Petunias, Planters, and Patios, Oh My!

When we purchased the building that houses 'some things looming' we were particularly thrilled with the attached courtyard, despite the fact that it contained trash and two-foot high weeds.  One of the first things we did, was to put Joshua, our gardener-in-training and my first-born child, to work cleaning up the space:  pulling the weeds, throwing out the trash, and digging out two foot long roots along the building perimeters.  He's a high-energy kid.  Over the years, I've put him to work in my own yard to burn off some of that excess energy, so it was a task he was familiar with and often enjoys. 

In the spring of 2010, we added a fence, complete with gate and lock to keep our neighbors from throwing their trash into our courtyard.  At this point, our progress stalled because the courtyard is landlocked by several buildings. There is no egress to the street, which means, any kind of patio materials had to go through the gallery or the boutique to get back outside.   The more we contemplated how we'd haul brick and stone, the more we realized it might be better to pay someone to do the work for us.

This past fall, we hired a landscaper who designed the patio and installed it behind the fence.

Building the Patio

It took three or four days, and many many more truckloads for the two landscapers to deliver the brick, stone, and sand.  Hauling wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow, they carried the materials up a ramp over up our front steps, through our gallery, and to the courtyard.   Daily I watched the progress of the construction.  Being an artist who finds the process as exciting as the product, I was enthralled watching the assembly.

One half complete!

Almost finished!

This Spring, we had the landscaper come back and fill the region outside of the fence with decorative stone.  I'm not even going to guess how many trips that took. And finally, our patio/courtyard was complete! Or was it?

We still needed to acquire tables and chairs, and what about decorative elements? Prowling stores from here to Timbuktu, Floyd managed to snag three large table umbrellas the very color of our 'some things looming' green.  He put up the center awning, anchored it down, and voilà!  NOW we were finished with the courtyard.  Or were we??

Any good city courtyard should have a container garden, we thought. And since we wanted to debut our outdoor space at the Size Matters opening, it fell to Floyd and I to create the garden.   I wanted evergreens, first and foremost.  So we hopped in the car and started hunting through garden centers all across our fair city's suburbs, in the cold, misty, spring rain.  We began with some dwarf spruce trees, and some blueish-green shrubs, I have no idea of their names.  I'm not a gardener. I leave that up to the kid, who has a ridiculously keen green thumb.  Mostly, I said "ooh, that's pretty and would go nice with all these other shades of green. Let's get that!" 

I picked out a couple of ruby daylillies as well as some reddish grass-like plant.    Then we found this rose bush/shrub variety called "Knock Out Roses."  Knowing how much Rebekah loves her roses, we decided to grab three of those for three corners of our patio.  Unfortunately, nothing is in bloom yet, so we knew we'd need some annuals to add color.  Floyd suggested some hanging window boxes attached to the top of our patio fence with a draping flower out of them.  We ordered eight boxes, and are awaiting them, even as I type.

Piling our finds into Floyd's truck, we headed to the next stop for some containers, stone, and potting soil to plant our goodies.   Next came the fun part: getting it all back to the courtyard.

Joshua, our gardener

Back and forth, forth and back, we hauled our prized purchases.  Thankfully, I had our gardener-in-training, Joshua, to help muscle us through the process. He even began the planting process that evening, managing to set-up three trees and one rose bush.  The next day, I brought over some annuals already in planters (thank goodness!) and a couple of window boxes to hang off the railing on the steps leading out of the boutique.  Floyd and I began to tackle the rest of the pots.  Half-way through our first pot, we wondered to ourselves how a fourteen year old boy managed to plant three trees and one rose bush all by his lonesome.  It was quite the task for just the two of us! 

Our "gardener" and his sisters who "helped"

Much to our chagrin, we miscalculated how much dirt and stone we really needed, which meant another trip to the garden center.  We decided to pick up more annual planters to decorate the empty space between the door leading out of the gallery and the door leading out of the boutique.  Piling it all in the back of my mommy-mobile (aka mini-van) we headed back to the studio.  A gazillion more trips back and forth from the street, through the gallery, to the patio, and we finally unloaded the rest of the stash. 

