Garage Repair

Our garage has never had proper drainage and the bottom has been getting progressively more rotten over the years. We had addressed this on the front, right side and back a few years ago by cutting out the rotten panelling and adding a Hardie panel baseboard while also adding flashing and sealant to keep the water out. To fix the left side we had to access our neighbors yard and take down their fencing so it never happened. The paint was also pretty faded and most of the facia boards were rotting away (and growing mushrooms). Since there is currently no one living in the house next door to us we took the opportunity over spring break to take care of these overdue repairs and paint the whole thing to match the house. (We did inform the owner of the house next door).

Here’s the basic before and after shots. We also took the opportunity to trench out around the foundation and add gravel for better drainage. We installed gutters to help with drainage as well. Plus I finally leveled out the brick pad for my plants and we got the door prepped for a real garage door. The end result looks way better, matches the house color, is more functional and should last for another decade. Next month we will add some electricity so we can use the workshop side as a workshop instead of just storage and get the automatic garage door installed.

This is the transformation of the left side that needed access from the neighbors yard.

The transformation of the right side, which is the one we see from our back deck.

The transformation of the front. I’ll have to update this when we get the door in.

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And yes, we also did the back. It’s just really hard to photograph. We did the trenching and painting here plus lots of caulking in seams before painting and adding a piece of roof flashing that was never there.

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Finally got the garage door installed. Project complete. Also got that trellis of Jasmine on the right under control.

Shutters

Taking care of a few long overdue projects around the house. These old shutters are a privacy screen on our back deck but they have been shedding paint for over four years. Every time it rains or the wind blows we had a new collection of paint chips on the bench below. I finally took them down and scraped off as much paint as I could.

The blue ones had multiple layers of paint. Green, teal, black and more. The green seems to have been a stain. They also have the most rotten wood. The right one was being held together but the paint in some places so I tried to not take too much off.

The white louvers took the longest. These were the biggest shedders so I wanted to get the loose paint off of all those groves and edges.

I sprayed these all with a satin clear coat to help stop the rot and keep the remaining paint intact. I also helped bring out the detail and color. Subtle but it’s rained on these several times since they were finished and the water beads up nicely so hopefully they won’t deteriorate any further.

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Here’s the final look. They add to the Florida Keys rustic feel and give privacy to the back deck without the paint chips.

Christmas Charcuterie Chalet

My sister had seen pictures of these and wanted to make something from scratch. We looked at some pictures and watched a video and then just went for it. The results were pretty impressive considering we were mostly just winging it. It did have a pretty bad crack in the roof and an overall lean after a night in the fridge but it was always meant to be a short term structure so I’m still calling it a creative win.

Final Product

Final Product

The basic building blocks were pretzel sticks, summer sausage rolls and hard cheese with whipped cream cheese mixed with dill piped on to hold it all together. The cream cheese mortar was way more effective than I thought it would be. We went for a rectangular 1:1:2 shape with your basic log cabin overlap on the corners with pretzel ‘logs’ alternating with cheese and sausage ‘logs’. Also used some additional pretzels for interior support.

The walls were pretty easy, the roof proved more challenging. Our first attempt to create pretzel trusses with cheese supports fell under the weight of the cracker tiles. We decided to simplify and just use the cream cheese glue to hold the cracker tiles together in a pretty steep slope. This ended up working with a little bread heel (that no one in my house eats anyway) to fill in the ends. The front side got a little cream cheese and olive wreath and the backside got some shaker cracker shingles.

Once the structure was complete we got to the fun part, decorating. We had a mustard path with olive lining, olive, pickle and sausage roll end trees. Grated parmesan snow. A olive roof cap, more trees made from rosemary and sausage ends and a snowman made from cream cheese. The snowman had a cheese nose, black pepper eyes, clove arms, a olive hat and a rosemary leaf scarf. A little star anise over the door gave a festive touch.

The final product went in the fridge to firm up while we waited for the windows, dried orange slices, to come out of the oven. Our chalet had some flaws but it was a fun way to spend some time on Christmas Eve even though we couldn’t bring ourselves to eat it. (We had too many leftover building materials to eat anyway).

Plant Wall

I was watching one of those home improvements shows and they used a bunch of planters to create an accent wall. We had a dead space in our back hallway that has never really been interesting but is one of the few places in the house that gets good light. After some searching around the internet and considering what materials we had on hand vs the space we created an accent piece using wood and plants. I’m really pleased with the outcome and hope it will grow into something green and lush. The whole project was completed over two days.

