little black journal

Summer has settled upon Seattle with a vengeance, and O – M – G.  The days are gloriously warm, the evenings long and full of leisure.  Shane played basketball and volleyball with the boys on Tuesday night and came home with a sweat-soaked shirt, a twisted ankle, and mile-wide grin on his face.  I met with my book club gals on the lawn of Seward Park last night and watched the last of the sun’s rays glint off Lake Washington.  I finally got around to planting my little herb garden tonight, and then we sat on the back patio until 9:00 and ate grilled nectarines over ice cream.  In shorts!  Until 9 pm!  This weather makes me want to end all my sentences in exclamation points!  And then I want to crank up Sublime on the stereo and let it rip until the neighbors come over to tell me to turn it down, at which point I’ll hand them a Corona with a lime in it and they’ll shrug their shoulders and join the party.  Anyone who says Disneyland is the happiest place on earth clearly hasn’t enjoyed a string of 80-degree days in Seattle…

It’s Springtime in Seattle!  Flowers are blooming, birds are chirping, and the sun is streaming through our windows as I type.  It feels so good to be in a home full of daylight…until that daylight starts illuminating dust on the floors and scuffs on the walls and crusty char on the stovetop.  And so it’s been home improvement month at Chez Schnell (insert sympathetic sigh for Shane here).  I’m cleaning with a vengeance, scrubbing the oven and repainting walls and generally sprucing things up in this little abode of ours.

Our downstairs white walls received a fresh coat of paint (next time Shane suggests we hire someone for all those hard-to-reach places, I think I might cave…).

The air plant that Mitch and Kathryn gave me for Christmas found a home in our dining room, along with a couple of new friends:

The white pot that’s been sitting empty on our table for the last two years was finally filled with a fresh green succulent:

Our bookshelves have been “West Elmed”…

Our bathroom received new art on the walls and a fresh zig-zaggy bathmat:

And our front yard was just planted with a row of newly blooming flowers in cheery shades of purple.

And with all that, project spruce-up is nearly complete – we’ve still got windows to wash and dust bunnies to evict from under our bed, but things are shaping up around here*.  Shane has been dreaming about this little lake-view plot of land for sale in Mount Baker, but I don’t know – I think we’ve got a good thing goin’ on in this place…

*This post was sponsored in part by our good friends at West Elm.  Ok, not really, but they owe me one, right?

I’ve mentioned before, I’m big on traditions. Real big. And one of my most favorite traditions is our annual visit to the Christmas tree farm in North Bend. This is the first Christmas that we’ll actually spend at home in Seattle, so I’ve really been looking forward to making our house all Christmas-y, with a tree and sparkly lights and stockings and all that goodness. Project “holiday decor” kicked off this morning as we headed east to find the perfect pine; Jack and La Verne were also in the market for a tree today and joined us on our hunt. It was chilly out there, but dry and with small patches of blue sky over beautiful Mount Si. I’m in the middle of The Hobbit right now, and felt very Bilbo-ish as we meandered among the trees, with “Lonely Mountain” hovering above us. We wandered for awhile before settling on a full, round 7-foot Grand Fir. Jack and La Verne one-upped us with an 8-footer (plus some), and this was after we talked Jack down from the 9 and 10-foot trees he initially had his eye on (I had visions of a tree with it’s top branches bent over at their ceiling, but La Verne’s voice of reason eventually won out).

Our mighty lumberjacks chopped down the trees and we headed to the entrance to get them baled and sip our cider. See that little Honda Civic in the background with the tree perched precariously on its roof? Yeah, that’s us, and it was a slow drive home…

And now here I sit by the light of the tree, glass of egg nog in hand and Sufjan’s Christmas album playing on the stereo, and I am so full of thanks – for good friends, for our cozy home, for the Northwest’s natural beauty, and most of all, for the true reason behind this Advent season. God is good.

Sometime toward the end of last year (the day after my day-after-Thanksgiving shopping spree, maybe?), my clothes stopped fitting in my closet.  For the past 3 months, I’ve had a nice little stack of folded sweaters sitting on my dresser, unable to squeeze anything else inside my over-stuffed closet.  I did pick my prettiest sweaters to sit out, and folded them extra-neatly, and told myself they were just part of the room’s decor, but really, who was I kidding?  I just had too many clothes.  And so yesterday, unable to stand it any longer, I sprung into action and pulled every single thing out of my closet – shoes, handbags, clothes, all of it, and told myself that the only things that could be put back in there were the items that 1) fit well;  2) have been worn in the last 3-4 months (summer wear exempted).  I got an ironically-timed email from La Verne yesterday morning as I had just tossed the last pair of pants onto the bed, asking if anyone wanted to take advantage of her one-day-only 50% discount at Banana Republic.  I wavered for a moment, being someone who hates to turn down a good deal, but self-restraint won out in the end, and I decided to fore-go an afternoon of acquiring for an afternoon of de-cluttering.  I abided by a strict “When in doubt, throw it out” policy, and ended up with a pretty hefty stack of give-aways.  Eight pairs of shoes, four handbags, two coats, five skirts, a couple of pairs of pants, and roughly 15 tops will be coming soon to South Seattle’s Goodwill (with a few special things set aside for my next quarterly ladies’ clothing exchange).  Feels good to strip out some of the excess.

