I figured out why there is grass in our back yard in May and June but not in July and August.
The leaves on the neighbor’s tree block all the light, killing the grass.
Today I spoke to a gardener that writes for our paper, so I told him of my predicament. I asked him if it was OK for me to prune the branches back a bit (on my side of the fence) so I could have some grass in my yard. His response was a bit surprising to me.
He said that legally, I could do whatver the heck I wanted with the part of the tree that is on my property, but the smartest and nicest thing to do is determine the right spot to cut, and if it it’s on the neighbor’s side, ask him if I can come to their side of the fence to do it right.
I hadn’t realized there was a right or wrong way to lop off a tree branch. Guess that’s something I should google.
We decided it was time to make our house look like it’s ours instead of just one we moved into. So, We repainted the living room to a green off-white, and did the bedroom in a light blue with a deep yellow horizontal accent stripe.
It was my first time painting plaster/drywall. I learned a few things:
- It really does pay to use masking tape to keep paint off of things next to the surface you’re painting. The adhesive can get irritating, though.
- Painting a flat (non-shiny) paint onto a shiny paint can be a challenge, because the paint won’t stick well to the shiny paint. The answer is to use more paint the first time around, or paint again.
- A gallon of paint should cover about 400 square feet of painted surface.
- If you run out of paint, scrape the bottom of the can. Don’t scrape the lid unless you’re using white paint. The lid often has the part that is least mixed because it’s right on top, and the up-and-down agitation often contains a bit of the pigments or the unmixed white paint. I have one spot that’s noticeably lighter because of the white, and noticeably darker because of the pigments.
- The more you spend on painting tools, the easier it will be to apply and the better your paint will look on the wall.
- Be prepared to fix your mistakes.
I’m sure Erin will be posting photos of our painting adventure soon. It was fun.