Doors doors doors!

One of the issues with having lots of cats is how to keep them in one part of the house while you're working in another. I know many Realtors thought I was nuts when walking through potential homes because one of the things I made sure to check was the location and number of doors. Like many old houses, our new/old house has LOTS of doors, and since we added a closet, expanded the pantry and added a hallway, we had lots of doors to deal with. Rudy had a lot of fun figuring out which doors to move where, and surprisingly enough, it worked out well. We even have one door left over.

One of the main milestones in our remodeling project in this 1930 cottage was to add a walk-in shower with glass doors. After months of dealing with the plumbing, removing the old tub (which is still sitting in the back yard), adding backerboard and tile, we were finally ready for the local glass company (Floyd's Glass in Taylor) to come install doors. They had them in pronto and were finished in about an hour (as well as repairing a piece of broken window glass). Well, let me just say that I'm tickled pink!

This photo shows the shower doors as you walk into the bathroom. The glass is called "Rain" and looks just like rain streaking down a window. Hmmm, did I subconsciously choose that because of the drought we're in? I see a theme here. LOL

This is the left-hand side of the doors.

And the middle and right-hand side bottom. I was skeptical how the white shower pan would look, but it actually looks pretty good. Now, after we add the baseboards back in and paint and install the chair railing trim (which will cover the line between the green and tan paint) the bathroom will be finished.

Another door we had to add back on was the linen closet door in the bathroom. Most of the doors had to be removed when we put in the floor tile. Also, now that the house has an AC, we had to cut a few inches off each door for air flow -- something that is critical and that not a lot of people seem to do.

Here's the utility room door from the inside.

And the same door from inside the dining room. You can see the pantry door to the right. Ironically enough, my father built a corner cabinet out of pine the year I was born and my mother decorated it with those fruity decals that were so popular then. If I measured correctly, it will fit right there in that back corner -- the ONLY corner in the whole house that's not filled with a window. Over the past 55+ years, that cabinet has always been in one dining room or another and I cannot wait to move it over here!

And to the left you can see the back door. Lots of doors, I told ya!

And since I can't help myself, I had to hang something up on that blank wall. Here's a handmade spring floral wreath I made last year for the front door. Purty, ain't it?

So, we still need to install the door frame and door for the AC closet, and the BIG door project, which is to replace the antique french doors that came out of the former living room (we switched rooms around). We're moving them one room over so that they'll be the opening between the kitchen and the living room.

Once that's done, the house will be cat-proof and we won't have any other excuses not to move in! Well, other than the fact that we haven't packed much of anything. :-D

Happy trails!

bobbi c.

Big big progress!

I've been a bit lax about posting photos. First of all, I had a major fall in the garage here and although I'm OK, I've been taking it easy with the climbing the ladder, painting and scraping thing. Rule One -- If a stray bird gets into a very crowded workshop garage, just leave it there! Stupid bird made me fall. But I digress.

Husband's been very busy working on the shower. Since the original planks were in the walls, and were very wavy, we had to put in a layer of backerboard over wooden cleats to level them. Over that went the field tile, then the mosaics, then more field tile, and then the trim. Note to Self -- Next time, do all the field tile THEN put in the mosaic bits.

Here's the new posh Jacuzzi toilet which I hope will cut down on the time it takes to clean. No more cleaning of that "wormy thingy at the bottom." Rudy is SO good to me! LOL. My friend Gloria wonders if pioneer women were as excited when they got a new three-seater in the outhouse. Probably! :-)

Here's the medicine cabinet that has a nifty hidden electrical outlet in the bottom behind the doors (customized by us) so we have a place to hide away the electric toothbrush, R's shaver, etc. The plan is to paint the frame of the mirror brown. The sink is a high-end Kohler that I found on clearance at Lowe's. Score!!

And here's the shower with the finished tile (not grouted yet) -- left-hand side:

And right-hand side:

The friendly fellow from locally-owned Floyd's Glass came out today to measure for the shower doors. Those should be installed in about a week. Yay!

And, I'd like to introduce my pet squirrel, which I have fondly named "Basil" -- as in the British pronunciation (baa-zill). He's quite the character, and has been trained to only eat from his little dish. AHAHAHAHAHA! Liar liar pants on fire. Oh well, maybe with a little coaxing, I can keep him out of the birdfeeder. As if.

More later!

Happy trails from Texas!

bobbi c.

Renovation ain't for sissies!