Closet before:

Closet after (ok, so it looks almost the same, but I promise you, there is less in there!):

The trick now will be in keeping it pared down, and so I’m going to be much more intentional about my purchases from now on – no more incidents of  “Holy Cow!  This sweater doesn’t really fit, but it’s only $13, marked down from $75!  Must get it!”.  A couple of ground rules:

1) No more black turtlenecks.  I know that black sweater/black pants is the unofficial architect’s uniform, but I really don’t need more than the four black turtlenecks I already own.

2) No more than three new items of clothing per month.  I shared this new rule with Shane and he guffawed – he hardly buys more than three new items of clothing per year.  But whatever – I like to shop, and am keeping my goals realistic.

3) Make a list of things I’d like to have, and stick to the list.  Yes, the occasional too-good-to-resist deal will pop up, and then I’ll stray from the list, but as a general rule, if I decide I have plenty of jeans, I should not shop for jeans.

Next weekend, I tackle the abyss that is my sock drawer.  And I can hardly wait.

And…ta-da!!!  Operation Dining-Room-Makeover is now complete.  And we’re thrilled with it – the table fits in the space perfectly, the color on the walls is bright-but-not-Whoa!, and our new blinds add a clean, crisp finish to the nook.  I’ve mixed in some new accessories (we scored that clock on the wall from a cool little shop in Bellingham last weekend) with a couple of sentimental items (the candle-holders were used in our wedding ceremony, and the vase was bought on our last trip to Paris).  I’m working on a couple of drawing/collages that might look good on the walls when they’re done, but for now, the encaustics are a good fit.  Next step: use it!  We’ve had a long-time resolution to eat more home-cooked dinners at the table, and our new cozy little nook will be good incentive to do so.

Before:

After:

The breakdown:  table: Grace dining table from West Elm;  chairs: Klismos dining chairs from West Elm;  rug: House Pet tiles in Gerbil from FLOR;  paint color: October Bronze by Valspar;  accessories: Maxie Wall Clock from Digs, Porcelain Tealight Holders and Wood Tray from West Elm;  artwork: encaustics by me.

When Shane and I moved into our house nearly four years ago, I was quick to slap some paint on the walls and scatter them with photos and artwork, overjoyed to have a place where we didn’t have to answer to a landlord.  For the most part, we’ve been pretty happy with the decorating decisions we made in the midst of our new-homeowner eagerness.  But now I find myself getting a bit antsy, ready for a refresh.  With very minimal arm-twisting, Shane has jumped on board, and we’ve decided to to tackle our little dining nook.  I no longer love the light green color of the walls, our old rectangular dining table has never fit quite right in the space, and the rug isn’t large enough for four chairs to rest on it.

So we’re doing a wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling update (a belated Christmas gift to each other), with a new table, new chairs, a new rug, new paint, new window coverings, and new artwork.  Whew!  Thankfully, it’s only a 9′ x 9′ space, so this can all be accomplished with relatively minimal time and money.  I’ve been scouring our favorite furniture stores for a round dining table and new chairs, I’ve ordered a slew of rug samples from FLOR, and have tacked several paint chips on the walls.  Here’s what we’re thinkin’…

table: Grace dining table from West Elm;  chairs: Klismos dining chairs from West Elm or Norvald dining chairs from IKEA;  rug: Feelin’ Groovy tiles in Earthen from FLOR;  paint color: October Bronze by Valspar;  accessories: Liquid Organic serving bowl from CB2 and White Wall Clock from West Elm;  artwork: ‘Porto’ by yours truly…

‘After’ photo coming soon!

Our p-patch plot, planted 10 weeks ago with tiny little plants in neat little rows, has recently turned into something of a jungle.  We’ve had boatloads of lettuce, summer squash that seems to double in size overnight, and crisp, sweet snap peas that are usually munched on as we make the walk from the garden back to our house.  Just call me Farmer Kelly…

The tomatoes and strawberries aren’t yet ripe for the pickin’, but they show definite promise.

