Before and After: Office Bookshelves

Thought I’d show off my shelves I made over. These are the ones I did back in March when I was working on my books.

They started off at basic black metal shelves that came from the old hospital here in Clarksville. When the new hospital was built what wasn’t taken over was donated to the Habatate for Humanity ‘ReStore’ shop. (I love that place!)

To start I sprayed two coats of Rustoleum metal primer. I think that first coat looked pretty cool… I’m going to remember that look for a later project!

Then came three coats of Vespar paint from Lowes. I took time to let each cure up before putting on the next coat.

Here’s the finished shelves; in my office and loaded up. I even have space to work with!

May Renovation: Front Porch (Before)

It's not really a "porch". My grandmother would have called it a "stoop". But whatever you call it... it needs help! 

 I love my front door. We had that put in shortly after we moved in. The wood is walnut.

 From ground to top the porch is 20 inches high. The first step up is 8 inches, the second is 12!!! Seriously!! What were they thinking?

 A good power washing is in its future...

This little table just does not work. I'm thinking something with a bit of height would be nice. (The old boots are going to be repurposed as bird houses.) 

And this has to be hid! 

The lights stay but I've got to get that pollen cleaned off. We installed these shortly after we moved in. This style is the direction I want to go with the house. 

The fossil stays too but I want to make it a nice accent. (BTW, it is a Lithostrotion collected in Montgomery Co., TN. We have a lot of these around here, tho not usually this big. We have our 'secret' location where we can find these grand daddy corals.)

I'm not going to do too much, because in the future we are going to build on a nice full porch. But I want to make my entrance attractive and welcoming.

Amish Plant Auction

Last year Best Friend went to a plant auction in the Amish community north of here in Kentucky. We've been planning for a year to make it in '10. I'd made up a list of what I wanted for this summer's yard work so I would not get distracted.

Yesterday was the day!!

Despite the fact we had severe thunderstorms (and a nearby tornado!) there were a lot of people there.

There were Amish folks who came in many kinds of conveyances...

...and "English" with their autos to buy trees, shrubs, flowers and vegetable plants.

 It was held in an open pavilion about the size of 2 gymnasiums. At either end there was a platform where plants were being sold. There were so many plants being sold so fast it was crazy.

 

 Plants were on pallets that were wheeled up to the auction area. There would be a line of 4 or 5 pallets waiting for a turn. They were steadily brought up to the auction area by Amish boys. I was impressed at how responsible they were and how hard they worked with no attitudes.

There were so many beautiful plants being sold.

I'd look over what was in the line-up, then head to the other end of the building to check out what was there. I must have trotted 5 miles yesterday going from one to the other.

 

Some prices were crazy good and some were crazy bad (you could get it cheaper at Walmart or Lowes!). Since I've been pricing out what I wanted, I stopped bidding on a lot of things. All in all, I think I did pretty good.

And it was as much fun to "people watch" as it was to bid on plants.

Here's what I came back with:

 

Seven 5 gallon azalea bushes for $8.50 each.

 Twelve 1 gallon forsythia bushes for .50c each!!

 Two smoke trees for $8 each.

 One patio peach tree for $15.

 Two hanging petunia baskets for $5 each.

A BUNCH of herbs for about $2 each.

Ten upright mystery flowers for .75c each. I gave half to BF and she gave me half of her cascading mystery flowers. So now we can make several planters.

Plus 4 birdhouses for only $5 each.

So pretty soon I'll be doing some planting! (Gotta finish with that shed first!)

Paper Tiger Update

FILING - Well, this one hit a speed bump. Some family responsibilities of a serious nature needed to come first. However, everything has been sorted thru and culled. All that remains is to drop each piece of paper into its very own file in the file cabinet.

IDEA NOTEBOOKS - This hit the same speed bump. I have some small rose colored totes that I've sorted the clippings into and will get them into their respective notebooks as time allows.

CARDS - Yep... had more than Hallmark... And I am now down to 2 small file boxes: one has general note/thinking about you cards and the other has every other type you can imagine - with dividers to keep them organized. AND I won't be buying Christmas cards this year. I have enough 'leftover' cards from the years past to send out to everyone in 2010 (might even have some leftover!). What remained filled a gallon zippie. These went over to Best Friend for her to pick thru with instructions if there were any left they were NOT to come back to me!