We had some pieces of cypress from the local sawmill left over from another project. They have been collecting dust in the garage.

We picked three pieces that already had shapes that roughly go together and had cut left and right sides. Sanded them down and gave them three coats of lacquer to bring out the grain and live edges. After finishing I was please to see the variety of color and grain they had.

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This was the space. It has full length french doors that we never use so essentially big windows that face east and get a good amount of morning sun. I added these curtains several years ago because it tended to get too hot back here. There is also a door on the left that swings into the wall so only the right portion was available. We used picture hanging cleats and wall anchors where we couldn’t hit studs to hold the pieces of wood since there would be quite a bit of weight on them. The cleats allowed us to minimize holes in the wall and the wood and made it easier to adjust their position. They are also easily removable if necessary.

After much internet searching I decided to use these pots. They are 7” pots so a decent volume to allow the plants to grow. They have a keyhole so they can be easily rearranged if certain plants need more light or grow bigger than others. They also have a flat back to help support the weight. The black inner pot is shorter than the white outer pot and has a cord that hangs down into the water reservoir in the bottom of the white pot so the plants can regulate their water use and do not need constant watering. The inner/outer pot system also made it easy to mount all the white pots and then just set the planted inner pots inside once I had decided on the position of the outer pots on the wood.



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This was the arrangement before the inner pots went in. Because the wood is mounted on the cleats I could take them down and lay them flat, figure out the arrangement, mark the position and add screws very easily. Put the pots on the screws and then put the wood back on the wall. I bought 14 pots (they came in packs of 7) but only ended up using 12. The extras went outside on the fence (I also bought too many plants so it worked out). I tried to stagger them as much as possible so the plants would have room to grow.

Here is the result after plants were added. I used mostly succulents but also some ivy, a croton and what I think is a purple waffle plant I had split from a larger plant. Some of these are hanging plants and depending on how they all grow I will probably rearrange this later. I have plenty of backups if some of these don’t like it here. This was the light around 5 pm.

A few days later with the light around mid morning. Plants are looking happy so far.

The Morse Museum

Visited the Morse Museum in Winter Park. It is a small museum you can easily get through in an hour with a nice collection of work related to Louis Tiffany. It also has recreations using original pieces of some of the lavish rooms from his home in Long Island, which was largely destroyed by fire, and exhibition pieces from World’s Fairs. There are example of other contemporary artists and studios as well. I was interesting to see how some of the earlier electric lamps were styled and how little has changed in lamp design. It seems even from the beginning you could mix and match your shade with your lamp base.

St. Augustine Alligator Farm

Spent the forth at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm. This zoological park has been around in one form or another since 1893 and is currently located on Anastasia island just across from the lighthouse. As the name implies there are lots of alligators there but also crocodiles, snakes, turtles and birds. We enjoyed the animals but the highlight of our visit was definitely the zip line/obstacle course that takes you over some of the animal exhibits. No cameras/phones allowed on the course so no pictures to show but I would highly recommend.


Honeymoon Island

Small Island off the gulf coat of Florida, just north of Tampa and west of Dunedin. We went to hike a small trail but were chased off by the most aggressive mosquitos I have ever come across. Did get a few pictures of the turtles and the results of a previous fire before we gave up. Spent a bit of time social distancing in the shade at the beach recovering after that. It’s called Honeymoon island because of a Life Magazine contest in 1939 that gave free two week vacations to honeymooners. It was nice at the beach and looked like an active fishing spot as well so as long as those couple didn’t venture into the brush they likely had a good time.

May Flowers

Since all trips were cancelled I decided to do some photography around the house. I have a lot of nice plants going right now. Some edible and some ornamental, in pots, raised beds and straight in the ground. They came from friends and family, some I’ve had for years, some bought recently or started from seeds and some came with the house. I identified the ones I know.

I was also experimenting with the portrait setting on my phone. It basically tries to focus on the subject and blur out the background. It is imperfect and of course I could do this manually but when it works it has a nice effect. Works best when your subject is solid (like an actual portrait of a person, not leggy plants).

Enchanted Rock in Texas

Hiked to the top of this rock hill in February. It wasn’t overly cold but it was windy at the top as it is one of the highest points around there. It looks like pretty inhospitable rock but there are little water pools and crevices with buts of life growing in them everywhere. The hike up was strenuous but pretty short so very doable. Explored some of the area around the bottom afterwards. Also included some of the local rock art and architecture.

