Many have asked how the remodel and re-garden process are going and why I’ve stopped posting weekly updates.

Well to answer the latter first, the reason is that the major portion of the remodel, that is the portion that involves having my house covered in drywall dust and infested with contractor(s), is done. After three months of holes, patches, sawdust, power tools and large sheets of plastic in various odd locations…. We’re done. Andrew and I spent two remarkably sweaty weekends moving books, vacuuming, dusting, and cleaning carpets and we LOVE the new interior.
Which is not to say that we’re completely done. I am currently squatting in what will be our guest room with all of my study paraphernalia while the primer in my study dries. Over the last three weeks or so in between gardening I’ve been peeling wallpaper (erm….where did I put it….. Oh yes!
THIS wallpaper)

stripping wallpaper backing, scrubbing the glue off the walls, and spackling. On Monday I finally got everything set and started priming. Hopefully by the time this is posted I’ll at least have one coat of the final color on the walls, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
I have also left instructions with my devoted husband that if I ever have the urge to put wallpaper on something that he should immediately cart me off to the home for the permanently deranged. I am also working on painting the west wall of the laundry room (since it was mostly spackle anyway) and I am proud to admit that I painted right damn over the wallpaper. I have had it up to the hairline with peeling, scraping, and scrubbing. One of these days I may get over it enough to want to tackle the kitchen and the dining room, but I wouldn’t bet on that either.
Keeping the momentum going has been very important. More than anything I want the whole process, and that includes having my study finished and the damnable garage finally cleared out, OVER.
Which is why I’ve been working like a lunatic to get it done. I’m going to enjoy the hell out of it when it’s all done.

The re-gardening is another story entirely in that I am working equally hard, indeed quite a good deal harder, there but I’m loving every minute of it. Sheri and I have been working in a serious fashion for close to 3 weeks.
On the first week we dug a 4 foot wide by 6″ deep pathway from the front porch to our northwest corner, sifted the rocks out of the dirt, lined the whole thing with landscaping fabric then moved the rocks back into place and covered them all over with gravel. Yes, it was a LOT of dirt and yes, it was a LOT of BIG HEAVY ROCKS.
On the second week while I dug a 15 X 3 X 2 foot trench along our west property line (and hacked through the leftover cedar roots and heaved out the biggest of the rocks), Sheri attacked the stump of the sickly little cherry tree that had been on the northeast corner of the garden. Now she’d actually taken the tree out the week before and we figured that since the tree had been such a sickly little thing getting the stump taken care of would be a piece of cake. It was not. The stump was a tenacious bastard with roots better than 6″ in diameter that resisted all sorts of blandishment and violence. Sheri finally rented a stump grinder (it’s so cool that she knows how to use a stump grinder. Oh, and get this… Sheri owns a CHAINSAW!) today and took the bastard out. However last week we got to the point where we had exhausted ourselves with axes, splitting wedges, chainsaws, handsaws, hatchets, and sledgehammers, so we decided to bag it. I planted Pieris japonica, which will be a lovely hedge in about 3 years, in my trench while Sheri planted all sorts of lovely shrubbery on the north side of the pathway (sorry, no herring).
The theory is that the weather will cooperate with us next week and we should be able to finish.

I’ll wait on posting the garden photos until it’s all done. There are plenty of them so take this as warning that you’ll need to have good download time or it’ll take you a while.
In the mean time, here’s the new living room (Ssshhhh! No one tell Joan that we’ve got empty bookshelf space!)