For The Journey Not just the destination…

I presented my landscape design in class today, and I’m pleased with the results. It’s going to take a lot of work, but I think it’s completely doable – it will just take a while. The design my professor drew on the board is the entry photo.

The first stage will be to put in a retaining wall in the front to take care of the giant hole and slope. He liked my idea to extend my porch across the front area, and suggested putting lattice on the bottom part to close it off. Then add some new shade plants in the front flowerbeds – hydrangea at the corner; Japanese pieris and skimmia on the right; and yews, hosta, lentin rose, and evergreen ferns on the left.

The next part will be to work on the back patio. He liked my half moon idea for a brick patio, but added onto that with a wood deck that goes one step down. It would be built around the trees and have the main staircase curve around to the back. Planted near the base of the trees going through the patio would be ferns and climbing hydrangea to add something at eye level. Container plants could be used to hide the air conditioner.

Then, to add interest along the driveway, plant azaleas, bleeding hearts, heurchera, solomon seal, goats beard, oak leaf hydrangea, lily of the valleys, and joe pye. Filling in along the wooded sides of the yard would be red buckeye, native azaleas, ferns, rhododendron, and mountain laurel. For color along the creek edge, he suggested Virginia dayflower, lady slipper, snake root, and oak leaf hydrangeas. Ground cover in the back could be vinca minor, rather than grass that needs to be mowed, and along the back of the driveway where the ivy covers the slope, he suggested pachysandra.

They say that the color of the rooms where you eat should remind you of food you like…

This weekend, my kitchen went from tang powder peach to banana cream yellow – with a stop off at cream cheese white in between.  Picking out a color for a room is alot harder than I thought, and my first choice ended up being much lighter than I wanted.  It looked like an unpainted room.  Luckily, my brother showed great patience with me, and we painted it again to a more yellow shade.  The room now has a warm, fresh glow.  The room seemed to blend together with peach walls, cabinets, floors, and counters, but now the yellow gives a little contrast.

This past week, my dad and my brother have been in town to help me work on my house. Besides their big project of adding insulation and flooring in my attic, they installed walkway lights and cleared out the wood piles in the back of my yard. You can see some of what was stacked up for the trash in the entry photo.

This weekend, I got to help my brother paint the kitchen and upstairs bathroom. I’ll post photos tomorrow when they’re dry. Dad helped Thomas replace his rear brakes on his car. I feel like we got so much accomplished this weekend – if I didn’t have Dad and Dane’s help, this would have taken me months.

All four of us went to see Perpetual Groove on Saturday night. I had heard of them before, but I wasn’t real familiar with them. The group was a pretty good jamband, but I’m not sure how much my dad and brother liked them. We still had fun getting cleaned up and out of the house for a bit.  I really enjoyed watching the audience – I was shocked that the average age was probably 18 years old.

Other than that, Thomas and I visited the Unitarian Universalist church again this weekend, we made a ton of trips to Home Depot, and I have eaten so much junk food over the past couple weeks that I feel like I’m going to float away.