Little Bits

Instead of tackling the big projects, we seem to be dabbling in small ones and gearing up for the biggies. No problem - lots of littles equals a big, right?

Ben is intent on getting the backyard in ship-shape. Yesterday he ripped up the sand bin (another mystery! what was it? why was it there? what did they use it for?) and started clearing away the ugly and inexplicable bark chip mulch bed.

We bought some Heather: perfect small flowering evergreen bushes for in front of the fence. Three are planted but the fourth has to wait until I dig/saw out what's left of the barberry bush.

I sewed! I'm not a particularly crafty person by any means, but I did manage to make two porch swing pillows from an old tablecloth I found in the basement. Cute!

I also gave the SoyGel a whirl and dumped some on the tiny window's windowsill in the backhallwaypantry. Not bad stuff! It worked quickly and fairly well with very very little solvent-stink. I was impatient and probably started scraping sooner than I should have, but it still hardly took any time to start working. With finer scraping tools I could have done an even better job of getting the old paint off. Much easier than getting a heat gun, and not stinky. It destroyed the foam brush I was using, though - duh, I guess.

{Pictures}


Porch pillows:


Heather: Soygel stripping in progress:
{more to come...}