House and garden

I had grand plans this summer, but somehow we didn't quite get around to doing as much as we usually do.  I really wanted to work on creating a garden around our new outdoor area before Oscar's birthday party, but I had to wait until after they'd left to get stuck in.  

 I'd head off to the nursery and come home with the back of the yaris filled with perennials.

This area will be next year's project

All the bees on the new plants make me so happy!

 Just for fun, here's some before photos of the house outside:

all that wood came from all the trees we had to have cut down from around the house .

This is how we started digging out that area...on our own and we used lots of these big rocks and boulders.  We used heaps of them to build our front path.

Where that pile of rubbishy stuff is at the top of the hill is where the shed is now.  It's hard to believe our patio ever looked like this.

 

We LOVE the new patio area.

I bought this gorgeous little print outside MOMA in NYC.  Love it.

 My other big project (apart from the garden) was fixing up the gang planks (as we call it) above the barn.

The top of the barn used to look like this photo with a very young Kit: it was my storage space for wood, paint and all sorts of other things.  Although the previous owners had put flooring down up here, none of it was finished to the edges, there was a door going out the back that wasn't air tight and mice were getting in EVERYWHERE during the winter.  

We finally had our new windows put in this summer (there was a stuff up which delayed them), so I decided to tackle this area.  We had heaps of left over trim and stuff , so I set to work and spent 4 days sawing, hammering and painting and totally revamped the area.

 I used some left over wainscotting to cover up the door (we aren't using it right now).  I used all kinds of bits of trim to cover up holes (I could see daylight through the wall at some points)

 As the space started to develop, I decided that it was a great space and that I wanted to move all the storage stuff out to our big shed (apart from the paint).

 On the smaller side, I got rid of the massive big shelves that I temporarily put up and built a little "book case" to store paint  and tools on for now.

This is before I put the shelves on.

 Then Kit made me a desk and ta da!  I have my own little studio space in our house now.

 I absolutely love it.  Even though it's a small space, because of the void next to it, it doesn't feel claustrophobic or anything.  We just need to work out where we can put a ladder down into the barn...next year.
 And as for the barn; we inherited a couch from our neighbours which meant a bit of reshuffling for that room.

 And my gratuitous end of summer photos of my house.  My lovely house which I miss terribly.

A lovely little glicee by a local artist.

And just a few more photos of my garden which always starts to look spectacular the week we have to leave.

a few extra plants I put in right before we left.

Read the next post for more....