The Studio (Part Too Many)

We have gotten to a place where getting the house in proper order has become our number one priority on the giant Honey Do List. Living in controlled (?) chaos is driving us nuts.

To that end I drove down the mountain into the Roanoke Valley and purchased a new floor for my studio. That's a sample of the pattern to the left. It's an engineered cork "click" type floor which should be tremendously comfortable to work on as I generally craft standing up. Also, what could be more inspiring than having "Dali" under your feet all the time?

Once the floor is in I'll be able to move my crafting things back into the room and free up a LOT of space in the den and landing. That done, Mr. Fuzzy will be able to lay new flooring in those spaces and turn them into the beautiful, usable, spaces they so desperately long to be.

A Nice Change

The last few weeks have seen our home sent into complete disarray again... this time, though, there's something to show for it! Mr. Fuzzy decided it was time to undertake project number three from our home energy audit. (Project One was taking the vent covers off our "AC vents" so the heat pump could work. Project Two was throwing a plastic cover and some insulation over the whole house fan for the winter.)

Project Three was to replace all the windows in the house. That's right.... we had our Realtor/contractor/handyman friend Eric Johnson (with help from his son & Mr. Fuzzy) take out and replace 22 single windows and put in three completely new triple window units. Not only are our windows super tight now (no more candles blowing out in the dining room come January's storms!) but our views are much improved.

So is the trim work. My study was the first to get trimmed and it's so much lovelier a place to be in now. ... so long as you don't look behind you at the pile of stuff that needs dealt with or the half removed carpet because there's no place to move it all out to first.

If you do not remember the, erm, basic trim work in Casa de Fuzzy here's a little reminder.

:D

Girl Power

Those were the days....

First, a little thank you to everyone who has commented, e-mailed, called, or stopped me on the street to give me their condolences on the loss of my father. I'm grateful for your kindness.

Life on the farm has been blissfully dull but blessedly busy. Mr. Fuzzy spent three very intense days erecting an electrified fence around the far garden. The deer have completely bounced back after a good hunting season and a starvation winter... which is to say, they ate all of our first plantings of peas, beans, and sunflowers plus most of the first planting of corn.

This fence couldn't happen earlier because the field needed to be hayed before Mr. Fuzzy could haul the locust logs across the field, debark them, and whatnot. It was a poor hay harvest so every blade left undisturbed was an important blade! Now we have a very pretty fence that has kept the deer out.

The new fence means that I, Mrs. Fuzzy, have been out weeding and planting nearly every day since Saturday. Another planting of corn, peas, sunflowers, and several kinds of beans was done plus a planting of carrots, summer lettuce, started leeks, and flowers for our predator bug friends. There is a whole lot more to do in order to fill up this goodly patch of ground but the Creator saw fit to answer my request for rain within an hour of my making it today (thanks a bunch!) The plants got 1/4 inch of good, penetrating, rain. Rocky and Rufus and I got a cold, cold, shower.

In the evenings I've been working on the never-ending "get the studio usable" project and another of my quick demolition-restoration projects. Namely, pulling up the disgusting bathroom carpet and figuring out what to do about the mildew I found underneath. Although the now-exposed OSB is ugly it's a world better than the ancient, wrinkled, stained, mildewed, and peed-upon carpet. Note to all: do not install carpet in a bathroom and do not house a stressed cat on such a carpet! How ever could we not smell THAT? Anyway, these problems seem to have been successfully addressed and it's time to Kilz the floor.

Greenhouse O Greenhouse

Remember this lovely greenhouse picture from last spring? The one where I said I'd emptied, cleaned and disinfected the interior before putting on a fresh coat of paint? Well, it doesn't look that nice right now.

I finally confronted my fear of power tools and decided to remodel things to make the space more useful to a barely-five-foot-tall (after I've been to the chiro) amateur gardener. All that unusable space under the benches just collected trash and I couldn't reach the far corners at the end without climbing onto the bench. So... I remodeled.

Warmish greenhouse or icy, windy yard?
Rocky knows which is better!

This bench has worked really well so I just drilled holes in it for water and potting soil to fall through. It also works well for securing a jig saw and holding fuzzy "helpers."

The big bench is history, trimmed to a shadow of it's former self but still wide enough to hold a milk jug or Buster sprawled in the corner. I drew his chalk outline (with space for growth) to be certain. Nothing in the greenhouse was square, and I'd never used a jig saw before, so I went with a wave pattern based on an old CD I found on the floor.

I see no reason a greenhouse can't be girlie.
(Jig Saw work completed.)

The medium size bench was OK but too deep for me to make use of the floor underneath so I'll be affixing expanded steel bases into the holes. There's a small area at the end, which you can't see, for setting tools and things on a solid surface. With the holes I'll be able to see what's below and maybe use the floor to over-winter plants like peppers and chiles. The dead looking things are habaneros. Might have gotten too cold in there before I found the heater but we'll see. The idea is to keep them alive, but dormant, until they can go back into the garden.

And here is the door end. I put the soil on the floor to help with the water problem, drilled some holes in the floor too, and put as many tools as I could above my head. The lantern is LED so it gives bright light without any risk.

The ultimate plan is to have soil on the floor and a thyme walkway down the center. I'll be able to directly grow lettuce and other things AND have space for potting up, setting teacups, and growing starts.