Bamboozled with Slats on Mother’s Day

I feel like I can say with reasonable confidence that my fabulous Mother’s Day would be most people’s idea of hell.  It was a beautiful day…a bit cooler than usual and I decided to go bushwacking….or bamboowacking to be more precise.

I can’t plant anything new because of water restrictions (no irrigation allowed), so it’s a great time to tend to what you have.  There is a jungle of bamboo just beyond the new retaining walls and it looks as though no one has taken any notice of it in the 33 years since it was planted.

After our 16 inches of rain, I started seeing tons of new culms appear and knew these new volunteers needed attention.  They couldn’t thrive if I didn’t enter the jungle and clear out all the dead wood and weeds competing for water and nutrients.  With the ground still so soft and moist, it is the perfect time to pull weeds and weed trees by the roots.  Garden dorks know how incredibly satisfying this can be.

There’s a lot more dead than alive in there…..

So there’s my jungle…I have a saw and I know how to use it.

I salvaged quite a few good canes for future use…maybe treehouse or compost pile?  Either way, I had to save them for something.  The rest….to the curb….

I knew it had to be in here somewhere since I always saw them fly into the jungle…..

A cardinal nest with an egg…I was very careful to leave it undisturbed…I can get the dead canes supporting the nest later after the egg has hatched.

Now these new culms have air circulating around them, and after I feed and mulch them, I think they will be beautiful.  For the first time, we can walk back there and I think the back end of the treehouse will put you right into the “bamboo forest” with a new path leading to the trail.

So what made the cuts, scrapes and getting slapped in the face by bamboo so fun? I had company….The Minors actually HELPED me by dragging giant bamboo canes down to the road for a little while, or would hang out playing on the walls and talking to me.  I LOVE it when we are all outside together.  The CC was with us too working on his own project…..

Remember the old lattice under the front deck/entrance?

Looky….

The CC ripped some of our old salvaged deck boards straight down the middle and attached them with some stainless steel screws we had leftover from the mailbox project.  We have plenty of deck stain on hand, which brings the total cost of this wall to a whopping $0!!!

That’s what I call an amazing (and frugal) Mother’s Day.

Barbie Porn

We are still in major water conservation mode…. BTW, the city has adopted a great attitude about it and really banded together.  There’s #floodbeards and #floodlegs all over Twitter for conservation efforts involving not shaving…(where’s #floodpits?) You go Nashville!  We all stink and we’re proud of it!

Not doing laundry, washing dishes, or pressure washing old decking gives me a bit more time for other things. So, while catching up on some blogs, I found another crush…Boudoir Barbie.

How great are these!?  I already have so many pin-ups around the house..why not these? Awesome.

All photos by the talented Critsey Rowe.

Found via the Jealous Curator

The Saturation of 2010

photo via evenshift on flickr

We are def among the lucky ones.  I have power, phone etc.. again and am really seeing for the first time how horrible it is out there.  Tiny photos on my Blackberry didn’t really convey the magnitude of damage to the city.  My neighborhood got off lightly given we are in the hills.  A few mudslides and trees down, but all in all..unscathed.

I can’t believe the mailbox held on!

I took this at the top of the road in between storms.

Our front yard…like I said…we were lucky.

We are on strict water conservation because we lost one treatment facility and nearly lost the other one by less than a foot of water…close one. The Minors are never too young to learn about how to take a Navy Shower.  Residents in other nearby areas are not so lucky and must use bottled water or boil their water for awhile…if they still have a house to begin with.


photos via evenshift on flickr

It’s going to be a long expensive cleanup, and with the gulf disaster, attempted Times Square bombing and Sandra Bullock’s adoption, there will be very little help/awareness coming toward our community.

For ways to help with either time or money, please go here.  Thanks for listening on behalf of all those in need.

All Decked Out

…and nowhere to go.

They built the back deck at the same time as the wood front steps, but I never showed you the back because I wanted to get it all stained and stylin’ for ya.  I honestly don’t know when that is going to happen…so…there.

It rains every weekend that I try to rent the pressure washer to clean the old sections of deck.  When it’s dry, the oak tassels keep falling into the stain…freaking annoying.  I managed to get those front steps stained by some miracle reprieve in nature…and they aren’t even finished…just good enough for a distance photo!

Here’s where we are….or were, and are, this week.

This was taken during inspection….that corner where the hose is?  My nemesis.  We’ve been grading that with mud etc.. to keep water from pooling there, despite the french drains.  Today’s downpour showed us we were FINALLY successful.  WAH freakin’ HOO!  I was hoping for Madonna-esque guns after all that digging…didn’t happen, so I’ll settle for draining water.

There was just a small deck outside the living room, with plenty of mud on either side of it.  Phil/lipa‘s lair was under this small deck.

And that was the other small deck off the kitchen….

We had to tear off the boards of the living room deck in order to get the new siding done, but we kept the structural supports attached to the foundation since we knew we’d re-build it eventually.

We designed the new retaining wall to act as the support for the new deck.  The joists run across to the wall and are supported underneath by the new cinder block rather than sinking tons of posts into the ground.

Now we have an L shaped deck that wraps the corner and connects the kitchen and the living room on the outside.  The dining room is in between with the big windows.

I took these the day they finished, and the snow came the next morning.

Here it is in all its unstained glory…one day, I’ll be able to get this knocked out.

You can see where the old deck ended and the new starts…I’ll pressure wash the old so I can stain it all at once.  We also hope to replace these railings with the hog panels like in the front,  but these were already there and in good condition, so, we kept them for the moment.

I took the pictures below last night so you could see the carpet of oak tassels that are falling on us daily.  It was a nice warm evening and with torrential rains moving in, we knew we’d be stuck inside the rest of the weekend.  No proper cushions yet…

*UPDATE:  Boy, was that rain thing an understatement…things are bats**t insane here…

You guys were right – I don’t regret painting the chairs orange…

BTW….That fugly lantern? Best commercial mosquito repellent ever.

We should have bought stock in OFF Power Pads when they first came out, because it’s the only thing that allows us to hang outdoors at night without spraying down.  They WORK people…and trust me…we’ve tried EVERYTHING.  I am not getting paid to wax poetic about these things……REALLY.

Urchin Urges

Fetish alert.  Help me.  Birds, Fawns, Mushrooms, Urchins.  I really don’t want to know what these cravings mean, but I acknowledge-it’s not right.

But I’m not the only one.  We all admit to our long suffering love of vintage Jere sculptures -  previously admired here, but urchin-lovin’ is obviously not just my gig. Jonathan loved them enough to team up for their Jere/Adler re-issued urchins.

Jere/Adler  for $995

Plus KWID got on that train a few years back as well.

Wearstler’s are $2195 EACH

Then came Chiasso’s version.  Now we’re talking more of my kind of budget.

Chiasso’s are $188 for 3

How about this new West Elm number in wood?

$19-$34 each from West Elm

The new West Elm pendant is a winner too.  Asiatix made a tabletop version several years ago (2003?) for $300….then Z gallerie had a tabletop version for $149 last year, but both seem to be gone now. All versions made from bleached coconut…

$149 each for these coconut pendants

These lamps on Lacor’s website make me drool a bit on my keyboard… I bet they are pricey.

How about these babies…..Gold Leafed Sea Urchin Bowl

Yes, I can’t help myself.  First it was this one, now…Daniela de Marchi’s ring via Splash on the Net….want it.

One year at Christmas I made white urchins with skewers, a foam ball, spray mount and fake snow spray.  They don’t last but one round, but they were cool and festive.  Why am I crazypants for these things?