So Cal Shorts

A collection of various things and places from our quick sojourn to Southern California Dec. 2019. The weather was chilly and sometimes rainy but we still had a good time.

First the beach we could walk to from our hotel in San Clemente

Wonderful visit to the Getty Museum. The building is the real star. Great views of LA.

A few of the breweries we visited, Alesmith was the best of all that we went to. Would recommend, also a cool building and lots of variety.

San Diego zoo, which was open on Christmas Eve and pretty packed. Not sure we saw everything before our feet gave out (also rode the bus). Lots of nice flora to complement the fauna.

Home store shopping in the design district for inspiration. Lots of color and texture here.

San Juan Capistrano Mission

Visited the Mission at San Juan Capistrano on a rainy day. This is the mission/town famous for the swallows that nest there seasonally. It is also known for it’s bells. The main chapel was destroyed by an earthquake but it has a small chapel and gardens. Also interesting exhibits about early Spanish colonial life and the native people who lived and worked in the area. The set up seems to be geared towards school children so I would guess this is a frequent field trip site. There were very few people there when we sent but it was Dec 23 and rainy.

Last day in Berlin

Had a day left before the flight back to the states. Took in a modern art museum, the Hamburger Bahnhof. It was another museum set in an old railway terminal. The best part of the museum were the multimedia exhibits with video and sound. They were very immersive and effecting, unfortunately impossible to capture in a photo.

Spent the rest of the day walking around Berlin, checked out various parks and Museum Island. Very pretty, lots of construction everywhere. Lots of evidence of the damage from WWII and the remnants of the Berlin Wall. I found the Stolperstein, or stumbling block, memorials especially moving as they are so personal. They commemorate a specific person, where they lived and what happened to them.

Berlin Day 2

We spent the morning (chilly) exploring Potsdam, a short 45 minute or so train ride from Berlin. It’s main attraction is San Souci, the palace of Frederik the Great of Prussia. It was his summer palace and the name means ‘without a care’. He was into wine so there are still grapevines and terraced garden. As a summer retreat it is much smaller but similar to Versailles. The town of Potsdam is really lovely with a long main street with lots of nice shops. They also have their own Brandenburg Gate.

In the afternoon we went to the East Wall gallery. The longest remaining stretch of the Berlin wall with artwork on the East Side and graffiti covering the West Side. We walked to Checkpoint Charlie and Gendarmenmarkt square before turning in for the day.

Berlin Day 1

Had meetings today and was feeling under the weather but we had tickets to see the dome of the Bundestag (German Parliament building) at seven. Afterwards we walked over to the Brandenburg Gate and ate some yummy Italian food. The architecture of Berlin is much more varied than Paris and the two sides of the city have a distinctly different look and feel even though the actual path of the wall has mostly been built over. It is a mix of traditional and modern. Graffiti art is popular and gives the whole city a ‘grittier’ feel. It was also the coldest and windiest weather I’d seen on the trip.

We stayed in East Berlin. Went to the top of an office building built essentially on top of where the wall used to be where you had a good view of the city and could really see the contrast between west and east. You can also get this view from the TV tower which is one of the tallest buildings in Europe open to the public. We didn’t go up in that as it was essentially the same view as from the office rooftop. Also had amazing Italian for lunch.

As my knowledge of recent history is sadly lacking most of the history of the division of Berlin was murky for me. Fortunately they have a nicely done timeline around the inside of the dome. The Bundestag was the seat of German government until 1933 when it was severely damaged in a fire. It suffered more damage during WWII and was left largely unused until after reunification the seat of government was moved from Bonn and into the newly restored building in 1999. The open dome with reflective cone inside allows for ventilation and light to enter the parliament chamber. Visitors can also look down and see into the chamber. There is a shade that rotates around the inner mirrored cone to prevent glare. An interesting combination of old and new like much of the city.

Paris Day 7

Yesterday was all work. Today we did a lot of retail snooping in the Marais neighborhood of Paris (upscale area). But also went into the St. Gervais church and saw an example of a medieval facade in Paris. (These were thought to be the oldest remaining buildings in Paris but were discovered to actually have been built in 1644 by someone who just liked the medieval look.) For more details click here.

This is the literal translation of this sign via Google Translate. It makes no mention of the discovery in the 60’s that these are really not medieval.

