Window Boxes, Lupines, and Rhodies

On Thursday afternoon the brickies came back to clean up the front area, spade up the dirt in front of the stone wall, which will be the front flower bed, dig a trench on the other side of the pathway for the pathway lights cable, and cart away the things they won't need anymore. That afternoon we made start on making the outside of the house look pretty. The first thing we did was to transplant two Rhododendrons that needed transplanting anyway into the new front bed.

On Friday, we took delivery of our new garden arch and the trellis/planter. They still lie where the deliveryman put them down on the front lawn as considerable assembly is required.

Friday morning the sparky came back to install our pathway and outdoor lights as well as the remote control doorbell. Unfortunately the pathway lights we had selected required a transformer which, in turn, required that a box be made to house the transformer and connections. The box would be almost as big as a breadbox (not quite as high but almost as wide) and could not be buried because of possible dampness. Don was not happy about that arrangement and so told Gordon we'd have another think about pathway lights. Gordon installed the motion sensor which is to turn on the pathway lights and the front door light when someone starts down the path. He also installed the two carriage lights on either side of the French doors on the verandah as well as the front door light.

When he tried to install the remote control doorbell, everything was fine until he tried mounting the doorbell on either the wall or the doorframe next to the front door. The door and frame are PVC over metal and the wall is roughcast over a metal mesh and it turns out that the remote control signal won't go through the metal. The only place we could mount the doorbell where it would work was on one of the glass panes in the top of the door! (Not an option.) We will have to use a regular doorbell button hooked up to the existing buzzer-bell which is so loud that when it rings, you practically have to pull us out of the ceiling!

Sparky's last task of the day was to hook up the over-the-hob exhaust fan to the vent. However, the roofers put the vent much farther out than Gordon had thought they would and he needed more flexipipe, so that couldn't be done. Gordon still needs to make one more trip back--we hope it's just one--to install pathway lights, hook up the conventional doorbell, and connect the exhaust fan to the vent.

Don played golf that morning so in the afternoon we took off for Perth to run errands, with a stop in Crieff to return the remote control doorbell and the pathway lights we couldn't use. We had already looked through the catalog of lighting fixtures available through the lighting place in Crieff but didn't see what we wanted. In Perth, we found some solar lights that required no wiring. We decided to give them a try so we picked up 3 of them on sale for the price of 2. We also tried to find shelving for the utility room so I can put up my cookbooks and books on fabric dyeing and gardening. The first place we went didn't have what we were looking for; the second place had the shelves but we didn't like their brackets, so we only bought the shelves; the third place had the brackets but only had 3 of them and we needed 6. Long story short, we bought the 3 and the store is ordering more so we must go back this Friday to pick them up. Then we can make the shelves.

Outside of Perth we went to a place that sells electric golf carts--not the kind for riding on but just for a power-assist in dragging the clubs and bag around. This was my Father's Day gift to Don. I won't go into all the false turns and dead ends we followed before finding the right place. At least Don is happy with his golf cart.

On Saturday we put the three solar lights in the ground. One of them worked. We waited another day just to make sure but, no joy. This morning we went online and ordered a set of electric pathway lights that will get connected to the cable already laid which, in turn, will get buried in the trench already dug and we hope, that will be the end of that.

Yesterday we went to the Heather Centre Plant Nursery right here in Comrie and bought 3 Lupines to go in front of the fireplace wall between the two Rhodies as well as lots of plants for the window boxes and the trellis/planter. This morning Don and I planted the Lupines and then I potted up the 4 window boxes. Here is a photo. Of course everything will look much better as the window box plants fill out and as more gets planted in the flower bed, but it's a nice start, isn't it?