Curb Appeal

Today we finally tackled a few outdoor projects. We planted some seeds in the big pots that have been taking up backyard space for awhile, and moved them to the front.

It's not real fancy, but hopefully soon there will be actual plants in them. 

I also planted herbs in these herb planter boxes. I know they look really sad now, but I'm hoping they will be bushy soon. 

And we moved our deck box outside! M had to grind off some metal stakes that were embedded in the parking pad in order for the box to fit, but now that he owns his own bench grinder, he took care of it. 

We added a cable and a padlock to try to deter theft (unfortunately common in our neighborhood), and plan to keep our grilling supplies in it for easy cookouts. 

Spring has Sprung!

March is always weird here in Maryland, and the weather oscillates between springly sixties and oh-my-god-this-winter-will-never-end-it's-so-cold.  But! Daylight savings time means we can get some projects done in the evenings, and soon our weekends are freeing up as well. So it's time for some Spring To-Do listing!


Checking out our house to dos, there are a number of outdoor projects that have been put on hold that we plan to tackle this spring.  Spring is also when we were planning on redoing our upstairs bathroom and possibly build a deck, so we need to start calling contractors. 


Outside:

• Paint side and rear door - I no longer have any desire to paint the front door, but we do need to paint the side door and the rear door is pretty ugly.
• Install doorbell
• Weed front sidewalk/steps
• Add something decorative to the left of the steps
• Add window boxes
• Clear excess plant pots, etc. from parking pad
• Powerwash cement in side alley
• Remove concrete post and wall (phase 2)

Master Bathroom

• Renovate to add double sinks, narrow door, large medicine cabinet, heated tile, insulate wall behind sink to avoid frozen pipes, resurface tub. 
• Build cubby into wall behind shower for additional storage
• Replace radiator with exhaust fan
• Hang curtains
• Spray paint washcloth basket - I made a very sad attempt at this once using acrylic paint and it did not come out well, so we've been waiting for it to be nice enough outside to spray paint

We are also going to be doing some large scale spring cleaning.  When putting away my winter outfits, I'm going to have to admit to myself that I have a very large number of sweaters and I wear like, four of them, and I'm also going to have to downsize my hoodie collection from four to perhaps two.  I'm considering consignment as an option for my nicer pieces that I haven't worn, rather than donating them, but that means storing them through the summer to consign at the beginning of the fall. 


I am also continually downsizing my considerable fabric collection, but recently learned of an opportunity to donate homemade baby quilts to children who are taken from unsafe homes by CPS here in Baltimore City, so I'm hoping maybe my mom and my sister, who have been sewing together recently, might be interested in a little quilting party to help me stash bust and do some good. 

Ice Melt

Since we are covered in snow today, we put down ice melt on our front sidewalk.  Because our street is high foot traffic, it's prone to being icy, and we need to clear it and keep it clear.  A container of Safer than Salt came with the house, but as I was spreading it on the sidewalk, I remember my cousin's warning that people spreading ice melt didn't buy the "pet friendly" kind and it irritated her pup's paws.  I was concerned that this was not pet friendly, but then I remembered the previous owner had a dog and she probably bought pet friendly ice melt.  I checked the label and it specified that it was eco friendly but not necessarily pet friendly. 

I found this article about ice melt interesting but was dissatisfied to see the ingredients on the Safer than Salt is "a unique mix of chemicals that is better than regular salt" or something else to that effect.  This site says, "The product is a proprietary formulation of sodium chloride, calcium chloride and magnesium chloride." Since the article advised avoiding sodium chloride, I'm honestly not sure whether Safer than Salt is pet-safe or not.  We live in an extremely high-traffic dog walking corridor, so this is a concern for me. 

I think once we have used up this container of ice melt, we will probably switch to an advertised pet-friendly brand.  But I'm keeping the jug it came in - it's so much easier to spread! 

Outside

Our house is a bit lacking in curb appeal. 

It doesn't have that planter next to the door anymore, so it's even more lacking in curb appeal.  I would like to add some big window boxes and maybe decorative shutters at some point, but the big question is what to do with the space to the left of the steps.  Some of our neighbors have planter beds and some of them have benches.  I proposed the idea of a bike rack sometime early on, since sometimes I lock my bike to the front steps if I'm just running in to grab something.  A bike rack out front would also give our friends a place to lock up when they come visit, but it's somewhat lacking in....taste?
These would be the two styles we might go with:

(source)

(source)

These are obviously not the fanciest things we could have outside our house.  I'm not even sure if we could get a permit, if we need one, to install our own residential bike rack.  The alternative is a nice bench that we can lock our bikes too, but those are more challenging to mount into the ground and can be a bigger target for vandals.

(available here)

This woodwind bench is my current favorite, because bikes could be locked to either end easily, but it's pretty expensive and does look a little too modern to go with our 100 year old house.

(source)

 

  We could also get a bike rack shaped like something, but those are pricy and I probably want this one, which is 100% awesome and about $6800 more than I had planned for this project.