By this point, our bodies were talking to us. We had been squatting, bending over, or hauling large heavy bags of product for hours, and decided we might not be able to get upright ever again.  Thankfully, this was not the case, and by the evening before the Size Matters opening, we were able to sit out and enjoy the fruits of our labors. 

leading out from the gallery to the courtyard

The patio at night

 

 

Looking back towards the gallery door

During the day.  Doncha love the green umbrellas Floyd found? They're our color!

It's lovely to sit out here.

or here. :)

We hope you'll stop by sometime, to see Size Matters, and maybe take a peek at our little courtyard hide-away here in the city.

~Melanie

Who let me play with powertools?

Ohhhh, if you could have only been here on the afternoon I constructed a frame loom to see if I could turn the project into a Saturday Sampler. Because for me, the key to a successful Sampler, is test-driving the project over and over until I know the good, the bad, and the ugly, hoping to eliminate surprises that might turn up during the two hours of class. I know there are a gazillion and one ways to make a frame loom. I've seen looms constructed out of wood, metal, PVC pipe, and even a book. I'm not opposed to constructing a few more frame looms in variety of ways, but I wanted to start with the one I knew best: the one I made in my very first college Fibers class.

It's been 16 years since Fibers 101 when we constructed the very same loom I was attempting to re-create that afternoon. We used nails back then, and after working with Floyd this last year and a half, and seeing how he put things together more often than not, well, it gave me the brilliant idea to buy screws instead. I tried to use wood glue this time around as well, thinking it would add a layer of sturdiness to the loom. And oh, did I mention that sixteen years ago, the pieces were already pre-cut to a specific size on a power saw? No? Well, this time they weren't. So, I had to use a handsaw and apparently the teeth were too rough for the wood. I needed a finer tooth saw. It's a good thing my teenager son has a mouse sander.

While trying to get things square, I fought with the clamps and wood glue . I'd no sooner get one side square and clamped together, then the other would come apart. I wrangled my eleven year old daughter, Ruth, into being an extra pair of hands. Still, the wooden parts were slipping and sliding. After a bit, I managed to get the sides clamped down to the top piece of the loom.

Then came the drill. I knew enough to pre-drill the holes. But apparently, I didn't know enough about drill bits and screws to choose the right ones, both drill bits and screws. The screws were too big, and the drill bit too small. When my husband Jeremy walked up to the porch after he got home from work, he noticed I was fighting with getting one of the screws into the wood. I had asked him to help, but between the two of us, we split the wood. I say "we" because, as for me, I was the one who pre-drilled the hole. And he, because he'll tell anyone who listens, he's "Anti-handiman."

So I had to take that piece apart, which wasn't easy to do since the glue had set up, cut another bar the same size as before, and then had to try to re-assemble it. (Floyd makes this stuff look so easy!)

Joshua, my afore mentioned son, rode his bike up to the porch at that very moment. He was just getting back from hanging out with his friends. I looked up at him, and made sure to look as pitiful as I could, and said in a pleading, helpless voice, "Oh Josh. I need your help." I should be ashamed of myself, using my femininity that way, against a poor hapless, unsuspecting, young, man-in-training. After all, that "help-me-I'm-a-girl" bit never fails with males of any age, even though I suspect they already know what game we are playing. However, I was desperate enough to try anything that might make a teenage boy willing to help his mother. Floyd was on vacation, and I didn't want to wait a whole week to finish my frame loom.

Feeling all grown-up and manly, Joshua sauntered over to me and said, "What do you need?"

"I bought the wrong screws apparently, and I'm not doing so well with the cutting and measuring...and well, it's pretty ugly." I sat on the porch amidst parts and pieces strewn about. Blowing my hair out of my face, I added, "But hey, I've learned a lot. And now I'm ready to turn it over to someone with more expertise." Flattery will get a woman everywhere.

Sweet boy that he is, he held in his laughter as he scanned my "mess." "Sure," he said with a big smirk, as he leaned his bike against the porch railing and climbed over the gate. After inspecting what I had already completed, and listening to what needed to happen next, he helped me square up the bottom piece, while giving me advice about what I should have done instead.

When I asked him to drill the hole, he said "See, I love this drill. It has this level on the back with cross hairs so you know you're drilling perfectly straight."

