Work Week

There is more than normal to report on this week. The warmer weather has allowed us to get quite a lot done on both inside and outside projects.

The first topic concerns furniture. Several months back we had taken three items to a local Mennonite woodworking shop for repair: Pam’s fretwork, a table, and a plant stand.

The table, a gift from my Aunt Gina several decades ago, was a bit wobbly. The shop rebuilt the corners where the legs attach to the top and converted the mounting from a singe bolt in each leg to a pair of bolts in each leg. The table is now quite steady and is serving as our main dining room table.

The plant stand was originally purchased in Leadville, Colorado, in the 1970’s. Supposedly it had come out of an old church. The top was in bad shape so the local shop replaced the old wood with a new platform and covered it with a dark formica. It now looks quite good and is in our living room.

The prize item, Pam’s fretwork, was purchased last Fall and had two problems: one end had been cut narrower than the other, plus there was a split in one of the curved elements. The shop replaced both ends so they match and even added a decorative cut at the bottom of each end, a nice touch. The split was repaired and you would never know it had been there.

Pam was delighted with the quality of the repairs on all three items, and the cost was only $70.00 total.

Here is Pam staining the fretwork in preparation for hanging it in the parlor bedroom:

After the stain dried we hung the piece in the bedroom:

Here is a wider “room view” of the finished wall. (Note that the right side was the corner Pam was painting in my last post.)

A few stuffed animals have been added to the shelving:

The bedroom remodel is nearly complete. Pam wants to add a mural and more photos to the west wall (which is the right-hand wall in the room view photo above). This work be covered in a future post, when backordered items arrive and further craft projects are completed.

Warm weather allowed us to kick off a number of outside projects. Last Thursday we headed out to a couple of greenhouses to pick out plantings for the yard. We came home with:

1. A Honeylocust tree,
2. Three Lilacs – one each white, dark purple, and medium lavender;
3. Ten Arborvitae starts (these will eventually serve as a windbreak),
4. A Spirea shrub,
5. Two raised planting bed frames.

Which meant that Friday was a “digging” day as we set out the materials where Pam wanted them planted, then it was up to me to dig the holes and get planting.

Here are a few of the results:

The raised bed frames will eventually hold two types of plants, pumpkins in one frame and watermelon in the other.

One of the gift stores had this appropriate (for us) sign:

I have been digging dandelions out of the lawn but the sheer numbers forced me to buy some Scotts Weed and Feed that should kill the yellow buggers. I’ve been waiting for a rainy day, as the directions indicate application should be when the lawn is wet. Today it’s raining!

Pam took on another outdoor project, defining the flower bed around a pair of our oak trees.

There are a lot of plantings coming up around the house and in the yard. We will have to wait to see what these turn out to be; many look like Hostas but some are not familiar to us. We did identify these Grape Hyacinths that I discovered in the middle of what used to be a garden patch:

These have been marked with small flags for eventual relocation to a more appropriate spot. The same will have to be done with other plants as they can be identified. For instance, bleeding hearts have started to bloom in a flowerbed of weeds and dandelions next to the garage!

Pam had transplanted the Mary Lynn Memorial Garden tulips last fall and they have begun to bloom.

We were pleased these survived the foundation sealing project and hope they look better next year!

The dogs have been spending more time outside, and Blondie took advantage of the recent warm temps to catch some z-z-z-z’s:

I was able to clean out a corner of the garage and get one of my workbenches out of storage. The extra drawer space provided by the workbench is welcome and I can unpack more of my tools and accessories.

All told it was a busy week with work done on both inside and outside projects.

Photo archive

This week’s archive photo is from a past December and features our children Felicity and Toby visiting with their grandfather, George.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny:

Our latest pest invasion in the house is bumblebees. Add that to the wasps occasionally coming up through the floor vents. (How many pests overwintered in the basement anyway?) No sign of mice at present, and always on the lookout for bats, of course.

Happy Trails.