bluebirds

Before & After: One Year In The House

May 10, 2013 by Leah Leave a Comment

Monday marks my first anniversary in the little Franklin house. The time has flown by and I can’t believe how much has been done and how much is still left to do! To celebrate the survival of this past year, I want to show you some before and after pics. Let’s be honest, it’s no Better Homes & Gardens, but these pictures represent tons of work and love showered onto a little piece of land. I’m also thankful to Rob for all his help every step of the way, none of these transformations would have happened without his support. His time, patience, blood, and sweat have been poured into this place, and I really can’t adequately thank him enough for putting up with my insanity. So here’s what can happen in a year with limited funds and a lot of hard work…

The first project in the house was the bathroom, which was taken right down to the studs and rebuilt. Myrtle is excited. The Bathroom: Before & After

Needed more storage in the bathroom and less oak ugliness. Bathroom Vanity: Before & After

And we can’t forget our friends outdoors. After the sad loss of a bluebird family-to-be, something had to be done. Bluebird House: Before/After

The dining room is still a work in progress. I am planning to add a wall of pallet wood, put down wood floors, and get some more furniture in there. Dining Room: Before & Current Stage

My favorite part of this house is still the built-ins. They transformed a dull room into a library that makes my heart skip every time I pick out a book. Living Room: Before & After

I am so blessed by all the friends who came to visit in this first year. It’s been fun having people come through to say hi, and I am reminded that a house is not a home unless people fill it with love. Guest Room: Before & After

I’m still in the process of making the patio pretty. I removed the gravel next to the shed and am using the space to plant more herbs and small veggies for the kitchen garden. Patio: Before & Current Stage

The side garden has been quite the project because I’m trying to add more perennials, plus annuals I know the hummingbirds and butterflies will be attracted to. I’d also like to put some type of border on here, but I’m not sure what to use yet. Side Garden: Before & Current Stage

And as for repairs…these may not seem like a huge deal because they aren’t cosmetic, but let me tell you, I am so relieved to have these out of the way. HVAC: Before (circa 2000) & After (circa 2013)

Following a nasty storm, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise, the roof got a makeover. Roof: Before & After

House: Before

House: After

Kidding! Obviously not my house, but the esteemed Biltmore estate…something to aspire to, eh?

More to come tomorrow, the official one year anniversary!

A Word On Nesting

June 30, 2012 by Leah 2 Comments

It seems that “nesting” has been a theme since I moved into this
little house. In the weeping cherry off the back patio sits a nest from
a previous year, empty, yet longing somehow to be filled again. I
still look at this nest expecting little hungry chirping heads to pop up
and greet me on my way to the shed.

Then there is the case of the bluebirds. When I moved in I noticed
a happy little couple flitting in and out of the house, then things
were silent for a while until I noticed a female tending to the place
again. There was the incident when I was mowing and noticed the top had
been taken off the house. I have no idea how old this bluebird house
is, but the wood is rotted with some lichens growing on it, and in spite
of tapping the nails back in, a creature managed to tear the roof off,
stealing three eggs and leaving a hole in the one that was left.

I was
so heartbroken to see this, so upset by the course of nature that
sometimes means destruction and death for another creature. I imagine
the mother bluebird must have been most distressed to come home and find
her eggs stolen, her home ransacked. Mom surprised me the other day
when I came home and found a beautiful new bluebird house sitting on the
kitchen counter. I am thrilled! I shall take the old one down and put
this shiny new one in its place. It usually takes a year or two for a
bluebird house to “cure” to where the birds will use it. Hopefully with
the new one being in the same place as the old one, it won’t take that
long for new residents to show up.

An interesting tidbit about bluebird houses – you need to purchase
one that is Audabon certified. Bluebirds use holes made by woodpeckers
or manmade houses since they do not have the ability to dig out their
own shelters. Wrens and sparrows are often pests because unless you
purchase a house that is sparrow deterrent, you will soon find the wrong
species of bird in your house. Hopefully, the new house will do the
trick and many generations of pretty bluebirds will be hatched there.

The great surprise of the season has been the House Finch nest in
the hanging basket on the front porch. What a gorgeous little nest in
such a precarious place! I now water the basket with a small watering
can from the back due to the nest being in the front nestled in among
the asparagus fern and verbena. The mother finch has probably had
multiple heart attacks as she watches me take her home down, examine it,
and then re-hang it for her use. The eggs were so tiny and very white,
and the little birds that hatched seem like one-inch little wisps of
downy magic. Their little expectant heads can’t be larger than a pencil
eraser, and their bodies are so frail. It’s amazing to me that they
survive, and yet each day I watch them grow slightly bigger and
stronger.

