Other Minor Exterior Improvements

I wanted to make sure to document some exterior improvements made last summer--now that spring is upon us! And maybe include a few updated progress comparison shots!

I cleaned up the garden beds to the left of the front door, looking out:

This involved re-placing the brick edging (remember the 1890's leftover fireplace brick? yeah, that), replacing weed block and mulching. There are two hydrangea shrubs here, a new boxwood, a tall emerald Arbor Vitae, and some spray rose bushes. We also re-seeded the lawn because it didn't seed well the fall before when we removed the large boxwoods.

I re-located these yucca from under the Rose of Sharon to a new location near the entrance of the driveway. It is too crowded there and I think it will do better here!

There is an un-identified shrub that we have next to it to the right, that is doing really well. It is one that we got from Gabe's work for Arbor Day a year ago. It *might* be a dogwood.

See? It's doing so well! Except that I took this shot right before the deer got to it...grr

Took this shot mid June 2020

And another with a little cumquat:

In the background you can see a redbud tree doing well, and a pine tree in the farthest sight.

A few other beauties around the yard, blooming in June,

My peonies, in an unfinished garden bed in the front:

Beautiful climbing roses blooming next to the deck in the back:

I haven't quite had success getting them to climb, yet. As opposed to the climbing rose on the other side of the deck I've had since 2017 that has done quite well in the climbing/blooming department!

Here's a slightly different angle of the front garden bed shared earlier, with the hydrangeas about to bloom and the spray roses blooming:

Hydrangeas in the front left garden bed, going crazy awesome:

They started out like this in 2015!

Day-lilies, running out of room, growing up in-between our viburnum and evergreen:

Here is our garden and chicken coop/run combo:

A close up of the watermelons getting started in there:

Progress on how the front garden beds are doing, at the beginning of July:

Do you spy the elephant ears getting their start?

And now, the front facade, in the middle of September, elephant ears in all their glory (and swallowing up the juniper tree! Not to worry, it was looking pretty bad, having gotten a bad infestation of bag worms):

More up close shot:

We made a few other improvement too, to our back yard. We added a shade sail to our south facing deck which really helped make it more comfortable back there with a dark colored stain of the deck underfoot. Also, we added a stock tank pool, which is bigger than the other pools we came up with and is a little bit more in-destructible too.

We added some of the same white granite gravel around the pool to cut down on weeds and grass clippings that would make their way into my house ;)

This girl loves the stock tank!

Some technical difficulties are seen here--the pool got rusty looking because the chlorine was reacting with the metal. This year, we are going to spray 6-8 coats of rubber sealant instead of just one ;) 

Visuals of the set up at the end of the summer, on a foggy morning:

Last but not least, we have some pictures taken by my brother in law, who just got a drone/license and was having some fun taking some pics of our property when they visited in May:

And that's all for now, folks!

(The Forgotten) Stairwell & Final Basement Paint Job

In effort to paint the big picture story of the stairwell, we can take a walk down memory lane and start at the top! I'll reveal the finished stairs and final paint job of the basement at the end.

In 2015, while working to turn this stairwell:

90 degrees into a mud room space:

Which involved creating the head height required per building code, as seen in the above pic. The stairs would now face the basement/garage door (we didn't have a garage at the time). We had bought some oak planks for the stairwell platform before we had decided on hickory flooring everywhere upstairs.

Exhibit A:

So, in light of the decision to do hickory hardwood flooring in 2018, we decided it would be fitting to change out the old oak treads in the stairwell in exchange for some bright shiny new hickory treads.

But before we get into details of that, since that was changed in 2020/21, let's see what took place in the meanwhile.  We turned the stairs 90 degrees to make a bigger guest room in the basement, where the foot of the stairs used to be.

Here's the stud walls for the guest room--the stairs can be seen on the left beyond the stud walls:

In 2016

A view from the back side of the stairs, from the future bonus room:

In 2017

The same view from the basement/garage door:

The wall of the guest room was drywalled much earlier than the stairs wall on the bonus room side. Here's the stairwell finally all drywalled as of early 2020:

And you can see the light fixture was installed at that time too:

Finally the short wall at the foot of the stairs in the mud room was drywalled in as well, around the middle of 2020:

Here's Gabe, taping and mudding drywall in the stairwell in October 2020:

And sanding! In the next picture, you may notice little footprints in the drywall dust at the foot of the stairs:

Back to the flooring! Gabe started replacing treads around the first of the year:

Don't mind the disastrous condition of our under-stair storage!

AND, my favorite part--FUN with COLORS! I found this fun table runner at Hobby Lobby and decided it would go well to be installed as wall art in our stairwell, and pulled colors from it to paint on the risers of the stairs, like this!

