The Lovely Peony

The peonies are coming up in the garden. 

 I imagine that in the next week or so, we'll see some blossoms. 

To celebrate their arrival, I pulled a few blossom photos from the archives.

Have a wonderful day!

A Love of Hydrangeas

I brought home a bouquet of cut hydrangeas the other day. 

It's made me think of all the hydrangeas I've planted in the garden. 

I've planted twelve varieties over the past several years. 

I just love them.

There's the Limelight and Mini Limelights that surround our dining patio. 

We also planted a hedge of Limelights along the old sauna building. 

My favorite varieties are those that express this wonderful lavender-blue hue. 

Nikko Blue, Endless Summer, Penny Pac...are all dependable for this coloring in their blossoms. 

This bed of Little Lamb hydrangea are under the windows at the east end of the dining room. 

Here they are in late summer. They blossom cream and fade (brighten) to a wonderful pink when the nights turn cool at the end of summer. 

Hydrangeas (hydro) are named for their love and need of lots of water. If your cut bouquets start to fade, give them a nice cool bath and they will brighten up. It's wonderful to watch. 

Endless Summer. 

This variety blooms all summer long. A few more examples of their blossoms follow below. 

Endless Summer. 

Endless Summer. 

Endless Summer. 

This hydrangea bed has mostly Endless Summer, with a mix of pinks and blues. 

They were so small (one gallon pots and smaller) when we planted them. 

It's amazing to see them so big now. 

You can see a large Nikko Blue blossom in the back corner. 

Classic Nikko Blue. 

They are all so brilliant in color. 

The north facing hydrangea bed has a wonderful view of the valley. 

This Pee Gee hydrangea is in the front bed which receives a lot of sun throughout the day. Pee Gee is a sun tolerant variety so I planted several of them. 

I also planted some Pee Gee's in front of the dining room windows (on left). As you can see, they look a lot like the Little Lamb hydrangeas underneath the east facing dining room windows (on right). 

Here they are again from the porch. 

Hydrangeas have been a wonderful addition to our gardens. They have thrived in our Pacific Northwest environment (we are in Zone 5). 

Also, the deer have never bothered them and unlike the roses, we've never had to treat them for anything (fungus, pests, etc.). 

They are amazingly low maintenance. 

They just need water. 

I hope to plant some of these favorite hydrangeas at our new home. I'll have to wait and see what zone we end up in! 

The Wine Cellar

Long ago when I was a young college student, I used to visit a little gourmet food shop. They sold slices of fresh baked cake, cheese, fresh vegetables, local eggs...and wine. 

She displayed the wine on antique shoe racks and I thought that was such a great repurposing of something old and classic. 

I liked the idea so much that when we first saw the old root cellar in this house, I thought it would also be great for storing wine. 

The horizontal rack is the antique shoe rack. The vertical green rack is actually an antique bread baking cooling rack. 

They are both great for storage use. 

The recent project for our wine cellar was to paint the door white and replace its screen. 

Mike did this in the wee hours so unfortunately I don't have a photo of what the door looked like before. 

Sauna in Disrepair Turned Fitness Studio - Final Look

This little outbuilding used to be an old sauna. It was not functional when we bought the property. Rumor had it that it had almost burnt down several years back, and the makeshift stove, water heater and plumbing could only by described as 'a little scary' to borrow a sentiment from our home inspector. 

Below are the before photos of the interior after an initial clean. 

Classic varnished wood paneling.

Concrete floor. 

Hollow core veneer door. 

The back room had a nice tall vaulted ceiling. 

It also had a big concrete block with an old oil barrel turned wood stove in it, and the aforementioned plumbing, all of which Mike removed. 

We transformed the interior in a few phases over the years, but first we painted the pine paneling with Simply White by Benjamin Moore. We had some left over flooring from the wraparound porch that we used to install fir floors, which we recently painted platinum grey by Benjamin Moore. 

The blinds were also a recent addition. 

Mike used the old steam room benches to make shelves in the front room. 

He also insulated the ceiling in the vaulted room and added bead board over it. 

It's not pictured here, but the light in this room was rewired to go overhead with a small schoolhouse fixture. 

Our one and only TV, on which we play DVDs. 

The new Simpson door adds a lot of charm to the building. 

It goes nicely with the original six pane casement window. 

You can see my previous posts on the old sauna here and here. 

This post shows our last update last year. 

Easter Light

 

It was such a glorious day yesterday. We spent the last few hours of the day running around in the warm, late afternoon sun, and taking a few pictures of our familiar scenes. 

These trees by the guest house are where we hang the hammock. The ground beneath is carpeted with a wonderful clover ground cover - it's just an oasis of soft delicate sprouts under your feet. 

Which reminds me...I still need to do a post on the guest house exterior. 

Mt. Adams in Washington state. 

The mountains on the horizon are also in Washington state. 

Our beloved fence. 

I commented to Mike that sometimes the mountain reminds me of a renaissance portrait, whose eyes are with you wherever you are in the room. According to Native American legend, Pahto (Mt. Adams) and Wy'east (Mt. Hood) were sons of the Great Spirit. They competed for the love of the beautiful La-wa-la-clough (Mt. St. Helens). As the legend goes, Pahto became very sad when La-wa-la-clough went away. So maybe my sense of the Mountain's eyes are Pahto watching out for the return of his lovely maiden. 

Dusk. 

The mountain is always the last to see the light at the end of the day. 

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter.