(Almost) Spring Cleaning

by Katie Barry

I've decided to return to blogging by letting you bear witness to my shame.

While I wouldn't label myself a slob, I've been known to let certain areas of our house get a little out of hand. 

One of the worst examples of this type of housekeeping oversight has been, from the moment we bought this house, our linen closet.  

Dun, dun, dun.

This, our one go-to receptacle for all things related to the bathroom, had come to resemble a scary back aisle in a forgotten Eastern European drug store. In addition to every bottle, jar, canister, box, and bottle that entered our humble abode, we started just shoving in every sort of linen we've every owned (towels? sheets? cloth napkins? random aprons we received for Christmas? leftover curtains? no problem!). We had an extra iron; in it went. We changed around some knickknacks; the undesirables were thrown unceremoniously in the closet. Toolbox/curtain rods/level/random extra screws and nails? Sure! Hall closet seemed an appropriate landing ground. Every time I opened the door, I winced--but never did anything about the impending disaster. Just kept shoving stuff in and ignoring the problem. Until it looked like this:

Witness our shame.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not proud to be showing you this. I'm horrified at what we had 'accomplished'. And one day, I finally had enough. It was time to do something about our dirty little secret. We needed organization, and we needed it STAT.

But here's the thing you might not know about me. I'm cheap. Cheap as hell. And when I started shopping around at fancy places like Target and the local grocery store for bins and baskets and all those other fancy things fancy people use to organize their crap, I realized that it's kind of expensive to make things look nice. Was I going to spend $8.99 per little wicker basket thing, times like ten? To organize a closet that only we see? No, ma'am, I was not. I'm just not that kind of girl. So I thought about how to solve my problem of being incredibly cheap AND incredibly disorganized, and I realized there could be only one solution.


The Dollar Store.

Heck yes, that true-blue destination for the limited-of-funds. That haven of cheap plastic and poorly painted figurines. That mecca of fake flowers and generic holiday candy. They might have just the answer for my two-pronged dilemma!

And sure enough, they did. They had all kinds of baskets and "Rubbermaid" containers, and all for the delectable price of a buck a piece! So I went nuts, spending about $10 and coming home with my treasures. Here is what I managed to accomplish on my ten dollar budget:

An improvement, no?

It might not be the most Martha Stewart-y of closet spaces, but it also didn't cost $200 to straighten up. The little white bins do their job beautifully, and they didn't break the bank. I couldn't be happier with my cheapie results.

You'll be happy to know that I ditched the items that didn't belong here (which took some interesting organizing elsewhere, but that's beside the point.) The closet is now dedicated solely to the things that make sense: toiletries, meds, towels, sheets, and washcloths. Everything has a place, and everything is in its place. Now every time I open the closet door, I smile--and reach for exactly what I need. The miracles of organization!

No (almost) spring cleaning story would be complete without the rejuvenating affects of indoor flowers--a little February pick-me-up we both needed up here in Wisconsin. My lovely partner picked up some $3 daffodils from Trader Joe's and found ways to sneak them all around the house. Now everywhere we turn, we see their little hopeful blooms. Makes a huge difference in every room! I highly recommend.

My New Front Yard

by Katie

The spring weather, coupled with a lot of business over the past two weeks, has made me a bad blogger. But I have something to show for it! Here's what I started with in my front yard a couple weeks ago. (Keep your eyes on the tree in the corner.)

 

Let me backtrack for a second.

It took me a LONG time to dig up all the sod that was growing up under the tree like an awkward poodle skirt. So I did that for a while.

Last weekend was Mother's Day. The Friday before, I had worked in a frenzy to start planting under the tree. Then on Saturday, my mom (the amazing gardener/designer) came into town, and we went to the Olbrich Gardens plant sale and bought a LOT of plants. We drove around town afterwards and dropped in on other plant sales, picking up a few more lovely specimens. Then my mom left, and I worked like a crazy person to get them all in the ground that day. Here's how it went.

 

 

   

  

So that's what I've been doing! I've added a couple things since taking these pictures, but this is basically where the project is right now. I can't wait to see how it will look when the plants fill in!!

"Shopping" For My Garden

 By Katie

I've been pretty clear about the fact that I'm currently obsessed with gardening, right? Well, let me illustrate the depths to which this obsession as taken root.

Taken root, people. Seriously? I am queen of comedy, with the punning.

...wait, was that an actual pun? I could never remember the definition.

OK, so it's Saturday morning, and I am clearly distractable. A couple things you should know:

1. Like (apparently) all amateur gardeners, I bought a gajillion seeds and was WAAAAAY too ambitious in planting them. I read in a snarky but helpful garden blog that this is a bad idea if you don't have grow lights (which I don't), but I went ahead and did it anyway. Because I'm a rebel. And because I like to make the right-of-passage mistakes that people more wise and experienced warn me against. Whatever. The blogger was right: it is very difficult to grow a large quantity of seedlings without grow lights. Especially without proper window space and in a spring that's been swinging back and forth between hot sun and almost-freezing wind. Oops. So I killed a lot of seedlings. I'm trying not to feel super guilty. I'll do better next spring, Mother Nature! FYI, things that do surprisingly well under mild neglect, not enough sunshine, and sporadic watering? Peppers of all kinds, squash, and basil.
2. I have a dog walking business. As such, I spend my days outside, traversing the various semi-urban, suburban, and rural spaces Madison, WI has to offer. Since it's almost May and everything has turned green (and yellow, and blue, and white, and pink), I have an endless repertoire of landscapes to study. This has been super helpful. It's meant that every day, all day, has turned into a massive "shopping" trip for plants. I peruse, I make mental notes, and I slowly decide what I want to buy based on others' purchases and designs.

I note what catches my eye (like this beautiful sloped rock garden), see what plants they've used, and pull together some kind of mental list of likes and dislikes. Here are some of the landscapes and plants that have inspired me over the past couple of weeks.

Gorgeous, mature rock plantings

Crabapple in bloom

I love the glimpse of a fiery Japanese maple over the traditional fence

Hostas and daffodils in foreground; someone PLEASE tell me what the shrubs behind them are!

Adore these dilapidated stairs

I love the redbud in the background

There's mystery in stairs that lead to the unseen

Betula Papyrifera 'Paper birch'

 

Van Houtte Spirea (I'm almost positive)

Blue spruce sets off the brighter greens in the foreground

The spreading limbs of the oak? tree combine with the dainty Japanese maple

This street view is why I love spring. Color abounds!

Lysimachia nummularia 'Creeping Jenny' in the foreground

Creeping phlox, rock cress, daffodils and sedums combine to make a lovely raised rock bed

So I take all of these accumulated visuals, combining them with lots and lots of gardening books strewn around the house, and I go to various nurseries to check out availabilities and pricing. Yesterday, I had about 45 minutes to kill in the late afternoon, so I stopped at a big store's plant sale and meandered up and down aisles, taking pictures of everything like a weirdo.

Not sure why my hands looks like I just dipped it in oil, but...

As you can see, I have come to have a truly one-track mind. Apart from the seedling misadventures, I'm making slow but sure progress in my garden...but those pictures will be for another post. Happy gardening!