We were blessed with temperatures in the 60-70˚ range this weekend, so I spent as much time outside as I possibly could. And over the last week, the tulip tree in our front yard has gone from beautiful neighborhood landmark to unsightly embarrassing litterbug. Pretty much all the pink petals are down and browning on the lawn, so I had Finley come out and help me rake and haul it all to the mulch pile behind the greenhouse. When that was done I mowed the front and back lawns and made the place look a bit better. Next I used moss killer on the roof of the garage to clear off the north and east faces, which have been turning greener and greener each year.

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With limited mobility and summer coming, Jen has been thinking about cleaning up the west side of front porch for a while now to reclaim the dead space there. It’s been a dumping ground for anything we have that doesn’t fit in the garage or is too big to haul into the basement: all of our air conditioners, tables, chairs, cornhole boards, a treadmill I never used, assorted boxes and bags of goodwill donations, etc. She has a vision to turn it into a summer sitting porch, and now that the dining room windows have been replaced, there’s no reason not to keep the windows open to get more circulation in the house.

So we started hauling stuff out of there Sunday afternoon, starting with the treadmill, which will get dropped at the dump when it reopens. I moved a bunch of other stuff out to the garage, but we haven’t figured out what to do with the air conditioners yet. I’d like to keep them out of the windows for as long as possible so that we an enjoy the spring air until it gets blazing hot, so they may get stacked in the dining room while we paint.

The basic plan is to empty the room, remove the crown molding, and paint the walls properly—I hit everything with a quick roll of Kilz about 10 years ago just to brighten things up, but it was never meant to look perfect—and cover the acoustic tile on the ceiling with beadboard paneling. Then I can reinstall the crown molding to clean up the edges. We’re also going to demo the dividing wall to the right of the front door to open things up, and cover the hole with some spare drywall. Once everything has a fresh coat of white paint, we’ll tear up the shitty green carpet and replace that with floor tiles.

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Meanwhile, in the basement, our tomato seedlings are beginning to sprout their first true leaves, which is an excellent sign. I finally got smart and moved the grow bulbs down to 4″ away from the plants, and they’re much happier now. I’ve got a lot of seedlings to choose from so we won’t have to buy any from the store, but I do have to order bags of soil and have it delivered along with some other building supplies for the porch. I meant to start cleaning out the greenhouse yesterday, but ran out of time.

Date posted: April 6, 2020 | Filed under greenhouse, house | Leave a Comment »

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