Dining room done! Planning gardens :)

Finished painting the dining room yesterday!! Took us a few days because we kept falling asleep at like 10pm instead of painting :)

But we got it done! Here's some pics on the left:

I think the color (Northern Pear Tree, FreshAire paint) really highlights the woodwork that we really like! When we put on the first coat, I had paint buyer's remorse, haha, which I always seem to have after the first coat of paint, that "this is pretty gree-eeennn!" feeling. However, I think it looks pretty awesome. What can I say? We have a colorful house now!

Our goal this week was to get the office and the dining room painted. So hopefully we can knock out the office on Saturday or Sunday. I am really tired of taping already. If I never had to see that blue painters tape again.. I would be a happy girl.

Looks like I won't be too happy any time soon haha!



I had a really cool guy come over from the Michigan Native Plant Producers Association name Greg. His business is called the Native Plant Nursery, LLC in Ann Arbor. He came over and gave me some ideas about how to incorperate native plants into our front and back yards, and what native plants might go best where, since I am a gardening virgin.

I am so excited to use some of his ideas. I ordered a book from Amazon called, "Landscaping with Native Plants of Michigan", by Lynn M. Steiner, and that just got to my house a few days ago. That has been a great resource because it has pictures of some of the plants that Greg recommended! I think I'm going to try to get all the beds ready for ...composting or biodegrading or something? I don't know what the word is, but I am trying to replace some of the grass in my lawn with native plant beds, and then I'm going to use Ashley's raised-bed expertise to make one or two more beds for my fruits and veggies. I'd really like to grow a lot of my own produce!

Here's a list of some of the things I'd like to plant in the edible gardens:

Roma tomatoes
Raspberry bushes
Blueberry bushes
Strawberries
Peppers
Zucchini
Squash
Onions
Lettuce
Carrots
Herbs

Here are some of the plants I'm thinking about for the non-edible gardens:

Flower(ish) beds-
Columbine
Echinacea
Lupines
some kind of Phlox
Wild Geranium
Woodland Sunflower
Coral Bells
Beebalm (Wild Bergamot)
Foxglove Beardtongue
Little Bluestem
Indian Grass

Groundcover for the "pit of despair" next to the garage-
Creeping strawberry bush/Wild strawberry maybe
Flowering spurge
Cinquefoil
Black-eyed Susan
Pennsylvania sedge
Wild Ginger
Virgina creeper

I'm so excited!

All this planning has tired out the kitties- :)