BOOKS - That is done!!! My shelves are painted and filled with my books. As I shelved, I culled thru the books and have several boxes to donate to various places.

MAGAZINES - They are pretty much done. I go thru them when I'm relaxing or waiting on something. Of course going thru them adds to the filing and notebook pile. LOL

So all things considered, I'm fairly happy with what I've gotten done up to this point. Systems are in place and organizing is being done.

And that is what I wanted to accomplish most.

Projects for Home and Yard

My monthly goal project has been working so well I've decided to expand the idea to some other areas I'm having trouble focusing on -- doing some room renovations in our home and working on a few landscaping projects.

I'm going to work on a specific area of my home every month. And I'll have a project in the yard every month thru October. They may not be a big project, but it will be a complete project. That should bring about some serious progress.

April is kind of the 'kick off'. My goal of cleaning out the shed spills into my project areas. I want to make the shed area cute on the inside and out.



This area could be very cute with a window box and a bench...

How do you like that pile of "stuff" around it? The wagon wheel came from Himself's family homestead in ND, the dark tubs are planter boxes for my new Asian style arbor (you'll see that when I work on the front walk next month), the deep sink is the one I took out of the laundry room - I'm going to repurpose it as part of my planting bench that will be behind the shed, and the metal leaning at the corner is the rest of the arbor.

And can't you just see a row of lilacs blooming along here? That will sure look better than my arbor pieces, wheelbarrow, and trash can! LOL

Guest Blogger: Himself - "Lost and Found"

Since cleaning and organizing the shed is my April goal, I thought you might get a chuckle at this story Himself wrote a while back. It shows you what I'm up against...

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‘Lost and Found’

This month, instead of writing about some exotic place we have travelled to or some weird thing I’ve done, I’m going to write about a common thing—probably familiar to all families one way or the other: Collecting things...and then losing them!

In this phase of our lives, Teri and I have decided to ‘downsize’. For men and women that can mean different things! A woman will pull everything out of everywhere, and ‘start paring down’—having two like items in her hands and deciding which one needs to go. Then follow through get rid of it. A man? He usually decides to get rid of/buy something in two circumstances; when it is time to buy a bigger (and cooler) item, or when he can’t find the old one. In this family the latter is usually the case.

And Teri finally got sick of it.

In Teri’s ‘clean fest’ she started at the top of the house and worked down. Me? I stayed out of the way. (My ‘den’ was an exception—outside of asking me to tidy it up, she says that my stuff can ‘sit there until our Lord returns for all she cares...’) Finally Teri worked her way to the garage. Uh oh... Guy Territory. But then I got to thinking, “Man...I haven’t managed to find the ol’ so-and-so item this entire year. Perhaps I will just LET Teri go for it...but keep an eye on her in case she grabs something important that she might want to get rid of.” (Men, we understand ‘important’!)

Most things in a garage have a place. Sort of. But some items are small enough that they just get lost in the shuffle. Like screwdrivers. And perhaps socket sets—at least certain socket sizes. No matter how much you promise to ‘put it back where it belongs’, you don’t (at least I don’t). “But,” you convince yourself, “it isn’t that big a deal because how much can a new screwdriver cost?” Especially at a yard sale! So you go out and get another. Over time something happens--you end up with more screwdrivers than a sane man can want. But you still lose them. You console yourself that ‘hey, look around, I’ll be able to find at least one!’ And you do. Good enough.

Socket sets? Not as cheap as lost screwdrivers. The three sizes you use most disappear one by one, or worse--roll into some part of your vehicle that you can’t get into with adult size hands. By the third socket gone you can’t stand it anymore so, after convincing your wife that ‘you just CAN’T have a socket set with the three most important sizes missing!’, you head whistling to the hardware store or down to the nearest yard sale.

(It’s best not to start whistling until you are out of her hearing range.)

