Today at our house

John made a new gate

I made Peter's bread

And we worked in the garden

Spring finally arrives

Spring is at least a month late in Portland.  We had our worst winter ever (in our 22 years anyway).  It was cold and windy.  It was icy.  It was not like Portland.  Much of the winter we could not do our usual walks.  John was more resilient than me but he doesn't mind the wind as much and he bought spikes so he could walk in the ice.  Yes, it was that bad.

From our local weather man, only 6 clear days in the last six months.  Ugh...

Anyway, spring is finally here.  We've resumed our frequent visits to Portland Nursery.  Here is Marje, who I love.  It is such a treat to have Portland Nursery so close.

These were taken mid March at Portland Nursery.

 The back yard yesterday.  Love that bleeding heart.  It lights up the back yard.

Our magnolia is looking good.

The front yard has some color and growth.

John put a new roof on my bird house.  I bought it on Etsy  four years ago.  The roof isn't finished yet.  I think it is going to be stained red and sealed.

And he added flying buttresses to support our old fence.  He had a good time with that project.

Rinky dink project.... dyeing kitchen towels

Several years ago I purchased some huck towels from the Rag Lady (on Amazon).   Over the years they got a bit dingy and I couldn't find any replacements I liked.  I've been working on learning to dye fabric and so I have leftover dye.  I use it to over dye those dingy faded towels.

Here are some of them (some are in the laundry)

This is how they look before dyeing

 I soak them in soda ash solution before applying the dye.  That is my dye solution in 2 oz bottles.
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Two stools

I got such a positive response from my last post (Pretty Red Stool) that I am going to show you the first stool, the one John made about a year ago.  The Pretty Red Stool is a modified version of the first stool.  Both are made from alder but they are stained differently.  John also rounded the edges more on the red stool and made the top a little larger and the hand slot a little smaller.

The round edges make a big difference, as does the color.

My new pretty stool

John made this for me out of alder and stained it red.  It's really pretty.  He did such a good job.

Oooh Oooh that smell...

For some time there was this bad smell when I opened the basement door.  I could not track it down.   And then I realized that the landing linoleum was installed on particle board that had become wet and stinky.  So, yesterday John tackled removing the particle board.

Here is the failed particle board.  I am very anti particle board.  It's just too susceptible to moisture.  It says cheap construction to me.  John says the landing was also bad because it changed the stair height so the riser intervals were not the same.  How did it take us so long to figure this out?  And why didn't John figure it out, huh, Dave?

This is the landing now.  John cleaned the mastic off and washed it.  And today he patched it.  Then he will paint it with sharkskin floor paint.  Linoleum just inside an outside door is a bad idea anyway.  It got very slick when it was wet and even worse when it was icy.

Whatever will we do when we get too old to do stuff like this ourselves?

Front porch paint all fixed

John finished fixing the paint a couple of days ago.  It looks beautiful, better than the professional job our neighbors got.  That is the painter company that wanted to charge us $2500 for the stripping which took about 10 hours so that would be $250 an hour.  Good job John!

He won't let me wash the floor until the paint has cured a long ridiculous amount of time, like a whole week.  He did not paint the floor.  Just the wall.

No more bubbling.

Fixing the paint

We had our house painted summer before last.  Our front porch gets blazing sun in the late afternoon.  There were places where the paint had bubbled BEFORE they painted.  We thought it should be stripped but they thought they could fix it without stripping.

Unfortunately, we were right and they were wrong.  The bubbling was much worse after they painted it.  And it is very visible right by the front door.  No one has asked us for a painter recommendation.  The bubbling probably puts them off.

We've always done most of the work on our house ourselves.  You get control of the project that way and it is so difficult to get good work these days.  We did get a quote of $2500 to strip these two small sections, which is outrageous for how much work it is.

So, John is stripping the paint in those sections himself.   And he is doing a better job than we would likely get if we hired it out.   The worst is done on this side and it took about four hours.  The second side is not as bad.  And he is getting quicker.

The wood is beautiful quarter sawn fir.  Siding like that would be hard to come by these days.   And yet, the city is eager to tear down houses like ours and replace them with poorly built crap made of much lesser materials.

I didn't think to take a photo of this side before he started but here is what the other side looks like (it isn't as bad as this one was).  It looks like it has a skin disease.  One bubble on the first side was about four inches across.

Nodoguro shelves

John made shelves for Nodoguro which is opening May 18th in the old Genoa space.  He had such a good time with the project.

Well, he didn't have such a good time with this part....

 With some of the Nodoguro crew

Chalkwork for Nodoguro

 Hanging with Ryan

John's Step Stool

Isn't it nice?

House Painting

John painted what we call the bump out.  He also painted the trellis.  We took it down for the painting which was a bit hard on the roses.  After we put the trellis back we replanted the small area in front of the bump out, including moving a couple of roses.... hence the parasols protecting the roses from the hot sun.   The parasols are tied to rebar with garden twine.

Parasols and rebar have become staples in our gardening, especially rebar.  It makes great stakes.  Easy to put in.  Sturdy.  The ridges keep ties from slipping.