Plants vs. Zombies

In this story, the plants are...plants, and the zombies are us. (Zombies R Us? Special discount on braaaaains...)

Ahem. 

Mired as we have been in the onslaught of family medical drama (thankfully mostly resolved), the craziness of work (not at all resolved), and a sudden spring cold that's put us out for almost two weeks (working on resolution, dammit), I have been a bad blogger. I have not been as bad a home improver, but it's been close. 

We had a few sunny days in March and April that kicked my spring fever (not the congestive kind) into high gear. By the time we'd gotten the floors mostly done and actually moved in last year, we'd missed the planting window, and I didn't get the garden I've coveted. This year, I'm NOT missing out on fresh tomatoes. 

Oh yes, by August we will be swimming in three different varieties of heirloom tomato sauce. 

Sunflowers gingerly peeking out of the dirt.

I was having issues with germination until I bought a heating pad (yes, I am that person) and within 24 hours, the sprouts fairly leaped out of the dirt. Best ridiculous purchase ever. 

Carefully exposing my baby tomatoes to the harsh elements.

Oh yes. Amid concerns that the tomato seeds I planted wouldn't properly germinate, I overplanted, and every. single. seed appears to have germinated. And grown. We are overrun with tomato babies.

We acquired several loads of free bricks and concrete chunks from Craigslist, and proceeded to dig up the front half of the yard. Some people struggle to have a lush, verdant lawn. We want no lawn at all, and we have the thickest, most densely-rooted carpet of grass in the entire world. Digging up the sod has been a workout. But it's for a good cause, right? Tomatoes!

Garden beds all staked out.

It turns out that a yard of good potting soil is just about the big truck's weight limit. Our neighbor recommended this planting mix, and so far, we haven't been disappointed.

Herb starts! And geraniums, because why not. 

Filled with dirt, the garden beds look less like graves, but Jesse is still referring to them as "the cairns". Come Halloween, I may put skeletons in them. 

It's just now getting warm enough that I've planted some of my starts, but so far, I love how the gardens are turning out. 

Also, if anyone wants a tomato start, let me know. I have way too many. (So many tomatoes!)

In a related project, I am subject to occasional lapses into obsessiveness, so all the coverage about California running out of water has really launched me into freakout mode. I was already planning on building some sort of rainwater harvesting facilities because I'd like to get the water bill as low as possible, and I'd love to augment it with something that falls out of the sky for free 80% of the year. 

So. Rain barrels. I scored six 55-gallon barrels off Craigslist (where else) for $5 a piece, which is a steal in Portland, since rainwater harvesting is very much en vogue, and food-grade barrels can often fetch a premium, even in the classifieds. Mine previously held coconut and canola oil. (Like, a lot of coconut and canola oil. I hefted one of them up and promptly got the dregs all over my shirt. There's really nothing more unsettling than being drenched in lukewarm oil.)

Since a full barrel of water weighs almost 500 lbs, I had to do make sure my barrel tower would be robust enough to handle the weight. 

I'm still wrestling with the connection between the gutters themselves and the barrels, since our gutters are a non-standard size (go figure) and I'm having to get very creative about piping. Home Depot doesn't stock 2.5" diameter pipes (such as our downspout), nor do they stock connectors. The internet would like $12 for a single PVC connector, and I would need at least two. My current approach is to investigate, shall we say, alternate hosing:

This is a 2.5" diameter 10 ft long Shop Vac hose. It's on its way.

If the hose doesn't work out, I've at least gained a spare Shop Vac hose which might work well in the garage dust-collection system I haven't yet built. It's not quite in the budget to replace the gutters at this point, but it might become necessary. 

Although realistically, we're going to have to deal with this issue this summer:

That's a starling nest in the woodpecker hole in our siding. On the one hand, I love baby birds, and I'm so excited that these babies have finally hatched, and that their insistent shrilling is driving the cats insane. On the other hand...there are birds. In our siding. So as soon as the babies fledge, we'd probably better replace the siding. (And the windows. And the back deck. And the garage roof. And the plumbing. It never ends.)

In the meantime, it's spring and my garden is growing. What could be better? 

Non-Negotiable

oHMYGOD YOU GUYS LOOK AT THIS LOOK AT THIS THING THIS THING IS MINE

Do you see that??? That is A MANTEL. IN OUR HOUSE. OUR HOUSE HAS A MANTEL.

One of the first things our fabulous agent Patti* had us do during our house-hunting preparation was to make a list of amenities and features we wanted in a house, and then decide which ones were deal-breakers - which ones we couldn't live without - and which ones were negotiable. Jesse and I decided early on that the most non-negotiable was location, which, when combined with the fierce competition and our laughable budget, meant that everything else we wanted would just be a bonus. 

