When I woke up this morning and went outside to check my garden, I saw this Peruvian Daffodil in bloom.  The latin name is Ismene, and in Austin, this is a late spring, early summer bloomer.  Right now it’s the beginning of May, and the last week has been warm (in the 80’s) and humid.

Of all the different flowers I’ve grown so far, this is one of my favorites, right after the purple passion flower, that began blooming a few weeks ago.

I put these bulbs in just before the last freeze, in early January, and they are located in my Tulip beds.  Plenty of good morning sun, and a lot of water.

White Peruvian Daffodil in Bloom

Yellow pollen covers the pistil (all six) of the peruvian daffodil

Thanks for coming back!

Today, I want to share with you the only photo that both my wife and I agreed on for the inspiration for our new kitchen remodel.

Light green cabinets, stainless steel appliances, cement grey farmhouse sink, all the details to make a comfortable kitchen

We spend tons of time surfing the web. I sit on the couch with my MacBook Pro, and she browses on the new iPad. At first we tried to schedule some time to both sit down together at the desk, and look together, but with our busy schedules, and priorities, we never seem to have the time to look at kitchen designs together. And when we do, she feels like surfing the Purse Forum and I’m looking at all kinds of other stuff.

But every so often our schedules sync, and when they do, we agree on some of the coolest stuff, don’t you think?

We just love this cottage kitchen.  We found it while surfing the Kitchen design section of Rate my Space (one of our Favorite HGTV shows).

Green, white, light and airy. This modern country kitchen is the main inspiration for our new kitchen design.

There are so many different features to admire – from the chairs, to the table, to the cabinets, to the floor, to the exposed brick.

Check out the chandelier.  Look at the bench seat.  Note the rolling cart.

And the modern touches – a clear plastic chair.  Stainless steel appliances, roman shades.

Don’t forget about the classic vintage kitchen style – the candy jar canisters, open shelves, and vertical plate storage.

A fantastic cottage kitchen

What do you think?  Share your comments below

Do you have a tired, old kitchen?  I do. I’m pretty sure this kitchen is original to the house.  All the appliances, with the exception of the microwave, oven, and refrigerator are 100% original to the 1970’s kitchen.  Easily this is the busiest room of our house, and has had the least amount of thought put into it.  Just take a look.

I spend hours here every day.  From answering the phone to preparing every single meal.  I bake bread here.  I sautee onions here.  I wash veggies, and pour wine, and even cut cheese.  I bring guests into my house, and have to show them THIS.   I’m assaulted with harsh lighting, low ceilings, cabinets and drawers that won’t close and some kind of unknown stain on many of the cabinet handles.

Let’s just take a moment, and show you exactly what I’m talking about.  Besides being generally ugly, there are a whole host of issues that make this an ugly kitchen.  Let’s start form the top down, shall we?    I’m 6′1″ tall.  A big guy.  I need every inch I can get.  This kitchen is actually smaller in cubic feet because the ceiling is 7-feet instead of the standard 8 foot ceiling.  Notice the cabinets go all the way to the ceiling.  This is usually good, but because the ceiling is lower, I’m loosing 1-foot of storage all along the perimeter of the kitchen.  And look – what is that horrible texture?  It’s a popcorn ceiling.  In the kitchen.

What’s wrong with a popcorn ceiling in the kitchen?  Let me count the ways…  Mostly it just collects grease and turns yellow.  And since it’s popcorn, you can’t clean it without it flaking off.  If you have read my earlier posts, you know I hate popcorn ceilings, and have found a great way to remove popcorn ceilings.

Behind these plastic panels (which collect tons of dead bugs) are long fluorescent tubes.

Now on to the kitchen  sink.  Looks pretty good, right?  Well, looks can be deceiving.  Visibly, there is a stain on the cabinet door, and I’ve actually scrubbed off the paint trying to get it clean.  I don’t know what the previous owners spilled there, but it’s just wrong.  Next, there is the loose tile behind the faucet.  Water splashes behind the sink, then sits along the back of the countertop and the wall, and even though I clean and use bleach, and try to keep it dry, I am loosing the battle.

What you can’t see is just as bad.  The laminate countertop is coming unglued from the cabinets, there is a big bubble under the countertop just to the right of the sink.  And don’t forget this post about fixing a clogged sink (which I am doing with more and more frequency).

