Two days of hard labor

We had some nice weather this week, so I headed over to Strathmere to work on the garden. My Dad put down new borders and a load of mulch a few weeks ago. So we went to Lowes and bought some perennials. Of course there were a few hydrangeas, some phlox and other complicated names. One was some kind of blue Columbine, a sweet Victorian-looking flower.
Here's out back at the cottage. The daffodils were there already. I trimmed the edge with the seashells that I had in there previously.





Inside the cottage, a new-Vintage wicker furniture remains unpainted. I'll get some time to work on them eventually. Plus I have to get some new cushions. I got the couch, chair and a rocker for $85, which I think is a bargain.




Here's the left and right side of the garden in front of the house. We put two holly shrubs in there too. What was so hard about the job was that my dad put about 6-8 inches of mulch in there, even deeper in some spots. So just digging through the mulch to get to the dirt was a chore in itself. My dad worked on putting up the new door while I did the garden. My Dad put new siding and new porch on the house during the last 6 months. He was going to wait until next year to get a new door. But I want everything to be all nice and matching now, so that the house is all finished. So I ordered the door and bought new furniture for the porch because our old stuff is mish-moshy. I love this house. This week was the 26th anniversary of my parent's buying it.





The next day I went over and cleaned, because we have friends coming down to stay next week. Scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom (with barely lukewarm water because the hot water heater was just lit that morning) vacuumed everything including the stairs, which I hate to do. Now it looks all nice. We already did our yearly work there during the winter (paint and new carpeting in the attic and new carpet in the lvingroom) There's always work to be done in a 100 year old house, especially when you rent it out for the summer. There's natural wear and tear and people on vacation sometimes seem to lose regard for other people's things.