Posted by Matthew
Wed, 10 Oct 2007 14:37:00 GMT
My lovely wife gave me a solar powered fountain for my birthday a few weeks back:
Our new solar-powered fountain (filled with reclaimed rainwater) because we are hippies.
It is excellent and completes my end of the duo pact that my pal Dan and I agreed to. We were inspired by our neighbor to each have both a Japanese maple tree and a fountain. Dan had a fountain that he put together himself (very impressive) and I have a rather meek looking Charlie Brown Japanese maple (it will make a come back in the Spring). Now I have an excellent fountain. I’ll probably upgrade the rocks to black river rocks (Dan ordered a box for this fountain) but, otherwise it is excellent. The solar pump charges for up to 8 hours of sun-free operation.
This past weekend I added a bench. Now all that is left is to deal with the mosquitos or hope the season actually changes to Fall and we can sit outside without being devoured alive.
Posted in Remodeling: Landscape | no comments
Posted by Matthew
Wed, 10 Oct 2007 14:30:00 GMT
We got around to fixing up the front yard a bit. Here’s the new plant bed:
Featuring: the somethingorother switch grass. And more of the lovely mulch.
This involved a trip to Behnke’s, which is always a treat, and pulling out the shrub that sat between our house and our pals at 733, which was less of a treat and more like recess at the gulag. A week later I still have large cuts on my forearms from dragging that thing out of the ground. It has now been replaced by some switch grass (on the left). We also put in some Japanese grass. I’m going for a grass motif down the left hand side of the property. We may end up putting mulch through out the front yard as the grass isn’t doing so well. At least we managed to get something into the hard-as-concrete clay soil.
Posted in Remodeling: Landscape | no comments
Posted by Matthew
Tue, 03 Jul 2007 15:36:00 GMT
As of tomorrow I’ll have lived back in DC for one year. K. has me beat by a few days as she flew out ahead with the cat while I drove our car across the U.S. of A. A fair number of people on both coasts have asked me about the neighborhood, the house, living back on the East coast, working remotely, etc. Do I like it? Do I hate it? I usually give the usual wishy-washy “Yeah, it’s great” answer because the honest answer would take longer than the amount of time those asking really want to spend delving into the specifics. Not that “great” is inaccurate or misleading but, it is a complicated situation and I tend to waffle a bit. So here is the long answer which I put here mainly to get myself clear on how I feel and so I can look back in a year and see if my opinions changed.
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Posted in Neighborhood, Moving cross-country | Tags house, neighborhood, petworth, work | no comments
Posted by Matthew
Sat, 23 Jun 2007 01:14:00 GMT
Here is a list (compiled by K.) of what we planted in the raised beds in our backyard:
Tomato "Supersweet 100"
Tomato "Cherokee Purple"
Pepper "Tequila Sunrise"
Pepper "Pimento de Padron"
Persicaria odorata (Vietnamese Coriander)
Origanum vulgare "Hot and Spicy"
Artemisia dranunculus (French Tarragon)
Thymus pulegoides (Archer's Gold Thyme)
Thymus vulgaris (Common Thyme)
Nepeta cataria (Catnip)
Allium schoenoprasum (Chives)
Lavandula augustifolia "Hidcote" (Hidcote lavender)
Ocimum basilicum minimum (Spicy Globe Basil)
Dianthus x allwoodii "Old Spice"
Rosemarinus officinalis "Romero"
Rosemarinus officinalis "Arp"
Sedum reflexum (Stonecrop)
Sisyrinchium bermudianum "Devon Skies" (Blue-eyed Grass)
Erica carnea "Springwood White" (White Heather)
Lonicera sempervirens (Trumpet Honeysuckle)
Monarda didyma "Jacob Cline" (Bee Balm)
Salvia nemorosa "Viola Klose" (Meadow Sage)
Fetusca cinerea "Elijah Blue" (Blue Fescue)
Buddleia davidii "Purple Emperor" (Butterfly Bush)
Pictures of the growth are coming soon. I can tell you that the tomato plants are growing like mad and we are likely to have tomatoes before summer is out. The yard itself is still a mess but, the raised bed plants are going like gang busters.
Posted in Remodeling: Landscape | Tags beds, dc, garden, landscape, raised | no comments
Posted by Matthew
Mon, 23 Apr 2007 16:33:00 GMT
Our new GE Profile convection oven right next to our new Krups toaster. Both of which are excellent.
Part of K’s parents wedding gift to us is this new happening GE Profile stove. It is a convection oven which is what K, the chef in this house, wanted. It also has an extra powerful burner for boiling water quickly which is about all I am qualified to do. Even though we are vegetarians we still use the oven a bit and we missed having one. The previous stove contained “The Oven That Cannot be Cleaned” and so we didn’t use it. I tried to clean it and ended up taking off some of the coating on our IKEA cabinets and drawers with the deadliest of products:”Easy-Off”. Yup, that cabinetry came off easily alright. At any rate, we are quite happy with our new stove.
To the right of the stove in the picture above is another wedding present, the Krups toaster (model #s forthcoming). The toaster accommodates bagels with a bagel button that only toasts the open side of the bagel. The levers on it feel quite sturdy. It also features a warming plate.
This last bit of gear nearly completes the kitchen. We want to add a shelf underneath the stove hood and glass block window. We also want to replace the original kitchen window with one we can open. But, beyond that the kitchen, nearly one year later, is finally complete.
Posted in Remodeling: Kitchen | Tags GE, Krups, oven, toaster | no comments
Posted by Matthew
Sat, 07 Apr 2007 14:48:00 GMT
Our wedding gift from Rob and Jennifer.
Like any good home owner with the coming of Spring we’ve started taking on all of the projects that sat dormant over the winter (though as I write this the little tree pictured above has been dusted by snow). I dug the ditch a bit deeper than necessary but, otherwise we had the cherry tree installed in no time. Hopefully the tree will make it through this cold snap.
Yesterday, I continued the front yard transformation by pulling out the small dying shrub in the corner next to the walkway. The roots ran under some bulbs so I unfortunately did some damage to those little guys but, they’re replanted and the shrub is gone.
The porch is the beneficiary of all the pretty flower baskets my Mom obtained for our wedding reception. In fact the entire house is teeming with plants and flowers. We really did have a warm and pleasant few days before the unexpected return of Winter.
K. also painted the front door. The first coat went well but the cold weather has delayed application of additional coats. Pictures when it is all done.
Finally we ordered a new stove, a wedding present from K’s parents, and some lumber for raised beds we plan to build in the back yard. All in all an eventful week.
Tags shrub, tree, yard | no comments
Posted by Matthew
Tue, 06 Feb 2007 15:36:00 GMT
My previous boss hails from the UK and one of the first things he told me about after we bought the house was tank-less water heaters. Apparently these appliances are big everywhere but here in the US. An article in the latest ReadyMade magazine confirms it. Therefore I started looking into the Rinnai tank-less water heater. Here are the specs for future reference:
Model: R53
Btu input: 15-180
EF NG: 0.82
EF LP: 0.87
Flow rate (gpm): 0.8-5.3
(EF = energy factor)
List price: $990
Maybe when it is not 0 degrees outside and we have more than $0 dollars in our bank account we’ll have a gander at this unit.
Posted in Modern amenities | Tags heater, water | 1 comment
Posted by Matthew
Tue, 16 Jan 2007 23:36:00 GMT
The new fridge in all its glory. It is a 30" GE.
All praise the new fridge! It is a
wonderful GE fridge that fits our space and has a lot of interior room. The old fridge was desperate. The seals no longer sealed and the racks sagged. Now we enjoy opening up the fridge.
Posted in Remodeling: Kitchen, Modern amenities | Tags generalelectric, refrigerator | no comments
Posted by K
Sun, 10 Dec 2006 20:02:00 GMT
There’s nothing like having a party to finally motivate you to do something like hang the lamps that you have had around for the last three months but have been afraid to put up because electricity is scary.
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Posted in Modern amenities, Remodeling: General | no comments
Posted by K
Wed, 29 Nov 2006 13:13:00 GMT
So belatedly (I had to go to CA to eat a thousand good burritos and wish they had them here and then the Thanksgiving holiday derailed me), I am here to say that we did get a new boiler installed. We talked to a few people but in the end went with John Fulcher of Trans-Potomac Heating and Air Conditioning, Inc (202-258-6158), who is great. He’s been in the business for over 40 years and is a DC local and knows these old houses very well. I wish I had known about him when we got the heat pump installed, but oh well, hindsight is 20-20.
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Posted in Modern amenities | no comments | no trackbacks