This is my double bowl stainless sink

If you turn your head left and look down, you can see my dishwasher.  I love my dishwasher.  For 7-years when we lived in our incredible Menlo Park Apartment we didn’t have a dishwasher at all.  I am grateful to have one now.  But this one has some issues.  #1 – it doesn’t always get the dishes clean.  #2 – it takes forever to run a cycle.  #3 – even though it says sound insulated, it actually means sound amplified.  It’s so loud that we can’t watch TV in the living room.  You have to yell to be heard over the noise of the dishwasher.  It’s bad.  Very, very bad.

The Nosiest Dishwasher in the world

To the right, is the stove.  It’s not bad, but I don’t think it’s original to the house.  Aside from its overall ugliness, it works OK.  It can boil a pot of water quickly, and keep a good simmer.  Sometimes the oven turns off for no reason, but otherwise It’s not bad.  I have no complaints about the stove.  My dog on the other hand hates the range.  The sound of the gas burner coming on, sends Riley into a tizzy.  He tears around the corner barking, and in full-attack mode.  In a Westie vs Stove battle, I wonder who would win?

There really isn't anything wrong with this stove. It could be a bit more powerful, but overall it's pretty good.

Then there is the pantry.  I love my pantry only because I can close the door, and hide all my ingredients, and pots and pans.  Otherwise it is a huge WASTE of space.  In a big modern kitchen with lots of square footage, a pantry takes up only a fraction of the total area.  But when you are working in 150 square feet, my pantry is 8%, which is a lot.

A pantry is great for storing food, and cooking items, but mine has some issues

I keep a lot of stuff in my pantry – the garbage can, pots and pans, food cleaning items, and of course food.  It’s pretty organized, as you can see, but I’ve had to work around a couple of obstacles.  The shelves are narrow and aren’t adjustable, the lighting is bad, and the door opens the wrong way.  What do I mean by a wrong way door?  When you open it, it blocks the stove.  So let’s say, I’m stirring polenta, and my wife want’s to get some spices out.  She opens the pantry door, and it smacks me in the butt.  everytime.

This is the useless area between the pantry and fridge

As you move around the kitchen, there is a second prep area between the fridge and the pantry.  I keep glasses and mugs in the top cabinet, and silverware in the bottom.  I don’t think I’ve ever done any cooking on this countertop.  It’s a great size, but a horrible place for a counter.  And the tile job is both ugly and badly installed.  Just take a look:

ugly tile

Then there is the fridge.  I don’t think there is any more important appliance in the house – And I’m including the computer and the TV.  This fridge is not original to the house, and wasn’t chosen well by the previous owner.  I’m guessing they looked for a low price model, and didn’t think about getting an energy efficient refrigerator, and definitely didn’t think about style.  This side by side fridge/freezer combo has a noisy icemaker, and no room for today’s packaged foods, or fresh veggies.  And again the doors are in exactly the wrong place.  When you open them, the nearly touch the center counterspace, and there is absolutely no way to get by.

Open the fridge door, and the kitchen is closed, and see how the pantry door hits the stove. Bad for flow.

Finally there is the breakfast area.  This space is great, with lots of room,and tons of light from the windows that overlook the deck and backyard.  We like this space, but feel it is also under-utilized.

Breakfast Room with Plantation Shutters

So there is a tour of our kitchen.  Why did I take all this time to show you?  Because this post serves as the Before pictures.  Now that we have lived in the house for a year or so, it’s time to update the kitchen.  And we have big plans.  Overall, there are some great features to the kitchen:  the location, the light, and the general layout.  But as you can see this kitchen is in some serious need of updating.  And that’s what’s going to happen.  All for under $20,000.

upper cabinets

Stay tuned!  And let us know your thoughts.  I’m open to suggestions!

This last saturday, my wife and I decided to go on the Austin Outdoor Living Tour to get some more ideas to take our backyard to the next level. Not only did we get so see 9 incredible different houses and gardens, but the tour led us through some fantastic neighborhoods we didn’t even know existed here in Austin. Overall we got tons of great ideas, lots of inspiration, and even met a few designers who were more than happy to share plant ideas and tips with us for free!

Some of the houses were HUGE – with 2 acre backyards as big as a theme park. But my favorite were the smaller, cottage garden houses. The ones with an eclectic mix of plants, and patio furniture, stuff that has been collected over a lifetime, and placed throughout the yard.

As we looked around, we saw tons of different things that we could do ourselves, and incorporate into our yard. Expect to see several DIY garden projects over the summer that were inspired by this last weekend.

Of course I brought my camera. Here are some of my favorite pictures. Do you see any inspiration in these yards? I hope so!

Let’s be honest – how often do you ride your bike? I’m guessing you are hard core, and ride 1,000 miles a week, or you are just like me, and your bike takes up valuable garage real estate.

