Beautiful Inside & Out

Summer is usually a hectic time for us. I took a 2 month hiatus to prep for ComFest where I am a vendor. There was much crafting to do to have stock to sell. Now that that's done I can refocus on our abode. For instance, after 11 years of owning this lovely metal plant screen we have for the first time used it for its intended purpose...the housing of plants and the screening of our neighbor's too close for comfort porch:
We planted a lovely assortment of herbs and created a mini kitchen garden. Here's to hoping her cigarette smoke doesn't smother our little greens. Next up I filled the gorgeous ceramic planters that Eric gave me for Valentine's day last year with rosemary and flowers:

Eric and I are now Elfa-addicts. Elfa is the Swedish shelving systems available at the Container Store. They have sales twice a year and our neighbor Becky is on their list to receive coupons. She kindly adopted us and we got a deal on the shelving for our basement stariwell. We now have an organized place to put all of our not so oft-used camping gear:

As well as our year's supply of carbonated beverages. There's just so much space in the stairwell (it was formerly a wraparound porch MANY years before we owned it) and the shelving really maxes out the opportunities. Since the shelves on the back wall are so far up we also mounted a ladder on the wall (a metal one came with the house but some scrappers stole it out of the back yard) for easier access:

I created a new bed in front of the porch and augmented the free flowers from our friend Biran (irises and coreopsis) with some purple balloon flowers:

And I added the containers around the steps. Our formerly tulip-ed front bed had become a weedy mess so I ripped out all of the interloping weeds and added perennials:

Eric found one of the terracotta pots that mounts to the wall and put it on the back of our shed. I accessorized it:

After many headaches with the water in the basement we may have come to a happy conclusion.

Eric spent a few hours putting hydraulic cement about 2 feet up the entire wall:

The perimeter:

The battle with nature continues. The evil squirrels decided that they wanted back into the comfy house they used to have in our eaves. Little brats tried to chew their way back in:

While I ComFested last weekend Eric made use of the Miller's tile saw to finish the final detail work in the bathroom:

A little grout and we're good to go!

This has been your mid-July update!