New Friends, Interior Decor and Deceptacon Weeds

I love driving down dirt roads with tree canopies like this one. The area around the house is getting built up by the day and this is the last functional gravel road. A big development at the end of our street means the city will likely get around to paving this one too. I'll enjoy the bumpy ride while I can!

So, the house is looking pretty damn good. I realize I'm biased but still! The rest of the lighting fixtures arrived today and as of last night, there's power in the kitchen. I walked upstairs last night and flipped the kitchen switch...it was mesmerizing. After not having power on that floor for months to then have bright inset lights twinkling away. Amazing.

All the inset lights are dimmable which is exciting to me at this juncture in my life. The under cabinet lights are being installed tomorrow. Here's a daytime pic of the other side of the room/the dining area.

That table is really small for the space but it'll do for now. I'll take a better picture of the chandelier tomorrow.

The faucet arrived which is awesome because I was worried it would take the full 6 weeks to get here.

So pretty! I bought a bigger window ledge to go behind the faucet since the crappy ledge of yesteryear was only 2 inches wide which would never be able to support a little herb garden. So for $7 I bought a new ledge at Home Depot (again, much respect to the big HD), ripped out the old one and had Andre (in the blue shirt by the sink in the pic above and below) install the new ledge. Voila'! Herb garden ledge!  

You may notice the biggest event to happen to the house recently...the floors were stained over the weekend. It was the most stressed I've been since renovations started. I wasn't sure about that color I'd previously been so sure about when they started rubbing it in the wood. For about 20 minutes I was convinced I'd picked the wrong color and ruined the entire house.  I did what anyone would do. I took a break and ate an ice cream sandwich in silence. When I went back upstairs and saw the main area done I realized it was a great fit and everything was fine. Here's the before pic-

I actually really liked the unstained, IKEA-esque color but the darker stain blows that out of the water. The grain of the wood is gorgeous and you'd never see it with a lighter stain. All hail Minwax Provincial!

Countertops are getting installed on Monday or Tuesday which leaves only plumbing work to be done. That reminds me, I have a bedet in the back of my car. I gotta bring it in the house. I keep forgetting. I trekked over an hour away to pick it up because almost no one stocks bedets or the elusive hardware that goes with them, so I had to drive to an industrial park in Fredericksburg, VA to get it. Then I decided to take the more scenic route home and got lost for three hours. Turns out gps, maps AND a compass on my phone when service is sketchy is pretty much like not having anything at all. I had a full tank of gas and it was a pretty day so it could've been worse.

Let me introduce you to some new friends! See, we've been noticing that there are quite a few flies out in the country which made me think of one thing...one thing I always wanted as a kid and never bought.... A VENUS FLY TRAP!  

*WARNING: The picture below is graphic*

What can I say? That fly had it coming. I couldn't love this plant more. It's my Little Shop of Horrors. I also bought a tiny cousin to the venus flytrap-

This little plant doesn't have mouths that snap shut, instead its little leaves are covered in prongs of syrup that stick to gnats and then dissolve them. Nature is amazing. With these two plants and the dozens of frogs hopping around the house outside, I'm hoping the slow flying raisins dissipate.

With almost everything getting done next week, we have to paint as much as possible this weekend. What I'm realizing is that the hard work is just beginning. Louis looked at me today and said, "What colors are we painting the rooms?" Well, what a fine question Louis. Looks like I'll be staring at interior design websites all night!

I'm thinking of doing an old school finish on the walls of the main room/hallway so I need to brush up on that technique- pun intended.

As you can see, I need to finish the ceilings now that the floor is free of death trap objects to maneuver around. Taping drop cloths over the floor is easier than hurdling buckets, fans and table saws. 

Our contractors are so lovely, they decided to replace the screen on our porch as a gift to us. I won't say it didn't come without a price though...Rob had Rush Limbaugh blaring the whole time and this feminazi's head almost exploded. I had to sequester myself downstairs. 

The last drivel I heard was about Obama's dumb idea to pursue clean energy technology and how he's just like that idiot Carter- cut to my dilated pupils and clenched fists. Yeah and the oil spill is a part of nature and the ocean will heal itself and don't worry about there being more carbon in the atmosphere than EVER before because living in a man made science experiment is natural and who needs clean energy anyway my hefty pill popping ass will be dead soon so who cares?! SUCH a test of my patience- to the basement!

Lastly, I made a very, very, very cool discovery yesterday. When I got back from my three hour bedet tour I went to the garden where I planted more corn, soybeans and cow peas. I noticed that this one type of weed has practically taken over since Farmer John tilled the area for me yet it's nowhere else on the property. I've been pulling it like a weed but every time I do I say to myself, "Self, this weed is too pretty to be a weed and it looks kinda familiar". SO, I did some research and it turns out that this "weed" is actually something called Purslane. 

It turns out that Purslane is not only edible and revered in Europe, Mexico and Asia but it's also AMAZINGLY good for you. Here's an excerpt of the description:

Purslane contains more Omega-3 fatty acids than any other leafy vegetable plant. Purslane has .01 mg/g of Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). This is an extraordinary amount of EPA for land based vegetable sources. EPA is an Omega-3 fatty acid normally found mostly in fish, some algae and flax seeds. ^[5] It also contains vitamins (mainly vitamin A, vitamin C, and somevitamin B and carotenoids), as well as dietary minerals, such as magnesium, calcium, potassium and iron. Also present are two types of betalain alkaloid pigments, the reddish betacyanins (visible in the coloration of the stems) and the yellow betaxanthins (noticeable in the flowers and in the slight yellowish cast of the leaves). Both of these pigment types are potent antioxidants and have been found to have antimutagenic properties in laboratory studies.^[6]

100 grams of fresh purslane leaves (about 1 cup) contain 300 to 400 mg of alpha-linolenic acid.^[7] One cup of cooked leaves contains 90 mg of calcium, 561 mg of potassium, and more than 2,000 IUs of vitamin A. 

