Good News Gardening Love

Discovered a new favorite place out on the west side of town. It's called Good News Gardening. It's a garden store and loungy cafe rolled into one. 

The cafe offers quite a selection of organic homemade comfort food in a sweet old house, and is hypervigilant about recycling and composting. Love it.

The nursery is quite impressive too, offering an extensive variety of garden plants. I've been most enthralled by the variety of fruit and nut trees. Have you heard of these hybrid grafted apple and cherry trees? One self pollinating tree that offers 3-4 varieties of cherries and apples? That one is a little confusing, but intriguing as well.

Kind of loving the birch trees...

Rasmussen Redux

Hazelnuts by the pound...

Pumpkin bowling

And quite possibly the most precious children's area I've even seen (excluding their adorable corn maze, which is equally precious)..

Can you guess the names of the books? My kids were delighted!

  

Currently his favorite book...

 Thank you, ladies, it was delightful!

Another day brings relief!

So imagine this house completely stripped of paint, rotten shingles replaced (porch), and trim painted white. Can you see it?

Check it out. Heyyyy, not bad! We have a roof, more paint has been stripped, and I dare say, not a speck of paint on the ground.

Here is my inspiration:

First photo courtesy of Robert Young Architecture and Interiors.

http://ryarch.com

Totally my aesthetic. I had attempted to marry an asphalt and metal roof when the top roof came off, but the local planning department turned me down (even one that matches the main roof color exactly!). Our house is in a national scenic area and has many restrictions. I'm not giving up. Metal roof lifespan - 50 years, recyclable. Shingle roof lifespan - 15 years, can be downcycled, but it's like plastic - it eventually becomes landfill.

This next photo has me excited, because, though our shingles aren't stained, this door color matches the color I'd like to paint the front door. We won't be staining the house. Weathering the shingles naturally is the lowest maintenance option, which sounds good to me!

Blue door, white frames, maybe barn red yellow frames. Husband says that's too patriotic. Hey, isn't a farmhouse totally Americana?

I also like a glossy black door, but maybe not with brown shingles. Glossy yellow?

Pretty color...

Look what I found outside. Feathers. There are a few round holes in the eaves. The feathers weren't moving, but I did hear something. Other holes are stuffed with rags. Fun.

Raise the Roof!

The roof came off last week, making me further question what the heck we were doing. Not looking good.

but the weather for roofing and paint removal was glorious!

And the view from the attic is PHENOMENAL!

Lifting an old growth wood beam, cracked down the middle. We're saving the wood for future projects.

Anyone want to come over this weekend and help sort it all out for us?

Here come the man toys...

Fun!

Let the Major work begin!

Finally, it was ready for the paint removal guys to come. I had been counting down the days that we would see the green come off this house.

I don't have a problem with the paint, mind you, except that you can peel it off the shingles with your bare hands.

Not exactly child safe, as this is surely lead based paint.

We hired Ed Bell and Sons to remove the paint. They treat the employees with much respect, and not only are they well equipped to safely remove the paint, but they are regularly tested for elevated levels of lead (via a blood test).

I came by on day 2 of the job. None of us knew what to expect, because clearly there had been some windows removed and replaced. But I wasn't expecting this:

One of the guys asked me what I thought (oh please don't ask me what I think!). But I recently have been working on thinking before I speak, so I said, "I think your work is phenomenal, but I wasn't expecting to see big patches of different colored shingles."

I've used this company before. When I was pregnant with my first child, I interviewed a few companies to remove the failing paint from the trim of my old house. I ultimately choose Ed bell & sons.

We went from this:

to this:

we had to put in a little elbow grease too, though.

oh no no no, it was not that easy. You will see. Think 9 months pregnant, dry walling a ceiling. More pictures to come.

I want my old house back.