First Fall Plantings

I have high aspirations for working in the yard this fall – honestly it is daunting.  Most of these things involve working on the steep hill in our backyard, which is scary in and of itself.

My hopeful list of fall gardening:

  • Move 3 Hydrangeas and 4 Gardenias (1 moved!)
  • Plan and plant new variety of plants and shrubs under the living room window
  • Move 5 Dwarf Japanese Barberries and plant 5 new dwarf heavenly bamboo nandinas
  • Transplant about 100 canna lilies, some asiatic lilies, irises and some gladioli (The cannas are dug out and 2 dozen have been replanted)
  • Plant some new ornamental grasses and knock-out-type roses
  • Root more Georgia blue Speedwell along the retaining walls (small wall and half of large wall finished!)
  • Replace the dwarf holly at the corner of the garage with a sky pencil holly (sky pencil purchased)
  • Plant succulents in small bed near front door (see below)
  • Freshen up the smallest planter on the patio (see below)
  • Plant another Emerald Green Thuja at the front corner of the house (see below)

I got a head start on Labor day when I got an itch to put some new plants in the small planter on the patio that was looking ragged.  I bought an asparagus fern on clearance and a small potato vine.  I left the spent cyclamen in there because I have a sickness and I can’t throw out a plant until I have completely killed it off.

I also bought some hens and chicks after seeing an amazing succulent inspiration that looks just like the little strip of soil between our house and front walkway.

The tag on the Hen and Chicks says it is a ground cover that takes full sun and has low water needs once established – very good for this afternoon-sun area.  There was a little bit of creeping stone crop left on the hill that I also transplanted here.  I hope it works out, because this little strip of soil has baffled me for years.

Lastly, I had to buy a new Emerald Green Thuja.  The one I had bought for the planter by the front door, to be moved into the yard this fall, died even though I tried really hard to keep up with it.  I think the baking heat at our front stoop was just too much.  The heat did not seem to bother the sweet potato vine though – it has grown like crazy from the small sprout I planted.  I have even had to trim it back several times to keep it out of the path to the front door!

Womp, womp.  But here is the new one in its new home next to the Emerald Green I planted last fall.

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New Guest Bedroom

I mentioned the big switch between our guest bedroom and home office earlier.  I was ready for a more neutral wall color in the guest bedroom, and I knew I wanted it to be in the grey family.  I compared a lot of swatches to the robin’s egg blue in the bedding, and decided on Glidden’s Dusty Miller.  It has a lot of blue-green to the grey.

The new guest bedroom is smaller than the original space because of the closet sticking out into the room.  Because of that, the dressers I was using as nightstands were too big.  I sold them on Craigslist and bought a smaller pair.  I painted them and repainted the headboard, chair and round accent table a crisp gloss white. Because the walls are now grey, I didn’t want the furniture grey too (though it was almost white it was such a pale grey before).  It was more obvious once the walls were no longer blue that I really didn’t have that many blue accessories.  Unfortunately, the new nightstands are much shorter than the old ones, so I no longer need the bedrisers, which means that not as much of the pretty blue bedskirt shows.  It also means I lost some good craft storage in the switch.

We think that because of the roof line of the garage under this room, the window had to be positioned higher in this room than the other.  For this reason, the green curtains are way too short now.  I am on the hunt for something new or a creative solution for the green curtains.  I added new Anthropologie pulls to the nightstands and found the glass owl vase at Tuesday Morning to bring more blue back in.  I also still need to get frames back up on the wall and find a home for a few more items (seen on and below the chair in the picture above) to be finished with the room.

And a reminder of the before:

New Home Office

During the hot spell this summer, Bradley’s office, which sits over our garage, was staying much hotter than other rooms in the house.  He spends a lot of time in there, whereas neither of us spend any time in the guest room/craft room.  I offered to switch the two rooms and repaint.  Of course, the guest bedroom furniture perfectly fit the original room, and the original office is smaller because the closet is built out into the room (More on the guest bedroom later!).

I took this opportunity to pick new paint colors for both rooms.  For the office, I suggested that we trend more to the grey family – the original color was a brown with a red tint to it.  We decided to stay with the same level of darkness to the paint, but a more grey-mocha.  I taped a lot of swatches up behind his desk to make sure it would look good with the wood color.  Bradley got a new desk months ago from Craigslist – the Galant desk from Ikea.  We actually ended up picking the same paint chip – Behr’s Squirrel.

The room is still unfinished – I need to rehang the artwork.  We are also on the hunt for a reasonably priced Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman set like this:

And a reminder of the before:

*I try to always link the pictures in my posts to the original source.  If you
would like to link to any source, simply click on the picture in my posts.  If
you would like to pin a linked picture, please pin from the original source *

New Living Room Chair

In the spring, I finally found a new chair for the living room.  We have had one of the $35 Craigslist chairs in the corner next to the tv for years, but Bradley wanted to take the matching pair to work – the other had been living in his home office.   When he got a new desk, the second chair no longer fit in the office.

I wanted a chair with a higher back, but it still needed to have a small footprint for the location.  I also love tufting, so the Claremont Tufted Chair was a perfect fit.  I wanted a lighter color to balance out the walls, sofas, and tables as well.  The quality of the fabric is reflected in the price of the chair, but I don’t mind – we only use it when we have company over.

Guest Bathroom Update

I bought some new rugs for the guest bathroom a while back, but Bradley’s camera has been spending a lot of time in the shop, so I haven’t gotten around to taking pictures until now.  I had been using the leftover rugs from the master bathroom, but I love how the blue lightens up the whole look.

Overall, I feel like the changes have moved this room in the younger and fresher direction I have been attempting to achieve in other areas of our home.