The Accidental Garden

In the fall of 2010 we decided to tear out the old deck and build a new smaller one, the space left over I thought would make a lovely little partly shaded perennial bed.  In the spring of 2012 I planted some iris, a spirea, a couple of day lilies and plunked in my willow chair that is falling apart .

This spring while wondering what else to plant, to my surprise all sorts of lovely flowers began to grow.

Violas, strawberries...

ostrich ferns....

its now filled with lovely plants most of which have come from somewhere and is my favorite place to sit and enjoy.

It reminds me a bit of friendships.  You can invite all sorts of different folk into your life, cultivate their friend ship, agonize over whether they will like you and wonder if they will come back when they leave.  But, sometimes if you just let it be, the most unlikely people will show up.  They will bring you beauty, kindness and great joy - none of which is expected.

Finally!

 I found the above desk at an auction sale a couple of years ago - paid 2 dollars for it!  It was in pretty rough shape, but was a good solid piece of real wood, not that composite wood stuff with paper veneer glued on it. So I decided to refinish it and use it in my office.

 I had this desk in the office, but it IS made of the composite wood with paper veneer and I really didn't like it - plus the drawers were so cheap (there were 2 of them, one on the left and one on the right in those spaces), that if you put something in them, they fell out of their tracks!

I took this one out and hauled it down to the give away tent at the dump.

 I built a new top for the refinished desk out of pine and tried to stain it the same as the old piece and although it doesn't look too different here, it really is much more red that the bottom....oh well!

 It is almost 10 inches less deep that the old one and that gives me more room in my tiny office space plus since I don't actually sit at the desk, there is room for the little filing cabinet where one's feet are supposed to go.  All in all, I'm happy with the final result (insert smilie face here)!

The bookcase!

Somewhere back in time, about 5 years ago we went to a garage sale and hubby bought a gun cabinet and I bought the worlds ugliest lamp shade. That cabinet has been sitting in the basement ever since. a) it's illegal to have a glass fronted gun storage, b) the glass in the door was so heavy every time you tried to open it the cabinet tried to fall over on top of you and c) it was falling apart.

I was hesitant to throw it out cause it was made from all sorts of things - old apple box ends, plywood and was definitely home made, something close to my heart. So the other day I decided to make something of it....a bookcase. One can never have enough book cases!
My first idea was to use only wood and paint that I had sitting around in my work room. So I started painting and cutting shelf brackets.
Once I got to the main cabinet, the though occurred to me that it would look nice if there was some sort of "romantic" wallpaper covering the back instead of just white paint. Also please note that I could not get the gun rack out of the darn thing. It was glued, screwed and nailed into place, so I thought I'd work around it - maybe make it a shelf.

I learned something new though, no one handles wall paper anymore! It is out of vogue, I could order some which would take about a week to come in if I wanted...I didn't want. So, I decided to get some pretty cloth and use that to cover the inside.
What a job that was!! Because of the stooooopid gun rack, it was a fight to get the material covering the walls smoothly.
After much swearing, putting in and taking out again, adding supports, taking out supports, more swearing...I finally got it as good as it was going to be.
I framed the inside of the door with gold braid, which I put in with a hot glue gun. Let me tell you what I think of hot glue guns......well, maybe not, this is a family blog!! I will say they are hot, the glue is hot, hot gluing one's fingers is not a pleasant thing......
It is finally done and in place in the spare room. I think it does look rather romantic so I've put some of my favorite romance novels in it.
Next project....... I really must do something with the worlds ugliest lamp shade....LOL