Here’s my Bianchi.  Notice how I take care of it.  She is propped up against the wall.  Just ready to scratch the beautiful blue green paint, Here’s a bit of useless trivia: Celeste is the official Bianchi Color, apparently it used to be the color of Italian tanks or something.

Storing a bicycle in the garage

Last week while I was at Lowe’s picking up some more plants for the backyard landscaping, I saw a bin of vinyl bicycle hooks for 99¢ each. Immediately I picked up a couple, and knew exactly what to do.

Getting a bike up off the floor and hanging upside down is a great way to increase floorspace in your garage. I mean let’s face it. A 10-speed leaning up against a wall takes up a lot of room. And it’s precarious at best. One little bump and it can fall over, taking with it that stack of boxes, brooms, and left over sprinkler pipe all stacked up next to it.

Finding a place wasn’t hard to hang my bike wasn’t hard. I had to watch out for three things:

1. that the hooks were NOT in the path of the overhead garage door (that would be an expensive do-over)
2. the hooks were not going to be in a place where I’d bump my head on the bike everyday
3. there were some studs I could screw the bike hooks into for stability.

The perfect place for me was on the side of the garage above the garbage cans.

First I moved everything out of the way so I had a clean place to bring out my ladder, and work.  Then I found where the ceiling joist was. I just looked for the drywall tape lines in the ceiling, and knew that’s were I’d find something solid to mount the hooks.  Positioning the first hook was simple, too.  I pre-drilled a hole with a 1/4 drill bit into the ceiling joist 12 inches away from the wall (so the handlebars wouldn’t be in the way).  Be sure to wear your safety glasses so all the ceiling sawdust doesn’t fall in your eyes.

Then I moved my ladder and put another pilot hole into another stud – 32 inches away (which is just about how far apart the wheels on my bike are).  Then all I had to do was screw the hooks into the holes.  This can be tricky, because you are screwing upside down once you start screwing the hooks, and they catch, make sure you go all the way and finish.  You know you are done when the vinyl is touching the ceiling.

The entire job took 6 minutes.

hooks for bikes

proper bicycle storage

By the way, you don’t have to buy your hooks from Lowes – I found these bicycle storage hooks on Amazon.com, and I know Harbor Freight also has them.  Just don’t pay more than a buck for each – more expensive doesn’t mean better in this case.

Today I’m taking a small deviation from the usual house and garden posts to share a cool little thing I found on the internet yesterday.  I saw this on Crazy Gadgets, Incrediblethings.com, and then on SwissMiss.com (three great blogs if you’ve never seen them) who found them on Engaget. They are custom google map envelopes designed by Raghul Mahtani & Yofred Moik, two designers from the Industrial design program At Syracuse University. They combine a google map with text bubbles containing the destination and return addresses, and the route the letter takes to get from one place to another.

1. Open Contacts and select the person you want to send the letter to


Get Directions in google

2. Highlight the address and control click Show Map…
3. A Google Map will open in Safari with the destination centered
4. Click the Get directions link, and enter your address (the return address), then click get directions.
5. The route will be shown in the browser window.
6. Do a screen grab (command-3) so you have a copy of the map.
7. Open a new Pages Envelope and from the Template Chooser select envelope
8. 

   edit map in pages

   Drag the screen grab of the map onto the envelope, and use the handles to resize the map to fit on the envelope.

9. Create the address “stickers”. I used the rounded rectangle shape, but you can also use a text bubble. Resize and color to your liking. Once you make the first one, command-d to duplicate the sticker and move one to the top left, and the other to the center of the envelope. These will be your to and from fields.
   

   address bubbles

10. Type in the addresses, and style the text. Google uses the Arial Font for their maps.
11. Click print.

Some bloggers who wrote about the google envelope project noticed that this only work with addresses that are east of the destination, because the destination address needs to be in the top left corner of the envelope and the primary address needs to be centered. Some guy tried to send a note to his friend, but didn’t follow the rules, and his letter was returned to sender. There is a super easy work around. Google maps lets you re-arrange the driving route, if you want. simply click on the route line, and change the route so the directions pass through the upper left quadrant, then zoom in on the map when you add it to the envelope so the route appears like it is coming from the top left.

I’m no gardening expert, at least not yet anyway.  But give me 20 or 30 years and I’ll probably know a thing or two.  What I know right now it there are a few different plants blooming in my central texas garden.  My regular readers know that I’ve just begun to landscape my backyard.  I’ve been checking out other local bloggers gardens (incredible stuff out there), and gathering ideas about what I want in my yard.

