Kitchen Curtain

I had a few weekends with free time, so I looked through my fabric stash and found a pattern online to make a valance curtain for our kitchen.

Before:

After:

Garden Party!

With the help of all the folks in the following pictures, we will have a fabulous spring & summer garden!

BEFORE:

Inspiration.

Baby plants.

Our littlest helper.

Reusing window blinds to mark the plots.

The party begins!

Collin & Bonnie plant the collard greens.

Katrina & Nick get dirty.

Susan with the spinach.

Leslie waters the new seeds.

The sump pump water will now go in the garden.

AFTER:

This is the 1st square all grown up!

Instant harvest!

Native Garden, October 2011

The four of us decided we wanted to plant California native plants along the sidewalk in front of our house. We got some advice from our friend Mike, a native plant expert. Then we took a trip to the Native Here Nursery run by the California Native Plant Society and located in Tilden Park.They gather and propagate seeds from the East Bay Regional Park system so they have natives for any micro-climate in the Bay Area.

We chose a mix of native grasses and flowers including Blue Wild Rye, Foothill Needlegrass, CA Oat grass, Checkerbloom, Buttercup, Yarrow and Iris. We also planted CA poppy seeds. Check back for updated photos of them in bloom!

Designing the Layout

Planted and Watered

The First Square

Our houses don't need much work. Each side was very simply remodeled right before it went on the market. That gave us lots of energy to think about the yard. We each took a blueprint of the front & back and designed what we thought they should look like. Then we had a family meeting to compare & decide what to do. There were a few conflicting ideas, but we worked it out & decided to build out square foot gardens. We are going to grow lots of food.

Our first crops include broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, swiss chard, kale, arugula & collards.

Bookshelf at 667, December 2011

David & I needed a bookshelf for his growing collection of oversized art books and my nature & garden books. But we didn't want a typical bookcase & thought it would be fun to build our own unique shelf. The space under our steps looked like a good spot & we scored some nice oak pieces on super sale. Then I bought 4 different sets of brackets so we could decide which ones looked best & fit in all the right spots. It was a bit tricky to figure out where the wall studs were, but we got out the stud finder & the measuring tape along with the drill and got to work.

Staining the pieces in the backyard.

The finished product with room for collections.

Oakland Sunset

Patrick and I moved to Oakland exactly five years ago. We obviously love it. And love calling it home.

Sunset from our bedroom window

Growing Up, October 2011

It rained this week which had me thinking about our garden. This will definitely not be the last mention of our garden on these pages. When we moved in our yard was mostly dry dirt and weeds. To some that might be ugly, but to us it was ours for the planting. We started with the planter in the middle of the yard because it contained and easiest to decide what to plant there. We decided to go with herbs and edible flowers.

First Katie removed all the landscaping rocks.

 

Then we started planting the herbs: mint, lemon balm, chamomile and lavender.

We dug out the pinetree bush and the lilies.

Now we have these herbs: oregano, parsley, cilantro, chives, lemon balm, lavender, chamomile, sage and peppermint. And these edible flowers: borage, nasturtium,  calendula, snapdragon, pansy and viola.

spice cabinet project at 669, October 2011

Our house came with a fold out ironing board in this little cabinet. Since we don't really want to iron in the kitchen and we needed space in the kitchen, we decided it would be of better use as a spice cabinet. We borrowed a saw from the Oakland Tool Lending Library and after we pulled off the old board cover we discovered that the board was a nice piece of cedar. We decided to use that piece of wood from the 40s as our shelves. Again we forgot to take a before photo but you get the idea.

The First Project at 667, October 2011

Since we had just made a big purchase, I acquired a few free sample coupons from a certain magazine issue & went to the paint stores.

So much taping for such a little space.

The first coat of Marlboro Blue.

The finished product.

I wanted some color & thought starting with our small downstairs bathroom would be best. Small rooms are hard.

To Do: Organize Shed--Check! August 2011

We downsized from our one car garage at our house in Berkeley to a little shed for five bikes, two tents, camping gear for four and many, many garden tools. So one of the first things projects we needed to do all together was organize the shed. Patrick built an attic for storage and we installed some shelves as well. Then we hung anything and everything that could be hung.
We don't have a before picture (we need to get better about that and posting our updates in general) but just imagine an empty 4ft x 10ft rectangle.