out the entire back of our properties (I only took pictures of our side). I moved some grasses to the back of our property line and divided some hostas to fill in the empty spots. Pots full of impatiens are scattered around. There are still a crap load of weeds in the back but those are not on my side. Plus, in some circumstances weeds are better than the alternative. The disaster is behind those weeds too.

The area around the pergola and planters all got cleaned up and filled. In the background you can see my new chair, with a pot of wave petunias on it, for visual interest. The old chair had sat outside for at least 4 years and was falling apart. In fact, it fell apart into four or five pieces as I threw it away this afternoon. I might paint this one, I haven't decided yet. It very well might stay right where it is for 4 years.

This area, affectionately referred to as the "Great Compromise" by Brian and I, looks awesome so far. I thinned out the grasses and hostas and moved a planter/trellis to this side of the garage. I had a hard time getting things to grow where it was before so hopefully this location will be move successful. Right now there are some gorgeous peach colored putunias and morning glories planted in it.

We moved our little bistro set to the back door. We've actually had it here for a few weeks and I love it here. I can't believe I didn't think of this last year. The pots next to the stairs have my herbs in them. This seemed to be a good location last year so hopefully we'll continue to have luck. New this year is the hibuscus on the left.

Butterfly garden is growing...the delphiniums (in the back) are getting ready to open. Sadly, I think the butterfly bush is dead. The person at the greenhouse last year told me to be patient, that these plants look dead for much of the spring. Well, I'm giving it three more weeks and then I'm digging it up and buying a new one because I'm pretty sure it's dead. What's in three weeks you ask? The end of school!


Finally, our lilacs are blooming now. They are gorgeous.