Garden Challenge: New Dawn Rose

 

I have a problem: I have a plant additiction. And while we don't live in the cottage yet so that I can take care of them everyday, I keep getting more... I drool over home magazines, home decorating blogs, and slow down when passing by well manicured landscapes. At one particular time last fall, I craved the 'New Dawn' climbing rose. I went bananas over the pictures, daydreaming about beautiful blooms climbing up the side of the cottage. Fast forward to reality... I pruned it in February, beautiful tulips bloomed in the spring, and then came the heat and I just looked the other way... But now I'm dedicated and I'm determined to bring it back the beauty back! In a couple months I'm hoping my roses will look like this:

Well Pump House Progress

We've been working on the well pump house all weekend. I was super excited to hear that the siding that I've painstakingly researched had arrived. Based on the what I've read on Consumer Reports and homeowners on various forums around the web, we decided to go with the Nichiha Fiber Cement siding. Charles was sure about the fiber cement as it has been rated highly to withstand salty air. Though neither of us had heard of the Nichiha brand (there is the more popular James Hardie), I found that it has actually been around for quite a while (more popular in other parts of the world). After looking pictures of houses with the same material, I fell in love with the macadamia color. And of course, the color had been discontinued and was completely sold out. Luckily, it did take me on another path of finding discontintued colors that I could get at a discounted price. Of the choices I had, I guessed that "maple" would be the next neutral brown color that could accent the rest of the house when we put siding on in the future. Though I didn't admit to Charles at the time, I went truly on blind faith on the color as I could NOT find a maple colored house on the internet! After putting a couple boards up, I must say that the color selection a fine example of trusting your instincts!!

Yard Sale Score!

It's yard sale season! Whoopee!! A couple weeks ago, I found a couple really great finds. The first was a nightstand/desk that I found at the Applebasket Flea Market. It is the sweetest dresser but I am holding off on posting it till I get it cleaned up and it is in it's permanent home. The other great find I got was some milk glass pieces to add to my growing collection. It was pretty funny how I spotted it, we were in the Wildewood neighborhood and I had just about given up on the garage sale stops and as Charles and I passed by one, I sheiked for Charles to stop. I quickly jumped out, grabbed the pieces as others were wandering about. $2 for all, WOOHOO!!

Farewell to the Eyesore!

Charles and I spent the past holiday weekend knocking down the shed (correction: Charles and his brother ;) ). Not really fun work but something that we are relieved about because it was such an eyesore! After knocking it down, Charles decided that burning most of it would be more economical than taking all the heavy wood to the dump. We did have a CLOSE call with the fire, thankfully Charles' cousins were on hand to quickly run electric to the water pump!!

Monday we were able to take a little break and take a ride on our neighbor's new boat. We had a great time fishing (despite not catching anything!) and touring our surrounding area. It was also nice dose of reality to see what what our cottage looks like from the water... EEK!! Need to get that paint up ASAP!!