Weekend Projects

I spend the weekend working on the painting the basement walls and I finished putting on the fourth coat of Watertite paint on Sunday.  The "aged pearl" color sure brightens the basement up.  I still have the small wall with the electrical panel and the northeast corner left to paint this summer.  I can start paint the wall with the electrical panel on Wednesday but the northeast corner needs to cure until Sunday before I can start paint it.

Once I finished painting the wall I can pull up the drop cloths and plastic and start preparing the floor for painting.

While waiting for the paint to dry in the basement, I spent Saturday afternoon hand sanding the railings on the right side of the picture. I thought I would be using my power detailer sander for this but the head was to large to fit in between the railing going down the stairs. It took me 6 hours to do that small area. I try to working on it Sunday when the deck is in the shade but wearing a dust mask in a Heat Advisory was just too much. The deck can just wait until the weather is cooler.

The Garden Keeps Blooming

The different types of lilies are the main show this last week.  Here are the daylilies.



Lilies, I not sure what are Asia and Orientals but I just love having them in the garden.

Here picture of my small garden bed beside the back deck I am working on now.  There is another daylily is this picture when I brought this plant I was told that it does well in shade.  I do love the dark red with its yellow center.



Lastly, I also have an Indian Blanket flower just start blooming.  I planted it in the garden just last year; I been having trouble getting them to winter over in the garden.

Finally I Am Back to Working on the House.

The garden is now in maintenance. So all I need to do there is pick the produce, water it, weaving the squash & cucumber vines in the trellis and tie up the tomatoes. I also stop selling plants at farmer's market the last weekend in June. This allows me an extra half day on the weekend to get other projects done at home the rest of the summer.

I took Tuesday and Wednesday off this week to get a good start on two projects to be done this summer. The first is to finish waterproofing the basement. The basement project was put to a halt late February when the paint in the upper southeast corner started dripping down the wall. See "Painting the Basement" more information. I spent the both mornings painting the wall, so now have 3 coats on the south wall and 2 on the east wall section. Watertite paint recommends 3 to 4 coats on cement wall. I plan to spend my weekend mornings down there painting on the last coats this coming weekend. I still need the paint the east section of the wall with the fuse box and water softener tank in front of it. I need to do some repair on those sections because my hydraulic cement failed to bond in some areas.

On my afternoons off this week I started to sand down the deck to the bare wood. I finished sanding any area I could get my 5" oscillating disc sander into by 7 PM on Thursday. All I need to do is use the detailed sander on the remainder of the deck and if necessary do some hand sanding before staining it. I pick out a Benjamin Moore semi-transparent stain called Dragon's Breath which nicely compliments the Brookline Beige on the clapboards. I would like to paint the deck railings similar the front porch. I would like to paint the spindles with the Brookline beige and the hand railing with the Tarrytown green but I am waiting until I see how the stain color looks on the deck floor. I hope to finish sanding the deck this weekend hopeful the 90F weather will hold off until Monday.

Not Much Has Changed

I am still busy working on the garden. I have been harvesting pea pods, broccoli, and beets. This weekend I froze 5 to 6 quarts of pea pods and another 3 quarts of broccoli. My beans are just starting to produce; I pick only five beans off the bushes yesterday but there are many more beans coming. The tomatoes are growing now since we are finely getting some warm weather. The cucumbers are blooming and I also noticed that my pumpkins are blooming too. The golden zucchini has a 6 inch squash ready to harvest this evening.


The perennial garden is looking good now. Last week I dug up the iris and divided them. The irises were dying from iris bores. I saved what I could and threw the rest out. I also divided some of the other plants the garden to keep them from getting to big. Here are some pictures of the flowers in bloom.

 

 













Believe it or not I actually found time last weekend to start working on the house again.  I spray washed the front porch and back deck.  Vacuumed and washed the front porch furniture which was covered with White Pine pollen.  The back deck still needed to the rinsed down with a beach solution since there was still some algae that survived the commercial cleaning solution.  Now I need to sand down the back desk before staining it.

New Arts & Crafts Chair

The chair was another Craig's List find.  I plan to recover the seat with the left over recycled leather I used for the last oak Arts & Crafts chair I did.  The chair has a board covering the missing webbing and foam cushioning so this project should be very similar to the last one.

More Flowers



Spiderwort

 

Achillea






Tiger Lilies: The bulbs have been past down from my great grandmother's garden.

 

Yellow Loosestrife



Raspberry Ice Opera Supreme Petunias

 

Sedums

The Yellow Pea Pod will be ready to pick tonight!

Yesterday I was working in the garden planting my second row of beans, more beet and rutabaga when I notice that my yellow pea pods will be ready tonight.  There were a few that could be sampled last night and I could not resist eating some of them raw.


Golden Sweet Pea

 My Dwarf Gray Sugar Peas are not far behind.

Since Saturday the broccoli has doubled in size.