All of this nesting has come at such an appropriate time since I
feel like I have been struggling to build a nest of my own out of the
sticks I moved into. There has been much tearing down and rebuilding,
much fussing over what goes where, much frustration trying to get things
just so in order for a room to “feel right” to me. It has been a task
and an adventure, and I often have to remind myself that I’ve only been
in the house for a month and a half. The impatient part of me that
wants things ready and perfect in a snap has had to back down and
breathe as I watch Rob and dad work so hard to fix plumbing, readjust
walls and spaces, and exclaim over shoddy workmanship by the previous
owners. The next thing to be done is fixing the electrical wiring that
is a hazard throughout the house. With the pretty pricetag of around
$2K, it is yet another improvement I must swallow and move forward
with. In mid July my own little nest will become safer as breaker boxes
are rewired and outside frayed wires are contained. All in due
time….all in due time.

Home From California…Sans Turquoise Skinnies

June 19, 2012 by Leah 1 Comment

After being in LA for a week of excitement at work and June gloom weather, it was good to return to the nest. I knew I’d been in LA too long when I found myself contemplating a pair of turquoise skinny jeans at Urban Outfitters. It was time to go. I love my job and the people I work with are simply amazing, fabulous, human beings who I feel so blessed to know. But for the first time in a long time, I wanted to be back in TN taking care of things before the parental units arrived today. Let me take you on my little journey home.

The bathroom is nearing completion!!! I have never been so excited to take a shower. Washing my hair in the kitchen sink was a nightmare, but thank goodness it was short lived. There are still things to do, but this is what’s happened in the bathroom.

The new vanity is firmly in place, replete with glass hardware from Anthropologie (on sale for $2.99!!!) and a new high efficiency toilet has been installed, purchased from Costco for less than $100. Don’t worry, a new mirror is coming, the one in the picture is just there to help out right now.

Sink faucets are expensive!!! This cool looking modern one was listed on Overstock.com for $139.99, so I went on Ebay and ordered the knock-off version for $36. The only problem was the hoses that came with it weren’t a standard size, so Rob spent some serious time with the plumbing “specialist” at Home Depot figuring that one out. And who knew Target carried such adorable soap dispensers! Thanks to a stay with my friends in LA who took me to Target to buy my very own copycat version of theirs 🙂

Here’s a picture of the completed shower tile, but this just can’t do it justice. There are pretty sparkly parts and it’s all blue and green and sea-glass-ish. I love it! If only I could take all my readers in the shower with me to experience the awesomeness that is this tile….but well, that would be all kinds of awkward.

A lot has been happening in the yard as well. When I was mowing the lawn I noticed that the roof had been knocked clean off the bluebird house. I looked inside and there were four perfect blue eggs. Bluebirds and robins are in the same bird family so the eggs look very similar.

I put the roof back on the house and banged the nails in, but I was very concerned about how long the eggs had been left uncovered. Today I saw the mama bluebird telling some other bird off and waving her wings around like she was a NYer defending her right to eat hot dogs from a street vendor. Hopefully the eggs will survive and my little bluebird family will fly happily into the sunset.

There’s also been some action in the weeping cherry tree on the front lawn. Those of you who know me well know that I am a total nerd when it comes to butterflies. I raised them as a kid, then as a teenager, and am still quite obsessed with them. I love butterflies and moths. They bring such beauty into the world for a fleeting time. I think they are magical. Eventually when I figure out the backyard I want to have a garden with plants that will attract them, but for now, I was thrilled to find this chrysalis. My caterpillar/chrysalis identification book is buried in a box somewhere, but I’ll eventually be able to tell what it is. It could be a moth considering the shell is covered with leaves, but moths don’t tend to hang as much as butterflies do while in this phase. I liken this to finding a Tiffany bag under the Christmas tree!

I have some sad news…I think one of my Purple Leaf Plums has some kind of borer in the bark. The tree has looked weak since I moved here, but half of it is dead and it’s not looking good. I hope it can survive. Dad was a horticulturist and used to inspect greenhouses for plant diseases so I need to see what he thinks.

I bought a rug!!!! The living room rug was super tricky, but after looking at thousands of rugs online, I settled on this “deco inspired” one because it ties in the black of the fireplace with the cream color of the furniture. The walls will be a pretty light green called “Recycled Glass” and it’ll look much more colorful once it gets painted.

People always ask me about “The East End” pillow. I bought it at Hildreth’s in Southampton, Long Island. It’s what the locals call the North and South Forks of the island. Historically it used to only refer to the South Fork, but everyone on the North Fork says they live on The East End too, so I’m claiming it.

And lastly, I leave you with a flower. My dad has a way with plants and I can only hope I inherited half of his magical green thumb. A great pastime of his is hybridizing daylilies, which is creating his own varieties by cross pollinating plants. I planted several along my front walk and since the first bloom they all sent up second shoots of buds. This one was open to greet me when I came home. None of them are named, so perhaps I shall call this one “Welcome Home.”