"Well, huh, look at that." I said
"You didn't know that?"
"Nope. I didn't know that."

In about 1/10th of the time it took me to do the top of the loom, Joshua had the bottom fixed, and fixed the top half where I made mistakes. Well, O.K., in two places he accidentally drilled all the way through. After the second hole that went through the loom frame, he looked at me and said, "Two words: Wood Putty."

Until the next time I go unsupervised with tools...

~Melanie

Should I die this week, I bequeath my...

I'm finished painting the studio, minus the kitchenette and the bathroom. Which means, I can now pack up my little bedroom, and move it over to my new place. I'm shocked and amazed how much I managed to stuff into one small bedroom. It's like the never ending pit of yarn, fabric, paint, weaving tools, various and sundry supplies! So far, I've filled about 30 boxes with no signs of letting up. Looking into my former 'studio,' no one would know it was in the process of being moved. And it will probably be a few weeks before I get everything unpacked and settled over there. I still have shelving to put up, closets to finish, doors to put on. In other words, I'm a long way off from being able to work there.

Last night, Joshua and I loaded the van, twice, with my stuff and took it over to the building. My new place is at the very top of the building. It takes three and half flights of steps to get to my new digs. My old studio is on the second floor of my house. That's another flight of steps. And my house is on a slight hill, which requires someone to walk up about ten steps to get to my porch. Hauling boxes, heavy and light, we went up and down and up and down and up and down more stairs than I care to count.

Halfway up the second flight of steps with the umpteenth box, Joshua said, "Man. (huff) This is (puff) like using a (gasp) stairmaster. Uhhhh."

"Yup. (wheeze)"

"Why (huff) on earth (puff) do you have (heave) your studio (gasp) on the third floor? (PFfffffff)"

"I don't (phooosh) know. (gasp) Some (pant) crazy lady (wheeze) thought (ahhhhh) it was (huff) a good idea (wooooooof) to (gaaaaaaaaaah) have (ehhhhhhhhh) a studio (whaaaaaaaaaaaa) on the (pant) third (heave) floor. (wheeze)"

Sigh. I haven't even begun to move all the equipment that doesn't fit into boxes. Not to mention, the actual furniture, looms, a dresser, benches, a couple of shelving units, my sewing machine table, and the television.

Could someone notify my next of kin, please?

Melanie

Studio 301, 302, in progress...

The week between Christmas and New Years was a tough one. Not only was my Grandfather ill, and dying, but I was trying to get my studio painted. Unfortunately, we didn't get as far as we'd like. For one, the place was filthy nasty dirty. The whole building is, as a matter of fact. It took us an entire day just to scrub it. Then it took another day to sand everything. The rooms are rather decent in size: 12x16x9.5 ft, and 11x13x9.5ft, so it was time consuming. And it was not a huge sanding, just enough to prep so the paint will stick. Joshua, my son, did most of baseboards using his mouse sander. I went in behind him and got the curved edges by hand. I also sanded one of the windows in the second room. Jeremy, my husband, sanded the two huge seven foot windows in the front room.

Josh tore up the carpets weeks ago, revealing baby poo brown painted wood floors. Not nice wood floor, as in I could sand it down and refinish into hardwood floors, no, these are rough hewn planks that are typically painted. Very common in this part of the world in homes/buildings from this era. My own house has this same kind of floor in the attic, where we have our bedroom. So before we primed the walls, we figured it would be best to sand the floors a bit, since the baby-poo brown paint had a high gloss to it.

After Jeremy sanded the floor, we painted a layer of primer on everything, except the floor. We'll take care of that after we paint everything else. Then we painted the first coat of color. It's a mixture of a bunch of different colors I had leftovers in the basement. Yeah, I know...maybe I'm crazy mixing up my own wall color, but it worked. I do it all the time.

As of this writing, I have put the second coat on the walls. Next time I head over there, I'll prime the closets and painting the interiors an accent color. Then I'm going to paint the trim (bright white) and finally the floors, an off-white with a yellow undertone. I'm not certain about the floors. I might end up re-painting them. The color cards looked good with the wall color, but you know how that goes.



Until the next update...

Melanie