Well, as happened here this summer, there came that time when Wife wanted to do that thorough garage cleaning I mentioned. To convince Husband ‘he was helping’, she had me lift the heavy stuff while she sorted and organized everything else...and in her sorting she finds every blooming screwdriver and partial socket set. Teri? She is subtle. She just piles up screwdrivers and sockets into neat little piles that get bigger and bigger and waits for me to notice. When I do, there is nothing to say. The whistling is over...

Teri, being practical, contemplates which yard sale she can dump some of these excess items on.

Trying to justify myself though, I asked her, “Is there ANY thing that women seem to have lots of lying around the home? You know--things that can get out-of-hand and that seem to multiply like rabbits? Perhaps items that even get passed around between woman to woman at social events or family gatherings?

Teri thought for a moment & said, “Tupperware”.

Thinking about it, I must say that I have seen more mismatched Tupperware rotate in and out of homes than any other item known to mankind...

...including screwdrivers.

April Goal - Operation Clean Sweep: Shed

I'm taking my decluttering and organizing show on the road. A very short road. More like a driveway. My driveway.

April is my month to tackle the dreaded shed. I'll also be doing some work on the garage as there are shed and yard things in there too.



Last December when Himself brought in the yard things for the winter, we hadn't gotten the shelves built to put them on. No vertical storage space means that every little bit of floor space gets stuffed full. Stuffed full floor space means I can't reach the shelves we built in the back of the shed to put away things from the garage.

Did you ever see the TV show "Clean Sweep"? In the show, the Clean Sweep team would descend on some lucky person's home and remove EVERYTHING from 2 rooms. An organizing expert (Peter Walsh) would help them get rid of the junk and then organize the things that remained. The building expert would make nice storage units for the things to go into. The designing expert would make it all look good.

We're going to "clean sweep" without the expert help. Empty -- create storage space -- cull junk -- bring back the remaining things and put away in their new home. Oh yeah! (And once the shed is done, I can get the extra stuff out of the garage!)

Stayed tuned to see the organizing ideas I've found put to use!

A Taste of Spring

I have truly enjoyed having a snowy winter this year. I've made snow men, thrown snow balls, and taken tons of beautiful photos. But now I am done with winter weather.

Because it's March and that means Spring. The crocuses are blooming and the daffodil leaves are 5 inches high. Tulips are peeking out. And I'm seeing some mystery bulbs coming up too. Don't you just love flowering surprises!?

Yesterday really gave me a case of "Spring Fever". I spent the day at the Nashville Lawn and Garden Show. Oh my! I am so ready to dig in the dirt. The show is held at the State Fairgrounds (which I heard yesterday has been sold for development!! How sad it that!!!). There was building after building of landscaper displays, flower shows, garden clubs, and booths selling yard pretties and gardening equipment.

Some of the landscaping displays had ideas that I will modify and use in my yard.

I have several display stones in my yard and I love this presentation. I know just how I'm going to use the idea.


This rustic pergola is perfect for our fire pit area. And I shouldn't have too much trouble finding the cedar logs in areas they are bulldozing for building on. Have chainsaw... will cut!

This idea with the logs will work for up there too. When they eventually rot, it's cheap (free) and easy to replace.

Isn't this the cutest little display idea? I'm seeing something like this in front of my shed.

I just love this sweet little sitting area. I have several places where I could use this idea.

This fountain garden is a bit European formal for my home but isn't it elegant?

This checker board of ground cover mosses is such a neat idea. It can be modified to so many different designs.

There was a lovely orchid display and 4 or 5 booths selling them. I love orchids but don't think I could keep them alive. I have to settle for silk orchids and photos.

Another display was of beautiful and unusual floral arrangements.

This one was different!

This tropical arrangement made me want to book a cruise to Hawai'i!

Now this feels like SPRING! I could do something like this. The base is a wide clear bowl. Then the blooming branches and tulips are in individual clear glasses set in the bowl. I think the flowers were held in place with clear glass stones.

Pretty as a picture!

Traditional. Love the orange and purple.

This one makes me think of an old abandoned farm house.

Love the orchids and feathers!

This one caught my eye.

And I just couldn't resist snapping this photo! No one was going to tell him what not to do!!!