We've got tendrils!!

Progress!

I was away this weekend, celebrating GWU's graduation commencement (headlined by the most perfect everything, Kerry Washington -- check out her commencement speech on YouTube).  I left Friday morning, and didn't get home until way late last night.  Before I left, I was nervous about how the plants might fare without monitoring or watering -- I've noticed that outside in the sun, in the cat litter planters, my garden plants get dry pretty quickly.  So in order to minimize any damage my absence might cause, I brought the plants indoors and watered them the morning I left (also, to minimize any damage that Mickey might cause, I sett the plants up as high as I could...Mick loves his greens).

 

I got home late last night, and was so tired that I didn't really do any garden diagnostics.  Instead, I made sure Mickey hadn't somehow knocked them over and then went to bed.  This morning I did a thorough check, and found the snow peas have started to latch onto the homemade trellis!  Woot, exciting!!  A little shot of confidence that things are going alright.  And it's sort of amazing how quickly, almost overnight, that happened.  Small miracles of the universe, life happening.

Next I need to do a little research about pruning.  I've noticed some of the leaves at the bottom of the snow pea plants are yellowing.  I'm assuming those leaves aren't useful anyway, and that they might be drawing water away from the top of the plant.  I'll look into that and report my findings.

Anyway, good start for the week.  Happy Monday everyone!

Poor Man's Garden

Woot!  Spring is here!!!  YASSSS!!!   Been ready for quite some time now for shorts, flip flops, and outdoor happy hours.  And also a little gardening.

My mom always had a garden when I was growing up, and there's nothing quite as satisfying as going to the backyard to grab some fresh ingredients for dinner.  I've been wanting to tend a garden of my own for years now -- my work friends in Skillman know one of my dreams is to have my own hundred acre farm someday -- but my residences as of late have not been conducive for crops.  This spring I am taking matters into my own hands and creating a fire escape garden.  And before you get concerned, I've left plenty of room for egress should an actual fire occur:

I'm excited for this, something to keep me busy during the summer.  I hope I'm not being overly ambitious, but I've planted a bunch of stuff.

                            Top row: Heirloom tomatoes, parsley, thyme, basil, cherry tomatoes
                            Bottom row: Snow peas (3 containers) & radishes

I also have another container, not in the picture, that I planted strawberries in.  Those are going to be late harvesters, but hopefully worth the wait.

 And this is very tried and true Poor Man's Cupboard project.  Those containers are empty cat litter jugs (that were collecting in the apartment because I was too lazy to bring them downstairs to the recycle bin).  I just cut the tops off and filled them with organic potting soil.  So essentially the pots were free, and I spent about $20 altogether on the plants and the soil at Home Depot (shout out to Mom for the snow peas and the radishes, I got those from her).  Not bad!

I went to a couple stores to find trellises for the snow peas.  But the cheapest ones I could find were $7.99 each, and weren't that tall.  I knew that I could do better (read: cheaper) on my own, so I went back to home depot for some dowels and twine.

Once I devised a system and got the first one done, the second two took no time at all.  Dowels were $.89 each, and the twine was another $3.  Awesome!

Aside from the tomatoes (I love tomatoes, I will eat them like apples), I'm really excited about the radishes.  The ones in the containers are starter plants, but I'm also growing some from seeds.  They only take 22 days to harvest from seeds, so I planted some seeds in an egg carton that I will transfer to the pots once the potted once are ready for harvest.  Then I can sow new seeds, and keep alternating for the rest of the summer.

I actually already harvested some of the starter radishes.  They were popping up out of the soil, and I wanted to make some room for the smaller ones.

So good!  This is a really exciting project, and I hope to be blogging about it all summer.  And I hope you stay tuned to read all about it!

Proof that garment bags are a waste of money

This is soooo Poorman, I couldn't not post it.  This beats wearing my suit jacket on the plane...

From "EEEK!" to Chic - The Poorman's actual cupboard

I wanted to get a lot done this weekend, seeing as the apartment is littered with boxes. Unfortunately I had some other errands to run, so I didn't get to everything on the list. One thing that needed to get done was the kitchen...it's been a nightmare. Flashback to a convo with the boyfriend over the phone this weekend while I was at work:

"Hey, where are your bowls."
"Um, they're either in a box in the kitchen, or a box in the den, or a box in my car. But there are definitely glasses in a box somewhere that you can use as a makeshift bowl."

It's been a busy week.

Aside from not having much time, I also don't have much counter space. In like, I don't have any. All I have is this built-in cupboard that needed some cleaning and touching up. So I tackled that this weekend, and tried to find a place for everything.

Despite being a Poorman, I do have some hang ups. Until I have my own house with my own cabinets, I don't like putting plates down on unlined shelves. I didn't buy new liners and I really didn't feel like going to the store, so I made one out of an old white pillow case I'm not using anymore. I cut both sides in order to make it twice as long, measured it, cut it to size and ironed it. Glad to have repurposed it, because it would have otherwise ended up in the trash. And, I bet it's a lot greener than actual shelf liners. And free.

Here are some before and after shots. I got some really cool Phillips Tablets glass bottles from my mom and grandma that I put on the top shelf, along with some cool tins i got from my grandpa with Delft patterns on them. Love! I may not have gotten as much done as I wanted, but I'm def happy with the results!