Medieval residences are very rare in Paris. Those of the Rue Francois-Miron, under the sign of the reaper for the 11th, at the sign of the sheep for the 13th, are attested at the beginning of XVI century and could date, in their primitive state, of XIV century. From 1508, repeated royal ordinances prohibit the projecting constructions, which remain to collapse and to cause accidents in the street. This is why the gable of the 13th was removed in the 17th century. It was rebuilt in 1967, at the time of the restoration of these two houses. In 1607, in edict ordered to cover plaster wood parts constituting the frame of buildings to limit the risk of fire. The architect has cleared them and restored them following the original design.

We went to some small home furnishing stores in this neighborhood. The stores had different styles but it general they matched what we saw at the show. Lots of pinks, greens and mustard colors with gold or black metals. Mid-century styling with basic geometric shapes and tapered legs. Mixed materials with natural materials starting to make a showing. Tables in sets or with two levels. The occasional color popping piece.

Paris Day 5

Because most of the museums are closed on Monday we took Sunday to visit the Louvre, afterwards I walked to the Rodin museum and the Eiffel Tower.

The Louvre is not the best place to view are quite frankly. It was the king’s palace before they moved to Versailles and it was used as a palace again by Napoleon III after the Revolution so the lighting is not great, it is a maze to get around in and of course the crowds are crazy. The Napoleon III apartments were actually the most interesting part to me.

The Rodin Museum on the other hand I highly recommend. It is in a small mansion that Rodin rented rooms in. It also has a couple of acres of nicely manicured grounds to display his bronze and marble sculpture on. The weather was perfect for my visit. The museum displayed pieces from Rodin’s personal collection (historical marbles as well as contemporaneous painters). It also had several paintings by Rodin and many models giving insight into the artistic process and his inspiration.

Versailles

Spent the afternoon and evening at Versailles. Did the full experience. Saw the royal chambers, went back again for music and dancing inside and the toured the gardens at dusk and stayed late for fireworks over the gardens after dark. Got a little chilly but well worth it. I would recommend the gardens more than inside the palace. This was my second time to the palace though and the first time I had spent time in the gardens so it may have just been that they were new to me. They do have more fountains and hidden groves than I had imagined. It was interesting to see some of them in the daylight and then again after dark. They light them with lasers and there are several fog machines that make this very spooky. It would be an extremely creepy Halloween situation if they wanted to go that route. The army of people required to maintain this then and now is amazing.

These are the same areas shot during daylight and then transformed at night

Everything in the palace is just so over the top. It’s all a little too much.

Paris Day 3

Spent the day doing work things but at night we went to this very interesting immersive art experience in an old foundry. The show is called L’Atelier des Lumieres (workshop of lights) and their website is here . Basically they use a large space and project famous artworks onto the walls and floors in coordination with music. The images are not at all static though. They are layered on and off and move around with the music. It is very well choreographed. This show has works by Van Gogh, Japanese art and a piece made just for the show by Thomas Vanz. The Van Gogh and Japanese portions were very good, the Thomas Vanz piece was less effective in my opinion.

It was interesting to move to different vantage points but also to stay still and watch how people (and children) observed and interacted with the work. If you sat on a wall you effectively became part of the show. Children were trying to ‘catch’ the moving images. I will say you could enter or leave at any time and their was very little explanation. The experience would have been enriched for me with a little more context. This was true for most of the things I saw on this trip though. And yes, I had dinner at the same place.

Paris Day 2

Perfect weather for walking around again. We visited Sainte Chapelle, walked as close as we could to Notre Dame and then went to the Musee d’Orsay. This was my favorite museum last time I was in Paris and it is still one of my favorites. It is devoted to Impressionist artist and is in a former train station built, of course, for a World’s Fair.


Paris Day 1

Arrived at 7:30 am with a few hours of sleep on the plane (have finally discovered a good neck pillow/eye mask flying situation). Couldn’t check into the hotel until noon so walked around the Seine and took a boat tour to try and stay awake. Since we were there a day early because of the hurricane threatening in Florida this was a free day.

Main take aways from the Seine river guide were that most of their big landmarks were built for seven world’s fairs that were held in a relatively short amount of time in the early 20th century. Also there are a lot of bridges and the all have a distinct history I do not remember. It was also interesting to see Notre Dame with all the scaffolding and cranes.

After we got into the hotel and took a nap we went to Sacre Coeur, which was close by. This is on a hill and gives a great view of the city. Therefore at sunset it is similar to the Spanish Steps in Rome with people sitting on the steps, vendors and musicians. We got dropped off at the top and then walked down to the bottom. There was a nice little neighborhood at the bottom where we had a great French meal and got chocolates.