Water stains and other small wars

I finally got fed up enough with my office ceiling to paint it. It's one of those things that I notice all the time and it annoys me, but I HATE painting ceilings, especially after my experience in the dining room in January. Anyway, my office had some pretty gnarly water stains on the ceiling (which we think came into being pre-1995, when the roof got redone. You can see water stains on the shake shingles in the attic), which I semi-successfully painted over.

I say "semi" because apparently, painting over water stains is no picnic. I would have known this if I hadn't decided beforehand that people who whine about painting over water stains just don't apply the paint thick enough, and bothered to do a quick search about it. After the paint started refusing to stick to the plaster, I did just that. THEN I applied another coat of paint, extra-thick. Results:

Not bad! Definitely an improvement, especially after I....

That's right...bleach. In the course of my Googling, I ran across some savvy mom who recommended wiping water stains with straight bleach. I would NOT recommend doing this on any wall that's not white to begin with. But we had some water stains on the ceiling of our bedroom, which happens to be directly beneath the upstairs bathroom. This is the other ceiling-painting project I've been avoiding and stewing about. It's only a relatively small area, but I figured matching the paint color would be impossible, so I'd have to do the whole ceiling.

The bleach was worth a shot, and it WORKED!! I put on my protective eyewear, grabbed a glove, and took my cup of bleach and sponge into the bedroom. A few wipes later, and the stains were gone. The ceiling's slightly whiter than the surrounding areas, but I can live with that.

I also "fixed" our vacuum cleaner, which had developed an odd habit of working for 7 minutes, then slowly turning off, by removing the world's biggest clump of dusty crap that had lodged inside it.

One more thing....

Last Sunday, we brought back enough mulch to finish covering this bed in our side driveway. Minus those prickly juniper bushes and plus a little mulch, and it's looking a lot better.

Aaaand...we're back!

So, since the ottoman-building adventure, it's officially become spring here, and some days are seeming downright summery. I have lots of pictures to share, so let's get to it.

This is a not-very-gorgeous shot of our camellia in front blooming (a month and a half ago). I was really excited, after babying it all last summer, to get a reward.

In late Feb or early March, I did a little work inside, namely installing quarter-round in the "hallway" area outside the bathroom downstairs. It still needs to be puttied and touched up, but we're liking how it looks. We will eventually put this in all around the downstairs (it's sitting in the garage now, waiting for a second coat of paint before its date with the nail gun).

I also painted and installed the vent covers for the living room. I was dreading this job, because I knew it would take at least four coats of paint to get the color right. Plus, hanging vent covers is one of those irritating little jobs that always takes longer than anticipated. But it was finally getting to my vain side, since it's probably the first thing people noticed when they walked in. So, action required. Crown molding is still not done, yet, but that's because the store's been out of our size every time we've checked.

Next, we can move outside, where we have been exceedingly busy. When people ask what we're doing on the weekend, we say, "yardwork," and we mean it. It occurred to me that it's not normal to spend all weekend doing yardwork, but that is because most people's yards don't need to be brought back from the dead. Since February, this is what we've done.

1. Ripped up the grass and built (or at least mostly built) a rock wall on the northwest side of the pool, to match the one more in the back yard. Also planted two varieties of Halls Honeysuckle, which is a flowering vine that will attract bees and hummingbirds and grow like crazy into the fence. In the foreground is the star jasmine that just barely made it through the winter and is looking a little worse for the wear.

2. Relocated shrubby honeysuckles that we planted last year in the rock wall on the other side of the steps (just to the right of the jasmine is the gate and stairs to the pool, and the wall is on the other side of that). They're now free to grow as big and bushy as they'd like, next to the driveway in the back:

3. Todd's dad came and tilled the "back 40" so it can return to its former glory as a garden. We are gardening with our neighbors, Tom and Judy (whose raised beds you see in the picture -- they're from that cedar tree we cut down last summer), and Todd's parents.

4. Our giant, stunning tulips are blooming! Clearly, the color boggled the little brain of my camera, since it doesn't come through anywhere near as lovely as it should, but still...

Once they're done, I'm going to relocate them to a more concentrated spot (or maybe just plant more) since they're kind of randomly spread out.

5. Last weekend, Jim Hutchins, a McD family friend, came with a sidekick and whacked the yard into shape. Jim expertly pruned shrubs, dug stumps and executed all other manner of landscaping expertise. Here's the oak tree that was in dire need of some pruning and removal of all those suckers...it looks a lot better.

6. Jim also yanked out those awful junipers that I've been hating since we moved in and they jabbed me with their prickly branches the first time. We are in the process of mulching the bed in the middle of the circle drive, and don't have plans of planting it this year. Someday, though, it will make a lovely spot to fill with flowers.

Decisions are still being made about what to do with the lawn at this point. We probably won't be installing a sprinkler system this summer, so it's likely we will just spray the weeds to kill them, hopefully have a little grass left in our yard when the weeds are dead, re-seed, and water the old-fashioned way.

I am really excited for plans that I have for planting black-eyed susans all over the place. For a while, I was bummed because I couldn't think of a sunny place for them, but I've come up with several spots that should do the trick. I'm going to smear our whole yard with them. For reference, here's what they look like:

Just looking at the picture makes me happy. Anyway, that's all for now. More to come soonish.

Yikes, two months....

Dear blog readers (if there are any of you left...) I am terribly sorry for the long silence. We have been quite busy with work and other stuff, and I just haven't felt like making the time to write. That said, (to quote Liz Lemon) things are happening! I will be back sometime in the next few days with pictures and more info and maybe even a video, but I thought I'd just mention that. We've done things inside and outside, and it's turning out that still delaying the kitchen remodel has been sort of a blessing, because I keep tweaking my plans. So in addition to being beyond thankful for it when it does happen, it will also be completely perfect.

Anyway, more to come.