The Fence and The Roses

I have seen so many beautiful pictures (as I'm sure we all have) of white picket fences with roses peeking through them I thought I MUST have that look for my house. Since we didn't have ANY landscaping whatsoever going on, I could start with a clean slate. We scored 350 feet of fencing with posts for $350 on craigslist. The original plan was to fence around the house from front to just around the back. After some critical thinking on my part, I decided that might look snooty for one (not inviting for neighbors to stop and visit) and it would cover all the landscaping I had done. So the fence now starts midway on the house and goes back about 100 feet (or was that 150?). As you can see it is not white (yet) but after more thinking, we decided to paint it after it's up by one of us (me) standing on one side with a piece of plywood, and the other one of us (him) using the sprayer. It could work, right? We'll see.

We found a very good deal on roses and ended up buying 31 of them! Yeah, we won't be doing that all at once again. Too many holes to dig!

Here are two we planted, as you can see I carefully marked them all so I would know which one was where. These were supposed to be temporary markers, but as they started to grow, I found out why they were cheap.........they were all marked WRONG. Well, all but ONE so far, and two have still yet to show their colors.

This is the one correct one so far, it's a Peace rose, isn't it beautiful? Well, they are all beautiful, but I was so tired of all of them turning out PINK when I bought mostly RED, I was very excited about this one. It smells divine!

 Along the front of the house, there is a Don Juan planted, he is one that has yet to show.

 The frog band.

I like to call this my great wall of china.

Continuing the red mulch around the house.......I used newspaper to cover up the grass and weeds where I created borders and it's proven to be very effective.

 Just outside the sun room. The climbers on either side were supposed to be red, neither one is red, neither one is a climber *sigh*

Just beyond the swing you can see fence progress going on.

 Not Joseph's Coat, we think it might be Darlow's Enigma.....still beautiful though, right?

 This one is Love......since we don't remember and can't find what it was supposed to look like, we are just pretending this is it.

 Daylillies on the fence line.

 

 Rose Moss

 

Between house and shed before

 Between house and shed after.......well, it's not complete yet, but it's a start :)

This is a preview of what color the shed is going to be........I think it looks nice with my yellow house, don't you? I have more to show you, so much more, but I don't want to bore you all in one day so I'll be back tomorrow to show you my new seating area and bird feeder I made that I am SO excited about!

Kitchen Confessions

The other day I went to the store for groceries. One of those items was a bottle of canola oil. The cabinet where it goes was so stuffed with other things it wouldn't fit. It sat on my counter for a week. I got tired of looking at it and before I knew it, I had rearranged the entire kitchen just to fit a bottle of oil in it. My husband states it's things like this is why he can never find anything. Hmm, maybe.

This is not the first time this has happened though. I haven't even lived here a year and I can't even begin to count the changes. For instance...

I think this was the first table to make it into the kitchen. It fit very nicely on that odd wall.

 Then I decided this table was too big for the laundry/dining room so I moved it to the kitchen.

I then moved the little table to the laundry/dining room. Looks cute, right?

Then I decided that I didn't like my desk in view of the front door since I umm "work" a lot in my jammies. So when I rearranged the sun room, I had a space to fill.

Hmm, well that looks nice too. But I was so tired of living with that blue floor so I had to paint it.

So out with the table again and it went back to the laundry/dining room aka back porch. Until one day we were out garage saleing and I found a couple of lovely pantries.

Ugly right? They were using them for garage storage. I had something much better in mind.

One fits very nicely on that odd wall in the kitchen, and the other "finishes" the back porch. And by turning the big table a different way, it fit much better in the space too. Although, I do miss having a table in the kitchen...................hmmmm

Linky Party I Joined:

Free Week!

Twice a year, a neighboring town has "Big Trash Pick Up Week", but I like to refer to it as Free Garage Sale Week.  People throw away the best stuff sometimes! This past April we picked up a few things ready to go

 Charcoal holder, FULL of Charcoal

 Ab machine. Guy said he found it in a house he was painting.

 Basket Hamper (aka cat food holder, hence the cat) with tags still on it!

 Quilt Rack

 Pots

 Another Pot

 Wicker Chair

 Shelving

 Hammock (just needed the leaves wiped out of it)

Window

We also picked up a few things that needed some work

 Play Kitchen

 Rocking Chair, perfect except for the seat cover. Temporarily I have covered it with an old tshirt I was getting rid of. RED

 Forgot to get a before picture, but it was a pink trash can. Now it holds dog food.

 Glider bench, needs sanded and painted.

 Wheelbarrow that just had a flat tire. It's now fixed.

 Vanity bench that just needed the legs tightened on it.

 Stool, need paint!

 An arbor. It's upside down in this picture and the roof is on the fencing.

 Two chairs, you can see where I started painting one of them in this picture.

Birdhouse post.


Soon I will be sharing what I've done with some of these things.

My Goodness Where Have I Been?

Honestly, I don't know. I just got involved in too much all at once I suppose. And lately, since the Missouri River is right behind our house, we've had that worry going on.

 

We spent most of last Saturday sandbagging, but I've recently been told by the KC Army Corps of Engineers that my house should be safe from the flooding, although my town may not be if the rains keep up. We have the threat of flooding until the end of August, we are just hoping for no levee breaks.

 

Ok, I know I have a better picture than that somewhere *sigh* Just more of being behind.

Part of what may be to blame for my absence could be my new obsession. I am still amazed at all the inspiration I can find in one simple spot. Amazed at how easy it is to organize all my bookmarks in one easy to find spot. I'm amazed at how many of you I've already pinned. Amazed you haven't found me there yet, no worries, HERE I am.

I've managed to keep up a little better on Facebook. I like Facebook. I like the interaction. It's easier for me to have a conversation there with someone. Maybe I need blogger for dummies?

I have been busy though and have several projects I'd like to share with you so I'm making a June resolution (why not June?) to check in at least once daily and play catch up.