Especially in this Texas heat! Rudy and I continue to remodel/renovate our new/old 1930's vernacular cottage. The heat has been brutal at times, but not nearly as bad as before we got our new air conditioner installed. Now, it's tolerable, and the nice old pecan trees make lovely shade over the back porch and yard most of the day. I hear it's supposed to climb back up to 103 this week. ACK! That's just nuts. We're still in one of the worst droughts in recorded history, as well.

So, here are a few photos with random comments. I have very little time at home these days, and when I'm here, I'm either sleeping, doing laundry or tending to the shrinking garden here. Here's a hint...don't try doing what we're doing if you still have a full-time job! This IS our full-time job.

A lot of what I've been doing at the new/old house is trying to save the former garden with judicious watering, and planting new drought resistant things to replace some of the dying plants that thrived when there was a supplemental water well there. The well is still there, BTW, but dry right now. I've been told it's likely to come back to life after we get a "good" rain. Right now, ANY rain would be a good one. That was definitely one of the selling points for me, having a water well nearby.

I've been concentrating on plants in containers since I can move them easily, move them around, see where they're happy before putting them in the ground. One of my recent favorites for pots are oleanders. Scored at a Big Box store on clearance, I bought four of these pot-bound beauties, repotted them and am using them around the property for screening and a bit of green color. I was surprised to find that they are drought tolerant.

Coincidentally, the hanging bougainvillea plant and the oleander both bloomed on the same day, and they're both pink.

We've been moving garden stuff over a few plants and pieces at a time. I was excited to be able to finally place my purple garden bench under the shade of the pecan tree. Potted veggies surround it, and they are very happy (and blooming!) there now, even in this heat. Shade is the key, my friends.

I use herbs a lot for landscaping, and we use them for cooking at every meal. This bare spot beside the back porch formerly was covered with a little vine and some sickly succulents. After the plumbers and the house levelers tromped through it, I decided to start over. It's now my Herbs & Chickens garden. So far, I've planted a wonderful Sicilian oregano and some Thai Basils among my collection of terra cotta chickens. And yes, some of them hold "Hens & Chicks" succulents.

The way I design my garden is to plant little pockets here and there, then eventually join them with "bridge" plants. This little pocket is right beside the sidewalk leading to the back cottage/greenhouse and contains rosemary, Italian basils, native salivas for the hummingbirds, a sedum for groundcover and a gazing ball.

As I mentioned, we're in a serious drought here, and here's proof. When we bought the house a few months ago, the grass was green, although stressed. Just a few weeks without water (we never water lawns) and this was the result. The long-term plan is to turn the entire area into a perennial and herb garden with a walkway, pergola or trellis, fruit trees, etc. One challenge is a gas line that runs along the side of the property, but I can plant ground covers of some sort there. Anything that goes there, though, has to be drought resistant.

Although I've identified most of the plants on the property, there are a few that leave me stumped. Here's one of them. It was a nice green before, but since has died down to the ground. Is it an annual? A dead or dormant perennial?

This is another mystery "plant"....or actually, some sort of mushroom or fungus. Woodears, perhaps? I'm not touching it until I find out if it's edible or not. The location is pretty handy, though--right outside the back door by the kitchen.

And here's a mystery vine that's twining around a rose bush. It's short, has dark green leaves, small black berries AND large bright red berries. It's a pretty little vine, whatever it is.

This last photo is of my new temporary, experimental raised garden bed. It's in the back yard, right underneath the World's Longest Clothesline, and is made up of materials I gathered from the property or here. Underneath is dead grass. On top of that I layered a cardboard box that our solar fan came in. Cardboard boxes have been one of the most useful materials in building my gardens. On top of that, I layered topsoil scooped from the yard. It's very sandy, so I mixed some homemade compost from there (yep, I already have some finished compost), a sack of oak leaves we brought from the other house (a Freecycle score, gathered locally) and dead pecan leaves scooped from underneath the boxwood hedge there. It's supported on one side by a pecan log that fell from the tree, rocks that used to support the house, and bricks that were piled up in the yard. In it, I planted seeds of Japanese cucumber, Italian beans, a little Chocolate Cherry Tomato (heirloom, from Bonnie's) and some icicle radishes to help break up the soil underneath.

A friend asked if I was the pink Energizer bunny. LOL. Nope, not hardly, but I do think getting more sunshine has given me more energy, and I do take frequent "stick the face in the fan" breaks. Lots of water mixed with a small amount of tea and the occasional treat from the Kolache Shoppe right down the street from the house has kept us going.

Happy trails,

bobbi c.