I’m loving the new east side of the house. The trim (only on the top roof so far) really helps it all come together and I love the windows. So, this update comes with the old good news, bad news scenario. The good news is that things are still progressing nicely, although I’m extremely anxious for insulation and drywall. It’s ...
We’ve moved into a phase of the house renovation project that doesn’t have as many big changes so it feels like things have slowed a little, but in reality I think we’re moving along at a pretty good pace. Since the last update, they put on the soffits and the shingles started going on Monday morning. The project (not in ...
I hope I’m not boring everyone with construction updates, but I promise to keep them to no more than a couple a week and only if there’s something worth reporting. Last week was full of lows and highs as far as the project went. On Monday they started ripping off the top of the house. By Wednesday they were building ...
Monday was the big day for the renovation: the day they pulled the top off half the house. Up until now they’ve been doing a lot of preparatory work getting ready for the tear-off. I swung by at mid-day to see just how it our house would look as a ranch. Hopefully we’re all done with demo now and from ...
Yesterday I was feeling a little bit like I had betrayed our old home. Like somehow I was telling it it’s not good enough for us. I actually felt a little guilty. I realize this is crazy but I adore this house and want desperately to do right by it. Today, I almost feel like our house said, “It’s OK. ...
The long-awaited house remodel is finally underway. It’s amazing to think that this was a project we wanted to do from when we bought the house (eight years ago) and seriously started talking about a year and a half ago and all of a sudden it’s here. It’s actually rather shocking; I spent so long not allowing myself to believe ...
Thank goodness for cameras on phones, right? Since I don’t always walk around with a camera but I almost always have my phone with me, it’s so nice to be able to snap a shot of something great, even if people are staring at you for taking a picture of a chair. That’s what happened in the case of this ...
The Impatient Gardener blog was started in 2009 and its library of posts includes practical how-tos, plant guides, favorite garden gear, successes and failures and much more. If you’re looking for something specific, the search function at the top of the page can help.
Welcome to Week 2 of the One Room Challenge. I’m “playing along” as a guest participant in the blogging event that has people making over a room in six weeks and linking up via Calling it Home. In Week 1 (which I just published a couple days ago) I laid out the room, the issues, […]
There comes a time in every seedling’s life when it must move out of its cramped confines into bigger digs that will allow it to keep growing. Given proper heat and light, tomato seedlings grow faster than most other kinds of seeds, so they need almost constant tending from the moment they are planted. I […]
I’ve mentioned the basement project here before, but only in an introductory fashion. Frankly, not much has happened with it, but there’s one sure way to make sure it gets done: Put it on a ridiculous schedule for the world to see. Enter the One Room Challenge, which technically began last week but I got […]
Holy smokes. I’m finally sitting down to reach out to you all to just let you know I’m still around a little bit about what’s been happening. I tend to do little personal updates as part of Friday Finds, but there was no getting to a computer on Friday. Last week I traveled to Savannah, […]
Given that I delayed a lot of garden work in fall, it’s no surprise that the first real job I did in the garden this spring was a task I should have taken care of several months ago. And it was that much more painful for having waited. Last September I shared the sad news […]
What a week. Well, weeks. I have been at an uncomfortable level of “busy” lately and I can’t wait to be back to normal busy, which is my happy place. But caring for my seedlings is a wonderful break. Two times a day I check on them, making sure they are properly watered, rearranging them […]
There are signs of life in the garden. Somehow the leaves that I removed in fall reappeared and all of the perennials that I left standing in November are waiting to be chopped down, but underneath the mess, things are happening. The earliest daffodils in my garden, which live in a little microclimate along the […]
I keep lists of plants I’m on the hunt for in various places—on sheets of paper in my purse, in an app on my phone, at the back of my garden notebook. This way I remember to grab them if I find them at a local nursery. Each year there are a handful of plants […]
Happy spring! In preparation for the first day of spring, we spent some time over the weekend walking through our still partially snow covered yard taking an assessment of what needs doing this year. The creek that runs under this little bridge and it’s twin a bit farther east ranges from a trickle to a […]
The week again got away from me, but that’s no reason not share some good stuff from the web. Here’s some of my favorite finds. Gardener admission: I don’t care for asparagus. I’ll eat it if it’s roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper but I do so begrudgingly. But I know plenty of people […]
Big things happen in my garden when I’m not able to garden. It is absolutely a case of my gardening eyes being much larger than my gardening stomach, but what else is a gardener to do during the long days of winter than think about the garden? The west side of the house is the […]
Since I started growing plants from seeds in earnest a few years ago the amount of plants I produce has increased almost exponentially. That is only problematic from a space standpoint. I plant or have homes waiting for all of the plants so none go to waste and I think my garden is better because […]
Stacey Hirvela didn’t get into gardening the way many people do; it wasn’t something she was surrounded by. But her grandmother grew lily of the valley by the garage, and young Stacey was allowed to pick as many of the flowers as she wanted. It wasn’t until she was older that she discovered gardening for […]
When I set about doing this project, I planned on doing a long, involved tutorial on the blog. As it turns out, it was just about the easiest project I’ve ever done so no tutorial is needed. Remember these pots I found on a super sale in fall at the Restoration Hardware outlet? I knew […]