This picture was taken right after they were installed--I'll have more pictures later with everything else painted out and cleaned up, but for now, you get the idea!

The paint colors were chosen and pulled from this table runner:

Here are the deets of the riser colors, starting from the top and working down to the platform (all Sherwin Williams):

SW 6767 Aquarium
SW 6936 Aquatint (I think its an archived color but you can still ask for it in store)
SW 6745 Lark Green
SW 6760 Rivulet
SW 6765 Spa
SW 6431 Leapfrog
SW 7687 August Moon
SW 0020 Peacock Plume
SW 6743 Mint Condition

I got my inspiration from a few different places but the one that comes to mind first is this homeschooling book that I have on my shelf, waiting to be read:

Back to the details of matching the hickory treads to the rest of the flooring.

Like I mentioned before, we got these treads.  We used Bona products to finish the untreated treads. First, we sealed them with this:

And then we finished them with this:

And we were very happy with the results and how well it matched what we had in the rest of the house!!

Gabe did need to do some trickery to alter the flooring at the top to conform to a tread with a bullnose:

He did the same thing on the platform, conforming the plank on the edge going down the last two stairs into a tread with a bullnose. He took two pieces of hickory flooring, glued them together, sanded the bullnose, and then finished them in the same way he finished the hickory treads. 

I am also very happy with the way the natural hickory hardwood blended with the hickory vinyl plank product we got go basically everywhere in our basement (minus the bathroom--we went with porcelain tile down there).

Here's a picture showing the vinyl plank we installed, adjacent with the stairwell treads:

And then, after all the trim work was finished in the basement, we had someone come in and paint all the trim for us. I gotta say, it was so nice to have that last finishing step hired out! Besides the fact that I'm PREGNANT with #4 (!!!) and don't want to have too much exposure to that sort of thing these days :)

Week 37 on 5/27/21

So here's some final basement stairwell shots, freshly painted! I don't think it will ever be this shimmering white ever again!! (I will take updated pics after the handrail is installed, but I just couldn't let this pristine opportunity pass me by! There will likely be scuffs to contend with after that).

Headed back up the stairs, from the center of the mud room, with the table runner wall art installed and everything!:

Continuing up and around the corner:

And from the top of the stairs looking down, with the light fixture and wall hanging:

Here's a fun little comparison of the stairwell improvement (plus two cute girlies):

Onward to the rest of the spaces in the basement, to see how they shine up:

Moving into the mud room, panning to the left toward the guest room door:

Panning right towards the basement/garage door (exterior metal door that still needs a coat of special paint):

The built ins for coats, boots, shoes, gloves, etc:

Past all the cabinetry in the kitchenette portion, there's a hallway leading to the bonus room, under the stairs (you see the under stair storage closet to the right moving through the space):

Notice all the nice detail work on the ceiling, integrating beautifully the potentially awkward bulkhead.

The under stairs storage closet (don't look inside!! ;P)

Moving into the bonus room:

The paneled tray ceiling detail can be seen here.  The idea is to have removable panels to access the plethora of electrical and plumbing that run behind the panels.

Panning ever so slightly to the right, to see the louvered door to the storage room:

We still need to stain the louvered door. I'm thinking a clear coat since the natural wood look lends itself to the light wood tones and beach-y feel. The louvered door is necessary for air circulation because there are no vents in the storage room.

Panning ever so slightly to the right, and you'll see the door to the light and bright downstairs bathroom, that circles around and connects with the guest room again. 

If need be, this room can act as a spare bedroom, with the day bed. The bathroom connects the guest room and bonus room, creating a jack and jill bathroom situation, creating a cozy suite down there, complete with a kitchenette!

Looking squarely into the bathroom space:

Since then we've added thresholds from the bonus room to the bathroom:

And one from the guest room to the bathroom as well:

Of the bonus room, we'll continue to pan to the right and you'll see my office corner/sewing station:

Entertainment/bookcase wall, slightly cluttered and not 100% styled, but good enough for now:

The daybed, that pulls out to a king bed, like magic!:

With a little south facing transom window I had to fight to keep ;)

And, as promised, here are a few handrail shots, taken later after a "spit-shine" :)

Can you spot the baby belly in the last picture? ;P

One more update since this blog was published--we bought some thrifted bookcases that replaced the old desk in the bonus room that I happen to love!

Exhibit A:

I was able to get my white coral out of storage and decorate the top shelves with it, helping reinforce the beach-y, spa vibe down there. Dangerous (they are super fragile!) with rowdy kids, I know, but we did secure the bookshelves to the wall, so that should help!

And that's about all for now!

Caio Caio!!