All in all, we feel like we’ve done pretty well in our rookie year of veggie-gardening.  But there are definitely things we’ll do differently next year – a couple of words to the wise:

– Don’t assume that one of those dinky little 2-foot stakes is all you need for your peas – our vines outgrew those things in a matter of minutes, and everything would have been much simpler if we’d built a trellis from the get-go.

– 12 lettuce plants is far too many for a two-person household.  I’m sick of salad.  I was actually relieved when some of our plants started to bolt and needed to be removed.

– Squash and zucchini plants grow freakishly fast and get freakishly big.  Just sayin’.

– Gardening is rewarding and fun, but watch out – it can cause marital tensions; I got very defensive last week when Shane accused my squash plant of crowding his strawberries.  How dare he.

Keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll be seeing more signs of red next time we go out there!  I’m ready for a good, juicy tomato.

After spending a year on the waiting list, Shane and I found out on Thursday night that a plot had opened up for us in our neighborhood’s P-Patch.  We debated for a moment over whether or not we wanted the added responsibility of another garden, but after thinking about the pros and cons, and then realizing that several of the cons were actually pros (having to take a 10-minute walk out to the garden a few nights a week to water it is in fact a very good thing for us), we snatched it up.  And so 80 square feet of fertile soil was ours, for a ridiculously small annual fee and the simple commitment to ‘actively garden’ our plot (in other words, make a reasonable effort to grow something other than weeds).  Today was planting day, and after a trip to Lowe’s and our favorite local nursery, we were ready to roll.  In the space of a couple of hours, we dropped in tomatoes, strawberries, snap peas, lemon cucumbers, zucchini, summer squash, three kinds of salad greens, cilantro, and a row of carrot and beet seeds, left over from our April backyard planting.  When the weather warms up just a little more, we’ll plant a couple of different peppers.  I am thrilled by the possibilities of fresh salads and homemade salsas, so I’m hoping we’ll start off Farm Schnell with a banner crop.  We’ll see…  If nothing else, this will be a great opportunity for us to get outside together in the evenings and connect with our neighbors who are growing their own gardens right next to ours.  Alright – that’s not completely the truth – the promise of quality time isn’t quite enough:  GROW, little plants, GROW!!!

After nearly a year of planning, budgeting, and coordinating with our neighbors, our big backyard renovation is nearly complete.  We still have some planting to do and some patio furniture to purchase, but we are thrilled to say that all of the major work is done (just in time for the rainy season – grrrr!).  We’re really happy with the results and can’t wait until next summer, when we can roll our grill out onto our new patio and enjoy a glass of wine in our new adirondack chairs.

These are the before photos – our largest issue with the original design of the yard was the steep slope that led from the driveway to the back door, leaving us without a nice space to put a planter bed or even set up a chair.  The grass was in horrible condition, due to poor soil and the tendency of water to run off the slope, rather than soak into the ground.  The pavers that served as the pathway up the slope were also a little treacherous in winter weather – I slipped on those things a couple of times when we got all of that snow last year.

We worked with our neighbors to come up with a solution that would include planter beds, a flat place to put seating , and stairs that would make up the rise from the back door to the driveway.  Getting all of this done within the budget we established was tricky, but ultimately do-able, after a couple of rounds of negotiations and substitutions with the contractor.  And so, Voila!

We’ve been planting things bit by bit, including a beautiful Japanese Maple tree, a bright green smoke bush, and several tulip bulbs.  I am so looking forward to watching things grow and blossom over the seasons and years to come.  Now all we need is a little sunshine (I won’t hold my breath…).

I’ve often wished that Shane had more of an interest in meal preparation, and yesterday I discovered the secret to stimulating his enthusiasm for cooking.  We’ve been talking about buying a grill for a couple of years, and yesterday we took the plunge and picked up a great four-burner gas grill to call our own.  The fact that Shane was up until midnight last night assembling all 4000 of the grill’s pieces told me that he was excited about the prospect of playing the role of backyard chef.

We decided to take the easy route for our first grilled meal and threw some bratwursts on the grill for lunch.  I wrapped a couple of ears of corn in foil and put them on as well.  Grilled meal #1 was a success.  For dinner, we stepped up our game a bit and put a nice thick filet of beef on the grill, along with some potato wedges brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with rosemary, and wrapped in foil.  This was trickier – a steak is so easily under or over-cooked.  We decided to err on the side of rare, but after we’d brought the meat in, let it rest for a few minutes, and then sliced into it, we found we’d erred too far – the steak was far too rare in the middle (“still mooing”, as some would say).  But the edges were perfect, so we at least got to enjoy a few tender, juicy bites.  Lesson learned.  Tomorrow we try pork, then fish later in the week.  Looks like this is going to be one heck of a meat-filled summer – I better start Googling those recipes for grilled vegetable skewers…