Results

No Shell Lake Furniture Today

We’re driving to Cumberland, Wisconsin, today to visit Ms. Bungalow’s great aunt. While we are in the area, I thought it would be cool to drive up the road to Shell Lake to check out the Shell Lake Furniture showroom.

Shell Lake Furniture produces some nice-looking, quality mission furniture, as well as a cabin collection and custom work. They have a furniture showroom and offer factory tours, too. Unfortunately, they are only open Monday through Friday, so there will be no furniture shopping for me today. In case you’d like to see what I missed, their website is open 24/7.

Tags: Decor, furniture

Posted in Journal | 3 Comments »

Mortar in Hand

After some play time in a nearby park, the boys and I stopped by the hardware store to get the supplies I’ll need to tuckpoint the wingwall for the old back steps.

The thing I love about a good local hardware store is that I know the people there well enough to trust their advice. When I walked into the store today, I trotted straight up to a clerk I recognized and said, “I have some bricks that need tuckpointing and I have never done this before. What do I need to do the job?”

The clerk probed a bit about the specifics of the situation and recommended a traditional sand and mortar mixture for filling the joints along with a trowel and tuckpointing tool. Hooray! New tools!

Rather than mix the mortar to a stiff consistency, the clerk suggested that I make the mortar mix more soupy so that it would be easier to force down into the deep cracks created by the stairs settling away from the house. This sounds like an excellent plan to me– in fact, I’m trying to think of some better ways to force the mortar deep into the gaps than just pressing it in with a piece of wood or a trowel. Some means of injection would really do the trick.

Whether I come up with any good ideas or not, I’ll try my hand at the tuckpointing during one of my toddler’s naps tomorrow.

UPDATE: Curse my insufficient research! I’m sure I that want to use a lime-based mortar because it will be more forgiving with the soft old bricks, but the materials I bought yesterday include portland cement. I’ll need to get back to the store to get some hydrated lime before attempting the repointing.

Tags: brick, tuckpointing

Posted in Projects | 4 Comments »

Defencing

Here’s another project that got a bit bigger than I was expecting. I have a lovely “Josephine” clematis that I want to plant between the backyard gate and the house as a replacement for grapevine that has been growing there.

This is an unusual spot where a small deck is built over the top of the old back stairs and brick wing walls. Right against the deck and brick walls is a tall section of chain link fence that is now is used only as a trellis for the grapevine. I want to clear out the aggressive grapevine and replace the ugly and obsolete chain link fence with a wooden trellis that better integrates with the deck while concealing the unused old stairs.

Before the clematis can go in, the grapevine must come out, so I pulled out the vines and dug out as much of the roots as I could. This is what the spot looked like with the grapevine removed, and the fence, old steps and deck clearly visible:

Removing the fence proved surprisingly easy. First I unbolted the hardware holding the chain links to the posts and removed the fencing. With just the posts left, I dug down enough to wiggle loose the posts and their concrete footings. It felt awfully manly to pull those big concrete-coated posts out of the ground, though it was much less manly for me to stagger around like a drunk while struggling to wield the heavy, awkward things.

With the fence out of the way, I had great access to the old stairs and I immediately saw two problems that were going to complicate my plan to plant the clematis: grapevine roots that had penetrated the wing wall and a big gap at the corner that will require tuckpointing.

It looks like a partial repair may have been attempted at the top of the wall using concrete, but otherwise the tuckpointing problem had been well-concealed behind the old fence post. I have never tuckpointed before, so I’m looking forward to this opportunity to practice the skill on a low-risk area like the old back steps. As for the grapevine roots that have gone through the brick to who knows where, I’m going to have to use Roundup on any growth they produce and hope that is enough to finish off the last of the old vines.

When the old grapevine is gone and the mortar is mended, I will be able to build the trellis and (at last) plant the clematis.

Tags: brick, deck, Exterior, fence, landscaping, vine

Posted in Projects, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Bungalow Home Tour 2008 Follow-up

A few weekends ago, I stole away from my own house projects long enough to catch the last hour of the Twin Cities Bungalow Club’s 2008 Home Tour.

I only had time to make it to the first house on the tour, but it was a good one– a nearby bungalow with a contractor for an owner that had recently undergone a “GreenStar” remodeling project. This means that they employed some of the latest techniques to reduce the environmental impact of their renovation projects and the ongoing carbon footprint of their house.

Their completed project list read like my to-do list:

• Renovate the attic and improve energy performance with spray foam insulation
• Install a tankless water heater
• Build custom wainscot and chair rail for the dining room
• Restore missing light fixtures with antiques or reproductions
• Renew the exterior with fresh paint in period-appropriate colors

The homeowners did all this plus a kitchen remodel and more, and the results look fabulous. Most amazing to me was that all their extensive work was completed in just a few months. That’s something a weekender like me can’t hope to achieve, though I aspire to results as nice as theirs.

But don’t just take my word for it. The homeowners have provided a website of pictures from their remodeling project for your perusal.

Tags: green, Ideas, Local, Neighborhood

Posted in Journal | 3 Comments »

Cheapskate Gardening: Addition By Division

I have posted a lot about the garden and landscaping lately, but there are other things going on here, too. Before I cover any of the other stuff, though, Ms. Bungalow insisted I write a post on her fabulous work improving the little landscaping berm in the backyard.

What makes this project special is that it was primarily accomplished by dividing mature plants from other areas of the landscaping and adding them to the vacant areas in the backyard. Free landscaping! Although Ms. Bungalow’s goal was to fix up the area without buying anything, we broke down and picked up a few sedum when we were out at the garden store.

Here is how the backyard berm looked a couple summers ago after I planted some spirea bushes:

And here is that same area after Ms. Bungalow added some divided hosta, sedum, and other plants:

You might notice that the spirea from the first picture haven’t actually done that well in this spot. This location probably gets more shade than the spirea would like, though Ms. Bungalow’s new additions should be better suited to the area. When the new plants get fully established in a season or two this spot will really look lush. All that remains for this cheapskate garden project is to top the berm with some free mulch from one of the park board’s tree trimming mulch piles.

Tags: free, garden, landscaping

Posted in Deals, Gardens | 2 Comments »