I Spent a Year Making a Bed

April 18, 2024

Design

...bait title? But I really did spend almost a year on this with most of that time eaten up teaching myself how to do marquetry and inlay work. As I mentioned before, my first attempts didn’t go well and I spent a lot of time searching for advice on how to do this particular style of Art Nouveau work that almost nobody does anymore. Sanding and finishing metal and wood right next to each other also proved difficult and I’m not entirely satisfied with...

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When it’s time to remove a tree

Mrs. Homegrown

October 22, 2015

Back to the Garden, Garden Design, Gardening

11 Comments

...timental. Right? I don’t think so at all. We should be respectful when the time comes to make changes in your garden. There’s nothing wrong with making changes–the trick is in how they’re made, and why. When you remove a plant and it’s the right thing to do, and it’s done properly, it feels good. Really good. Not just on an aesthetic or practical level, but on a gut level. You don’t miss the plant once its gone. The empty space is hardly noticeabl...

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Putting Your Civic House in Order: How the Young Members of the Family Help

Mr. Homegrown

July 10, 2017

Gardening

3 Comments

...and so, on, should be encouraged and that exhibits should be arranged from time to time at the stores of local merchants, in the parks, or suitable places; that all possible aid should be secured from parent and teacher associations, civic and improvement associations; that children should be credited at school for supervised home activities: that more attention should be given the teaching of agriculture in the intermediate schools for the purpos...

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Solar Oven Triumph: Fluffy Egg Strata

Mrs. Homegrown

July 5, 2016

Recipes, Solar, Solar Oven Summer

10 Comments

...how long any dish should spend in the oven. Imagine if back when you were making your first batch of cookies, your mom’s old Betty Crocker told you they would be done anywhere between one and four hours. Or perhaps the recipe would not even include a time or temperature recommendation, but just said the cookies would be done when they were done. Can you imagine your tears? Welcome to solar cooking. Recipes are guidelines or even hints rather than...

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Making the Shed Great Yet Again

Mr. Homegrown

February 17, 2020

Design, Thoughtstylings

10 Comments

...shoddy work and installing an oak floor and a nicer ceiling. I have a hard time sitting at a computer when lured by the demands of carpentry which explains the sparse posting over the past two weeks. At least I’m thinking about writing while I work. I’ve been meditating on something Corey Pein said in the Twitters: “The more I learned to have confidence in myself and write from my own honest perspective, the more of an audience I have found, and t...

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