From "EEEK!" to Chic - Belated update

Sorry to be gone for so long, it's been a busy few weeks.  I moved most of my stuff over the weekend, and last night I got the last bit of stuff out of the old apartment.  One thing about the new apartment -- there is a lot less closet space than the old apartment, so currently I have a bunch of boxes sitting in one room (Room #3 if you've been paying attention).  Also, shout out to Lynn, my mom, my sister and her boyfriend -- they were amazing helpers helping me move all the heavy stuff over the weekend.

The new apartment is coming together.  The floors are all painted now, although they need a few touch-ups.  The walls are mostly painted- still need to do second coats on the gray walls.  I painted the kitchen all-white, thinking that a nice, bright, white kitchen would look really clean and classic.  I'm not terribly happy with the result, it sort of just looks primed.  I'm thinking of either breaking it up with an accent wall, or maybe once everything is put away and hung up on the walls it will look much better.

You can see above that the living room is mostly done.  I found some old prints of Hoboken from the early 1900s that I think will look really good hung up in there.  I also need to paint those ceiling tiles -- I think a nice crisp white will really help to brighten up the room (my mom still thinks the walls are too dark, and I agree the room doesn't get much light...but I think a bright white ceiling will clear that up).  And I still need some curtains for the windows.  At first I was thinking white, again...but after seeing some things on Apartment Therapy, and after watching the first season of Downtown Abbey, I think I want to go with a tea-stain yellow.  There's something old school and almost Parisian about that that I like....we'll see.  I'm always up for suggestions!

So I'm obsessed with my new iPhone, but I feel like you're only as cool as as many apps you have downloaded.  I downloaded Pic Stitch, and put together the following progress-collage.  As I finish each room, I'm going to continue putting together progress shots like this.  Stay tuned!

One last thing - I am obsessed with Craigslist.  I cruise the ads almost every day looking for some good finds.  I start off with the Free section, and check off "has image" and do a search.  I've seen some really cool things, but you have to act fast because that stuff goes quick.  Then I'll do a Furniture search, with a max amount of $100 and again "has image."  With that, I was able to find the two pieces below - the server buffet was $20, and the tobacco stand was $25!  Amazeballs.  I'll also check the Antiques section, again with the $100 limit and "has image."  I've seen some cool stuff there too.

Also, this is a bit more local, but if you are near Princeton you should definitely check out Skillman Furniture Store (www.skillmanfurniture.com).  It's a second-hand store, and they have some pretty awesome stuff.  I got this step table there for $25.

That's about all I have for now.  The apartment is a bit of a mess, and I'm a bit of a mess myself.  I'm exhausted from moving and traveling, and getting use to all the noise at night again.  I might get some stuff done this weekend, and next weekend I think I want to tackle replacing the vanity in the bathroom.  Exciting stuff!

Happy New Year!!

From "EEEK!" To Chic - The Floors!

I've taken a few days off - been wearing myself a little thin - and now I'm on vacation in Cali. But on Saturday I got a bunch done, thanks in large part to my mom. She introduced me to the angle brush to do all my cutting in around the trim...til now, I've been using just a small painters brush, like for canvas painting. Hopefully it will go a lot faster now.

Another thing I learned - Behr Primer & Paint in 1 is totally not worth the extra $10 per gallon. The paint people at Home Depot said it would just take one coat, even on yellow walls. FALSE. It didn't even put an even coat on the white walls in the kitchen. I was pretty annoyed with that, my mother could testify. I spent a lot of Saturday afternoon complaining about it.

The best part of Saturday is that we started painting the floors. Another helpful hint: paint swatch colors can be lightened or darkened at the paint counter. I brought an espresso brown swatch to the counter, but the guy told me that the special Behr Porch and Floor paint couldn't be tinted that color. He showed me a walnut, but I told him it was too light. He said he could darken it by adding more black tint. The color came out way better than I could have imagined.

Another tip- if you're painting a wood floor, I highly suggest Behr Floor and Porch paint. My mom painted most of the floors with just a brush while I finished painting some walls, and she was surprised how well it was taking to the floors. It really only needed one coat -- if I was going for perfection, maybe two coats, but I think it looks 100% better just with the one coat.

So here are some pictures of Saturday's progress. I didn't get a chance to go back Monday, on account of a bad cold that started Sunday and had me in bed until Monday morning. And now I'm on a little vacation until New Year's. Definitely have a bunch more to do, but energized to get it all done.

So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Talk to you in a week!

From "EEEK!" To Chic - More painting...

Last night was a little frustrating, I'm not going to lie. I had planned on tackling the ceilings, and ended up doing so quite literally. There seem to be some air pockets between the ceiling boards and the plaster appliqué, and I could hear it crackling as the paint roller went over them. I tried to be extra careful, but inevitably some of it splintered and fell to the floor. ::sigh::

I didn't take any pics of it, because I was pretty irritated, but I'll grab a few shots and update later. After that I really loaded the roller so I wouldn't have to press so hard, which I think wasted more paint, but I was able to avoid breaking off any more pieces. I did grab a before-and-after shot of the part of the ceiling that was repaired in a different colored plaster:

And my apologies now...I'm using the Blogger app, and I can't format this post as I normally so. When I get to a real computer I will fix this up.

After the ceiling was done, I was determined to finish touching up paint in at least one room. I chose the bedroom, because it's bigger, and boy did it take me a while. This project is a good test of patience. But I think it definitely pays off in the end. Here are some pictures of the bedroom with the walls finished:

So today is another big day. Going to look at rugs in a bit, then it's back to the apartment for more painting. Tonight I'm finally getting to the floors!! Very exciting...stay tuned!