Sage – Author at Plaster & Disaster

We’re finally getting warm weather in Boston, which means it’s time to get back to work on our multi-year outdoor improvement plan. As you may remember, last summer we put together a ~5 year plan with the help of an awesome friend who’s a landscape architect:

We didn’t get to everything I had hoped in our first year of work, but we did make a fair amount of progress, including:

So now we’re tackling some more improvements. With putting in a new basement floor this winter we don’t want to invest quite so as much money this summer as last, though — so I’m trying to start small by focusing on upkeep of what planted last summer and tying up some loose ends.

To start with, I wanted to plant some morning glories to grow up the trellis on the right side of the shed. On the left side we planted a climbing hydrangea, but we couldn’t plant one on the other side because there are too many tree roots to dig anything too deep.

Morning glories can grow very quickly in a single season from seeds, which means they’re much easier to plant where I can’t dig a big hole.

I grabbed a few varieties of morning glory seeds from our local garden center (Mahoney’s, if you live in the Boston area). According to the internet, the seeds sprout best if you soak them overnight before planting, so I did just that.

To plant them, I just followed the directions on the back — planting little groupings of seeds about 6 inches apart and 1/2″ deep. I also planted some hyacinth vine seeds that Sam’s mom sent us (which we also soaked overnight, but I didn’t photograph).

Another loose end was the giant planter I built last summer to hide the crawl space doors next to the deck:

We didn’t actually plant anything in it (or even put any soil in it), though, so it was just sitting empty. To fill it this spring, I had to buy a lot of potting soil. I did first fill the bottom of the planter with some upside down plastic flower pots (left over from previous plants) to take up some space — I read about this as a trick people use with large planters to avoid having to buy quite so much soil and not make the planter even heavier than it needs to be.

In terms of actual plants, first I planted a row of morning glory seeds across the back — my hope is to grow them up the trellis so that it actually looks like it serves a purpose rather than just hiding the crawl space. Then I told Sam that the rest of the planter was his to do what he wanted with — and he decided to plant some herbs and veggies (from seedlings). We picked those up at Mahoney’s too. And now our planter actually serves a plant-related purpose!

Also yes I’m worried about how long the pickets that I used for the screening will last — it’s been one winter and they’ve definitely seen better days. But that’s a problem for a future Sage to deal with…. For now I’m just enjoying the plants!

It’s been a scary long time since we last shared a truth behind the photo post, almost a year! We used to love this feature, in which we show a little bit of what is going on behind the scenes of our pretty photos. Like everything on the internet, we try to display our projects and renovations in the best light possible and with at least some attempts at styling to make them look extra good. However, this can give you an unrealistic impression of what our house and lives are actually like.

And the whole point of having disaster in our name is so we can pull back that veil.

First up, one from Naomi:

I was so proud of my closet makeover and had a lot of fun photographing it for you all. I think it came out awesome!

However, in that post I did say that I chose to photograph it with the “most attractive 50% of my stuff,” which wasn’t just a funny line but was 100% true. That isn’t how our closet looks every day. I wish it was, but we are not that cool and “curated.” Here is how it actually looks on a daily basis:

I didn’t clean up, so this is what it really looks like, although I did do some photo editing so it isn’t just tricks of the photography. It’s not nearly so fancy, just relatively organized and functional…. but certainly not “pinnable.”

Next up, one from the tiny bloggers:

You might remember this gorgeous (and really trendy) photo they shared of them relaxing outside on beautiful greens with some donuts.

Well, we thought you might also enjoy the selection of unedited outtakes from that same photoshoot:

They spent like 30 minutes trying to capture the perfect “spontaneous, casual” moment of relaxing in the grass eating donuts. And by “they,” we mean “us, two grown adults playing with our block of wood we call a “doll”.” So…that’s meta level ridiculous.

Also don’t forget that no matter what they show you in their carefully cropped photos, the Tiny Bloggers’ house is still a disaster.

The attic is filled with piles of furniture and a golden bear statue (?), and in the bathroom we can make out a free-standing tub that is most certainly WAY too small for even the tiniest blogger, plus some other assorted debris. But at least they have a fancy upholstered bed.

And lest you think we’re throwing a little too much shade their way, here’s what Sage’s living room looks like right now…and this is as clean as it gets except during photo shoots and on cleaning day.

Let’s see if you can spot everything: three unattractive throw blankets, an old extension cord, a “laptop” that is larger than most desktop computers, a store bought tub of cookies, Tylenol, nail polish and nail polish remover, a cat laser toy, a tennis ball, a yoga strap, a random t-shirt, and 5 throw pillows mushed together into one giant pillow. Keep in mind that this is just one corner of the room and no children live in this house.

In that same vein, here’s Sage’s sunroom yesterday morning:

I spy: a pile of shoes that extends far beyond the shoe mat, a cat crouched in the sunlight on an off-kilter welcome mat, a giant empty Amazon box waiting to be broken down and recycled, a half styled library cart, and a dying aloe plant. Thank goodness this isn’t a wide angle shot, who knows what else you’d see….

We’re not pretending any of this is egregious by any means. Our goal isn’t to convince you that we’re the messiest humans/blocks-of-wood-with-faces-drawn-on that ever walked this earth. This is probably what most homes look like on a decent day…but that’s kind of the point: we almost never see homes on the internet on a “decent” day. We see them at their cleanest, most styled, and most white-balanced/over-exposed (seriously, whose house gets THAT much light?!?) — and then we all feel like underachieving slobs in comparison. So basically we just hope that on this lovely Wednesday, you’re reminded that even your favorites internet celebrities (that’s the two of us) are normal people with normal messes, and we hope you cut yourself a little slack and focus on more important things than how much recycling you have piled up in your dining room right now.