Snap Judgments

In the last few days, Todd and I decided it was time to finish my office. I think it's really weird that this is how most things get done around here -- one of us just decides to rip down wallpaper, paint, whatever. The bathroom was the same way: "Wanna redo the bathroom?" "OK." Commence demolition.

Anyway. You may notice from the photo below that the last papered wall in my office (sporting a jaunty gold and brown pattern) is now gone. Todd and I each took a side of the door, and since it was only (only!) two layers, it didn't take too long.
My office was back together for all of a day and a half, before we went to Home Depot for a gallon of navy blue paint (last night). I also brought along the gallon of pink primer we had left over from the living room, in hopes that they could tint it purple or something so I could use it (they did). FYI, dark colors require a tinted primer, or it's at least recommended. Because I did a somewhat mediocre job removing all the wallpaper paste, I figure the primer helps the paint adhere a little better.
and angle number two...

I actually kind of liked the purple. It reminded me of a color that I wanted to paint my room as a child (but was not allowed to). I think it's possible that I'm working out these childhood color-deprivation issues all over my house (blue bedroom, red living room, plans for a yellow kitchen...)

Then, first coat of blue paint. This is Behr...navy blue. I actually don't know if I looked at the name of the color (a first) because we marched in to the store, plucked a few blues from the chips, compared for about 30 seconds, and decided on a color. No taping to the wall, no testing at home, and hopefully it'll be ok. So far, looks fine.

I have to say, I'm a lot happier with the coverage from this blue than I was with the blue in our room (which is more in the royal family than navy). Maybe it's the purple primer (rather than the gray we used in the bedroom), but one coat looked good (despite some streakiness, which is to be expected) and the second looks like that might be all it needs. Nighttime and light bulbs are deceptive, though, so I'm not holding my breath. I will say that it's a whole lot less of a pain to paint when you're not taping everything and trying to avoid trim and whatnot. I ripped off the baseboard last fall, so it'll get repainted separate from the wall.

This whole setup with the blue paint is a departure from the original plan. I was going to install hair-rail height tongue-in-groove pine paneling around the room, painted white. Well, sadly, I bought it too far in advance, let it sit in the garage and warp for nine months, and when I finally went to put it up, it was all bendy and weird. Then I thought I'd do white wainscoting, because it's less campy, but it was kind of expensive. So I had unpainted, unwallpapered plaster walls for a year, until I was inspired. Chair rail is cheap (.50/ft) and classic (a drawback with the paneling, which would have been questionable and rather permanent). WIN!

So, navy paint under the chair rail, the wall with the door outside will be painted white and possibly have a sailboat painted on it (in a very simple, monochromatic way, not like a mural), and BAM! Office complete!!

I'll put up some additional pix when it's all done. ALSO. Pictures of the garden are coming. I can't believe it's been three weeks since we got everything planted!

"Yardening"

As usual, this weekend held lots of yard work for us. Saturday, we put our raised beds in place and picked up the dirt to fill them with from Biomass (which is where you take all your wood clippings and other organic waste, and pay to drop it off, and they make dirt and compost and mulch out of it, and then you pay them to get it back). The bed in the foreground is ours, and the one behind it is Steve and Betsy's. We lined the bottoms of both with dry leaves, in hopes of keeping some of the moisture contained (and adding to the quality of the soil, as the leaves break down over time). Yesterday, in between brief torrential downpours, I planted our little basil plants and some onion sets, leftovers from the neighbors (thanks, guys!), in our bed.There's a nice closeup of the basil. It's from Trader Joe's, which I visited with Cat on Friday in Bend. It smells amazing, and I'm really excited to harvest and eat it.

Our neighbors' garden, in case you are interested, looks like this:

Personally, I don't think lettuce and sugar snap peas have any business looking that good (is it trying to get eaten? Because that's what I want to do to it), but maybe I'm just jealous they got started sooner than we did.

In other yard-related news, we were chatting with Tom, who mentioned that he has a friend who can hook us up with some lovely mulch, like this:which is verrry exciting, because it involves one of our favorite words: FREE. Also, because we have a lot of things we are planning on mulching. I sprayed weeds this weekend in the yard and all our flowerbeds out front, in hopes that they will die soon and we can mulch over them.

Let's see, what else...I'm really proud of my ghetto water catchment system. That would be an old garbage can positioned under a gutter that has no downspout.

You can make fun of me if you want, and I'll understand, but bear in mind that I watered all the plants in my yard this weekend without turning on the hose. I would like to put in real catchment barrels (ideally that look nicer than old trash cans) at the downspouts around the house, and in my green dream world, dig a hole and put in a water-storage cistern to stash all that rainwater for irrigating in the summer. I suppose in the interim, my "system" will work fine.