Yesterday, while doing a little late afternoon watering, several of my new plants began to bloom.  Here are a few quick photos I grabbed while watering:

pictures of purple passiflora - a passion vine in bloom

A lone white camellia is in bloom on this week after easter

This white camellia has been in bloom for a few days, as evidenced buy the slightly brown edges and spots

Red Verbena in bloom

What are your favorite flowers to grow and watch bloom?

I’ve finally done it.  I pulled the trigger on a design for the main focal point of my yard.

When we bought our house, the backyard was 100% dead turf grass.  Even though there was a sprinkler system in place, a lot of it was broken, and the yard was severely neglected.  What little topsoil there was,  was compacted, and tough, lots of little rocks were everywhere, and there was a significant crabgrass infestation.  I’m guessing what was in my yard is what 93.7% of American homes have in their backyard.

So I began to work.  First it was a few hours during the weekend bagging leaves, and clearing rocks and the biggest weeds.  Progress was slow (I’ll try to find photos of the starting point), but steady, and I became discouraged several times that I’d never be at the point where I could begin planting.  Texas soil is Hard, and Tough, but not as tough as some of the dessert I worked when I was in Israel for a year.  I knew that if I just kept at it, a little bit at a time, I’d have a plot of land that would be worth it.  I was also encouraged by all the great bloggers that put up such great encouragement every day.  Some of my favorites are in the sidebar on the left.

I’d read the posts, take notes of design, and my favorite Texas plants, and plan.

Last weekend, I was finally satisfied with the site preparation, and headed out to some local nurseries and went shopping:

Here are the plants that are going into the corner. Of course these are just the foundation - there's room for lots more.

Overall I went to three different nurseries in Austin:  I got the two biggest pots: a white cameilla, and Rose of Sharon (on the left) at the pink flamingo nursery in Austin at the corner of Bee Caves and 360.  Then I headed to Lowes to get the mexican feather grass, aztec grass, verbena, and picked up some winter lavender on sale,  and finally I ended at my neighborhood nursery, the Red Barn nursery in Austin up at 183 and Mc Neil to get the  hummingbrid plant, skullcap, and passion vine.

Lots of native plants as a foundation

I’d never, ever recommend going to a big box store nursery on a spring weekend. EVER! It’s worse than going to a shopping mall before christmas.

And a litle bit of color. I love how the different textures compliment each other, too

The red plants are verbena, bright red and pretty drought tolerant when put into well drained soil. These little red blooms should stick around all summer.

Putting the bigger plants in the back anchors the area, and I stick the others in the ground in lines that are pleasing to the eye.

In the summer this tiny little flame acanthus, will thrive, and produce beautiful red blooms that attract hummingbirds and butterflies.

These Texas native gasses are planted in a line to define the space, and lead the eye in to the "better" areas

I’ve never been a fan of hard borders in gardens. My personal feeling is by using ground covers effectively, you can control turfgrass and lawns easily, and with much less edging and mowing. I also seem to stub my toe because I like to work barefoot on nice days. Here I’m using Texas skullcap as a ground cover. Again, it is drought tolerant, and will grow to about a foot heigh, and spread out to define the space. I don’t know if I got pink or purple flowers. Let’s hope they aren’t mixed.

Once all the plants are in the ground, I spred some Texas Native Hardwood mucch over all the dirt. This helps keep moisture in, gives a bit of nutrients to the soil, makes everything look more uniform, and has a great smell.

I ran out of mulch before I could get the back area done, but you get the idea.

How did you begin your garden? I’d love to hear your stories.

Thanks Debi for this great email.

Friendly Eggs

friendly eggs

eggs in a crate looking at a dead comrade

No Yolk

One forked up view

An Egg in Hot water

An egg has crossed the line

That fart smells like egg

Eggucula

9 worried eggs

Humpy Dumpty was a bully

You know it’s spring when the jasmine starts to bloom.  What’s more fragrant, and spring like than walking past a yard with a fragrant Jasmine plant just bursting with blooms.

Jasmine getting ready to bloom

If you look carefully, you will see that the bottom is already full of blooms, and there is new growth just ready to burst. How did I get so lucky? I’ll tell you. I picked up this plant last weekend on Sale for $3.98 at Lowes. I actually got two of them, for each corner of the yard, and those, with the one I picked up last year make for three total.

I’ll be taking a break from writing this weekend (It’s easter), but I’ve got a fun little thing planned to be automatically posted Easter Sunday Morning.

Cheers, and enjoy the photos.

A bee polinating