Our original list:

Non-negotiables:

- Inner SE Portland

- Max price $275k

- Updated mechanicals (pipes, electrical, etc)

- Wood floors

- Good light

- Fireplace

- Yard

Wants:

- 1920s bungalow

- Clawfoot tub

- Needs cosmetic updating but nothing severe

- Within walking distance to shops and restaurants

- Quiet street

Our budget alone nixed most of our non-negotiable items. The average home price in Portland has hovered around $330,000 for the better part of a year, and the market is extremely competitive. The first house we offered on had eleven other offers - and it didn't even have drywall. Houses under $250k sell in days - I can't even count the number of times I watched a house get posted online, only to be marked "Pending" a few hours later. Luckily, I'd been obsessively following the market for a year and half before we actually applied for a loan - nothing cures the malaise of seemingly endless degree program like knowing you can't afford the house of your dreams until you get your butt in gear and graduate. Once I finally landed my current job and we'd saved enough for a down payment, we were well-informed and ready to hit the ground running.

Our house was on the market about six months before we actually looked at it, and during that time, there were long stretches when it was literally the only house in our price range available in the entire city. I would scrutinize the listing, staring at the pictures and mentally trying to remodel it into something palatable, but it just didn't happen. It had carpet, and there was no mention of wood floors underneath. It didn't have a fireplace. The rooms looked small and dark, the yard was an empty square of grass, and there was absolutely nothing about the house that made me want to go see it. It was a weird beige box that looked like it has been the subject of an uninspired renovation, and it was utterly boring. 

Is there a swan inside this ugly duckling? I wasn't convinced. 

It was, coincidentally, right next door to the house Jesse and a bunch of his friends lived in during college, although we didn't find out about that until it had been on the market a few months. Jesse really wanted to check it out, but I was resistant - it was boring. I was holding out for the cute, centrally-located Sears bungalow with original woodwork that I was sure was just minutes away from being posted online.

It turns out, unlike most real estate listings, the house was actually better than the pictures. While it definitely needed some love, air and a good scrubbing, it was light and bright (check!), in a fantastic neighborhood (check!), had updated mechanicals (check!), wood floors under the carpet (double check!) and despite being huge was very attractively priced. So...we bought it. It's a boring beige box in desperate need of character, but we're working on that. As our friends keep pointing out, if it has no character at all, that makes it a perfect blank slate.  

You'll notice I did not mention a fireplace. That's because it doesn't have one. Our apartment doesn't have one either. We have a large gas wall heater that is a giant ugly box, and for the last five years, every time I've looked at it I've hated it and wished it was a fireplace. I grew up with a wood stove, and not having actual flame crushes my soul a little. Since the house is already plumbed for gas, as soon as our offer was accepted, I started scouring the internet for a cool mantel that would serve as a placeholder until we could scrape the pennies together for an actual fireplace of our own. 

It turns out mantels are stupidly expensive. A bottom-shelf, boring MDF mantel surround from Home Depot is at least $250. A cool, old one from an architectural salvage store? Try $1800-$14,000. Since my ultimate goal is to bring this house back to its 1923 roots, I wanted something that would fit with its age, and as I searched, it started looking less like a random-Craigslist find and more of a sell-a-liver-and-possibly-both-kidneys type of purchase. 

Sigh. 

So when I saw a listing yesterday afternoon for a solid mahogany mantel at a local vintage mall for less than $200, I couldn't get there fast enough. I almost never drive to work, but since we were going to the house afterwards, and I needed to pick up some canned beast for my pet carnivores, I had my truck. And then I had my mantel. 

And now it's IN MY HOUSE. 

Seriously, it's huge and perfect and it was super cheap and ASLDKFJALSKFJD;ALKSJDF.

Also, we got the tile done, so tonight we're sleeping. And vacuuming, because our landlord needed to come in for something on Tuesday and I swear to god I almost died of embarrassment. I'm still half-expecting a TV crew from Hoarders to show up any minute. 

_ _ _ _

* Patti Schnur has cultlike status among our friends, and deservedly so. Almost every single person we've talked to about real estate has bought a house with her help, and if we hadn't gone with her, I think we might have been ostracized. She is truly amazing. She is frighteningly persistent with paperwork, and emailed us about a million times a day to give us updates, even if the update was to say, "Nope, nothing yet!" She's not afraid to say that a particular house isn't a good fit, and she knows enough about the market and houses in general to say if something is more work than it's worth. The entire housebuying process was SO MUCH EASIER than we expected it to be, and I'm sure it's in large part due to her extreme competence.