WOWZA! I've been pulling it like a weed for weeks! I'm going to try making it for dinner tomorrow. It can be eaten raw or cooked like spinach and it has a salty taste. 

Then I'm at HD tonight and I was drawn to a brilliant red/pink flower and wouldn't you know it...

The tags may be hard to read but they say, "Rio Purslane"! There are a ton of varieties. Mine have yellow flowers. I've been paying for omega-3 oil for years so the idea that I magically have a field of it is pretty exciting! 

The Home Stretch

Things are coming together! The contractors only have about another week left so everything "should" be done by next weekend. I realized I haven't shown the area around the house since early spring when things were still dead. It's pretty now so have a look-

I discovered there are three apple tress in the front yard! I'm really excited to find out what kind they are.

Ok, back to the inside of the house. The idea of using my own bathroom and not having to shower in flip flops is pretty damned exciting. Sharing the only working bathroom with a bunch of men could definitely have been worse, I'll say that but it'll still be nice to not carry a shower caddy. The great thing about the bathroom we share is the view of sunrises I get when I wake up before the guys get here- 

That plant was a good buy. It really brightens up the drab bathroom and hopefully reminds the guys that a girl lives there and to put the seat down. Thanks plant. 

I had a cookout for everyone at lunch on Friday because they've all been working so hard. Our foreman on the job is C.Q.- I wish I was half as talented. I showed him this picture of a pantry I love-

And he altered the layout of my shelves to mimic them, I found cheap beadboard slabs at Home Depot (shocking) so we threw that up behind the shelves. 

Now I just need to paint the shelves and I can always add a decorative trim later. I have the BEST plan for a pantry light....I saw this at potterybarn.com-

But of course it's overpriced and I don't really need that many lights SO I'm making my own cluster of three lights from old canning jars I used last year! I feel pretty confident about it and have all the electrical parts I need so that's my project for this weekend. 

A lot has happened over the last week. Doorknobs were installed and they look awesome-

The mosaic for the front entry is in and grouted with travertine tiles around it-

The tub was moved into place for when the plumbers come to hook up everything on Monday-

That window looks odd because it's not installed yet. That's just a clear piece of glass. It didn't fit right so they're coming back to fix it next week.

I've never had a bathtub so I'm really excited for it. I spent a few minutes testing it out when it arrived-

I  can stretch out in it so I'm excited for winter! Baths in winter are the best.

View of the shower.

View of the vanity area. I'm pretty happy about those french-style basin sinks. The well pump style faucets are going to look great. 

I added beadboard to the little half bath and will select a nice wallpaper to go above it. I'm on the lookout for a classic farm/country pattern.

The kitchen cabinets are all installed.

Here's a picture after the glass was added-

I left a lot of room around the island so more than one person can be cooking and milling about. I'm really liking my last minute decision to add decorative legs to the sides of the cooktop and sink, they'll match the legs on the island where the granite overhangs.

That open spot is where the dishwasher will be installed. I got a cabinet cover panel for it so it'll be camouflaged. 

The next big decisions were, 1. What countertops?  and 2. What color floor stain? 

I had a few options for countertops and I was seriously considering marble because I love, love the look but finally decided to go with granite because it's perfect for a kitchen. The first two from the top down are marble and the sample on the bottom is the granite I chose. 

To select a granite I went to a few granite warehouses where you walk through aisles and aisles of towering slabs to see what they have in stock. I saw some of the most amazing colors I've ever seen in my life. It's seems awful that anyone would cut some of those slabs! They look like aurora borealis. 

The swirls of cream, brown and white work perfectly with the kitchen and any floor stain I go with. It's called White Spring and unlike most of the slabs above, we can afford it! 

The marbles were beautiful but you can't cut on marble because it scratches easily and it stains if dark colored juices or acids like tomatoes touch the surface for too long...granite is pretty indestructible. Granite wins.  

Selecting a floor stain...this was hard. As you can see, I bought a lot of tiny cans of sample stains to try out before making a selection. We thought we'd go super dark brown when we first bought the place but it seems too contemporary for the style now. Out of those colors, I chose the one touching the bottom right of the granite sample. It's called "Provincial" and it's a chocolate color. As I type this, the floor team is upstairs sanding and prepping to stain. 

Here's the color up close. I've been told it may look darker when it's done which is fine with us. 

I ended up buying the cheapest chandelier available in the style I was considering because why pay a lot when I might hate it. Here it is-

Now that the house is kinda-sorta taken care of I'm finally turning my full attention to the garden and landscaping. My corn is doing well, I'm going to plant a few rows every two weeks so we should have corn from mid-summer through fall. These little stalks are 6 inches high and they were planted a week and a half ago!

The brussel sprouts, squash and melons are growing up and vining out. I bought a bunch of tomato plants this morning since I completely missed the boat on growing from seed this year. It was just too much. I've got a lot of seeds for next year and can be better prepared for all the attention they need. 

Until then I'm hoping my dahlia tubers pop up and we have enough tomatoes for me to can!