It's Now or Never

This is one of those posts that I anticipated being so much better. However, I did not account for the exhaustion and the competition I would have against daylight to get this project done. So while I hate the thought of posting such an unexciting entry, I worked so hard last weekend that I hate not to talk about it. Not to mention that around here, not every project is glamorous. {enter Fergie ear worm} Take this paragraph as a hint that a) the pics came out horrible for something that should have made a big impact and b) this will be Part 1 of 2 once Spring hits and my hard work pays off with beautiful tulips and irises (I Hope!).

Anyway, with forecasted temperatures of 67 last Sunday (Nov 13th), I set off to work on the flower beds on the front of the house (after spending ALL DAY on Saturday painting The Kitchen [still a work in progress but will post pics soon]). We also just put down grass seed on Halloween! (There are baby grass sprouts popping up though!!)

The beds are already full of azaleas that bloomed pink in April or May when we were first stalking the house. As I have no azaleas over at The Old House, I recently learned that you have to prune them right after they bloom. I so missed the boat on that until this coming late Spring.

Not knowing what any of the other bushes were, I went ahead and pruned them a little. I also pulled out all of that ground cover which I think is Vinca. Not that I'm against Vinca, but the former owners were not into gardens so they put the stuff in every garden bed in lieu of flowers. I mean I get it, no ground showing no weeds, but I can make a LITTLE more effort than that....



This guy did not need much so I just trimmed him up a little. See the ground cover below him?





This one was shooting out everywhere so I clipped a bit more off him to give some shape.





Side of the house with weeds and lots and lots of Vinca.



Then I planned out and planted all of these special little guys I got from Brecks:

Iris - 25 bulbs
Monet Tulips - 60 bulbs
Queen of the Night - 20 bulbs
Apple Blossom Tulips - 25 bulbs
That's 130 bulbs for anyone who's counting!
PLUS 36 purple pansies I got that morning at Lowes and a Eucalyptus that I bought at Walmart over a month ago and forgot about (at least it's been rainy enough here to sustain it).
Digging trenches and placing them in the trenches is by far easier than using a bulb planter and putting each bulb in one by one. The pictures don't look like it but I did dig the appropriate 6 inches deep.

Once the leaves stop falling I will put mulch down for added protection and anxiously gladly wait for Spring. (We love the dead of Winter when we do not have to deal with yard work!)

Doesn't look like much now but once I move a peony to where that white thing is to the left and the irises and tulips I put in there come up AND the Hostas come back, it will look a lot prettier. The bright green bush in the front of the pic is a Camellia which will bloom this winter. Yeah! Love those and it was already there.




BEFORE




AFTER (I know, don't be jealous of my beautiful Hydrangeas. Love. Them.)



Cute Eucalyptus



Some of the pansies which will hopefully fill in with the rain and last of the warm weather.



There are plenty of other projects that I will start in early Spring but since a lot of planting/transplanting does not start until then, I will not be worrying with that before Winter. But we do plan on tackling one really overgrown area in our back yard between us and the neighbors. Hopefully those pictures will turn out better.

Oh, my aching back.

HUGE changes around "The Old House"?

If you've been a follower or have read my 'about me' blurb, you know that Mr. NW&TOH and I have been saving diligentily to buy our 'OUR House'. The [not so] Newlyweds are officially in the market!! With a down payment saved up and rental ads posted for 'The Old House', we are on our way to being homeowners, thrice (You did not think I could sell her did you? And his former house is also a rental.) The Old House and I have been together since 1998. I fell in love with her almost instantly, for various and sundry reasons, including...

...stained glass windows, ...her huge master bath,

...the creative artistic features added to some of the rooms,

the large rooms, high ceilings. But mostly, I could see the HUGE potential she had, even through ALL the work she needed. For now, the time has come for us to part ways at least as far as us living together. I hope she knows I will still be here to take care of her and I hope her our new tenants will love her and call her home the way I have for the last 13 years.

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

We (or in some cases "I") have looked at 9 houses in the past 2 months and will see 5 on Sunday. We've really liked 3 of them. We were not really prepared to make an offer on the 1st two we saw (hadn't pre-qualified & hadn't prepared our rental listing). We did make an offer on the last one we've seen together but we lowballed it (it'd been on the market for 85 days) and asked for closing costs. However, another offer came in when our did and we REFUSE to get into a bidding war in the this market.

I'm a little sad. The house had a pool and was in a great neighborhood but it had no garage and was 300 square feet smaller than our smallest SF criteria. Oh well. So about the only luck we've had is for the sellers. If you're a seller in the Richmond market, you should invite us to see your home. If we like it, it seems to sell before we can do anything about it.

On the other hand, if you know anyone in the Richmond area looking to rent, send them over here. Here are the websites where they can find the listing:


http://www.findmyroof.com/ad/82179

http://www.forrentbyowner.com/?showpage=/classifieds/detail/&i=514666

http://www.realrentals.com/house-for-rent/?list_id=052418474

http://richmond.craigslist.org/apa/2332325260.html

Last night we continued to crank out the back section of our privacy fence. We finished the pickets and now only have to attach the trim pieces. That may take a while as one of the pieces is pretty bowed so we've put a cinder block on the bowed side hoping it will flatten out in a couple of days.

I did get the window boxes that I'm putting out there spray painted w/a black hammered finish as the hubby wasn't liking the mundane gray plastic they were sporting pre-makeover. After a 2nd coat I filled them pansies. Well, maybe 'filled' is not the right word but I hope after some watering and a taste of fertilizer they will fill the boxes!

Came across a couple of reality checks last night: 1) we don't like the fact that cold, dark winter is right around the corner. It was pitch black at 7 last night. Doesn't leave much time for getting outdoor projects done after work; 2) I was really tired after helping out on the fence so this could mean 1 of 2 things: I've gotten too old to accomplish as much as I used to after work or that all the projects I worked on in this house over the last decade have just worn me down!