The Finished Floors

Yay!!! The floors are all done!

Here were my top 3 color picks- these are all Minwax stains. Our contractor advised us not to pick a specialty brand or color because if we ever need to match things up later it might be hard to do. Right when he put them down I knew provincial was out. It was way too red for me. You can't tell here because he sampled on different boards but the 50/50 mix still was really warm and red. The winner was dark walnut!


Now for some before and after pictures.

Before

After

 Before

After- sort of.  In this room I took the picture before they put the second coat of poly on. They had to fix a staining issue so it got finished later than the rest of the floors.

 Before

 After

 Before

After

Next project as you can see is installing baseboards and door frames. I'm excited though with how they turned out! They are so smooth and beautiful.

Garden Update - April

Spring is a busy time and there is always lots of work to be done outside. This year I'm experimenting with some new things.

 In my garden last year, the beds were 90% compost, 10% other stuff. This year, I made it roughly 40% topsoil, 10% peat moss, and 50% compost. Everything grew pretty well last year, but after some research, I'm convinced my plants may have been missing some minerals from having a lack of regular soil in there. I still need to send in a soil sample to the extension office and get it tested. I guess topsoils vary a lot in ph and nutrients. It takes 3 weeks to get back results so hopefully meanwhile what I planted will grow as long as the ph isn't too far off. I just direct seeded some lettuce so I'll see if it comes up ok. If it doesn't I'll have to buy a test from the store to make quick changes!

Before I amended my beds, I did plant a few things. They seem to be growing nicely. I hope the topsoil addition isn't a mistake!!

 Peas coming up

 I planted bare root strawberries this year. This is in the pure compost. I did add a bag of sand to the bed prior to planting because strawberries love sandy soil. I did half "cardinal" and half "ozark beauty" to see what I like better. I grew cardinal at our other house and they were great.

 My parsley self seeded :) This makes me happy!

This is outside the fenced area. I planted marshmallow root and since it's a perennial herb it's coming back. This year I'll be able to harvest some of the roots. I have plans to dry it and use it since it's suppose to help with acid reflux. It also get pretty flowers in the summer.

Wood floors installed!

Wahoo! The wood is all installed. Since it will be sanded and finished on site, we decided it was a job for the pros. We got four bids for getting the install/sand/finish of new floors on the main level plus sand/finish of existing floors. We are glad we got lots of quotes because we feel really confident we got the best price and so far have been pleased with the quality of work as well.

The new floors were laced in with the old so when its all refinished, it will look like it was done all at the same time (forgot to take a picture of this). We have solid red oak already in the entry and kitchen and just matched it. The plan is to go darker on the stain. But for right now, we are in the waiting phase because the wood has to get acclimated to the house for several weeks before they finish it off. Now for the before and afters.

 

 We are deciding on new trim in this pic too. 4 inch is on the left 3 inch on the right. We are going with 3 inch since it looks better with the 8ft ceilings.

I was so happy yesterday, I laid on the floor to do some wood angels. It was a good idea until I remembered raw wood can give you splinters :) 

Guess what's happening today....!

We ripped up the carpet and wood floors are getting installed! Yay! Pictures of the progress and details coming tomorrow!!

French Drain

Last year in the spring, we noticed in my art room in the basement there was some moisture coming in after a big rain storm. After it happened a few more times we knew we needed to remedy the problem. Thankfully there is no sign of mold and we didn't want anything to start! After lots of research it looked like a french drain would do the trick. They can be as uncomplicated as just gravel to pull water away or just a pipe. We did a combination.

Digging down hill

The arrow is pointing to where all the damage is and the highest point of the drain. 

The builders of this house did a poor job grading the yard and one of the low points is that corner of the house. So after digging it out, we found the seam of the footer outside had a portion of the concrete chipped away from years of water damage. 

Can you see it on the right of this picture?

We filled it all in with a foundation repair concrete patch. It's still wet in this photo.

 

 The trench ends behind the retaining wall. We laid a small layer of gravel first, then a socked perforated pipe, then covered it all with more gravel.

Once our recent snow melts and the ground thaws we will finish grading the soil so it drains away from the foundation.

The digging was pretty much the only hard part. It was just time consuming. We probably could have gone a little deeper with the trench where the grass is because we didn't have much room for the sod after we filled it all in. Whoops! I'm hoping the grass will still grow over it :)

 

 

Sod back in place.

Soil blocker = the bomb!

When you get excited about a soil blocker, you know you are a gardening geek. I have no shame about that :) I thought I posted about my new tool last year but when I looked through my archives I realized I didn't.

The benefit of the soil blocker is little to no transplant shock since it you don't put it in a container. I love this thing. It takes some technique to get it right. I will share the big secret to getting the blocks to stay together... lots of water! You have to make sure the soil is really pretty wet and of course packed in there. There are many tutorials on you tube about how to use it.

Here the blocks are all formed. They don't have to be perfect (as you can see mine aren't!). I put in 4 broccoli seeds and the rest spinach. When I direct seed spinach in the garden it never works that great for me. So hopefully this will be better.

 After putting in the seeds, I covered the dimples? or holes or whatever you call them with vermiculite. Then watered it just a tiny bit where the vermiculite is.

Homemade seed mix

At the beginning of February, I did some research and decided to make my own seed mix this year. I normally use a soil blocker. The soil blocker takes a ton of soil since it compacts it into squares. I plan on making some this week since I need to start my broccoli and spinach seeds. So having my own mix will save lots of money.

However, for the onion seeds, I didn't bother with the soil blocker and put them into a tray. The soil will be dumped later on and they will be individually planted so no need to mess with the blocker for them. The onions were a good test to see if the mix worked.

I stayed with a sterile mixture, no compost or soil.
3 gallons peat moss (bought in a big square at lowes)
about a half gallon of vermiculite
2 Tablespoons limestone

So far so good!

I think I may need to add some kind of fertilizer once they get bigger.