Ephemeral Sparrow

I'm not a door wreath person. I've made and hung a few, but what ends up happening is the super theme-y wreaths (Halloween, Christmas) end up hanging on the door for about 6 months. I'm tired of being that kind of person.

However- Our front door is kind of hideously in need of a paint job and I don't want to get into it with the landlord about taking care of it. So since wreaths are out, I decided to make a vertical succulent garden to kind of distract from the terribleness of the door.

Via Instagram

Disclaimer: I've had mine together now for a few weeks, and it seems to be doing well. I'm not sure how it's going to hold up over time, though. Suspense.

1) We had a small piece of 3/4" plywood laying around that I used as a base. I built a frame out of 2x1 to go on top of that, with the 1" side down.

2) You can't see it (I'm a pro at not taking process pictures), but I stapled a piece of plastic to the plywood, to provide a barrier between the soil and most of the wood. If you want to get super particular, you might want to try stapling the plastic to cover the 2x1 as well.

3) Then I screwed the 2x1 frame to the plywood from the back.

4) I filled the box with a potting soil specifically for succulents and cacti. Not sure if this is absolutely necessary, but it was at the garden store and only $4 so I figured why not. Then I placed my succulents where I wanted them, and packed them in tightly but not super SUPER packed. You know?

5) I cut up one of those coconut mat liner things (mainly used with hanging baskets) and kind of made a patchwork of it to cover the soil. Near the plants there is still some uncovered space, but it hasn't seemed to matter too much.

6) Then I got small finishing nails and placed them where I thought it would make the most sense to have my wire running across. I wired as I went, wrapping 16 (I think) gauge wire around one nail head and running it to the next.

7) I added two more screws on either side at the top, and then wrapped more wire around them for a hanger.

8) I left it flat for about a week, to let the plants take a little bit. When I was no longer paranoid they would fall out (even though I really don't think there was any way they would have) or that the plants would immediately die, I hung it up in the backyard. I'm actually starting to see a little growth, so so far- Success.

Now I'm just waiting for the stupid construction bozos (I'm sure they're nice men, but I'm REALLY tired of our driveway being blocked/ the noise/ the smell of fresh pavement) to stop tearing up/ repaving our street daily so I can hang it out front.

More suspense.

So. A LOT of stuff has happened since I was last keeping up with this blog. I'll probably delve into it later, but for the moment let's leave it at these two points:

1) We moved to San Francisco.
2) We finished the living room.

That last one is the big news. We moved into an amazing, huge house that needed a TON of painting/ cleaning before it ceased to skeeve us out. So to finally have a whole entire room done is big news around these parts.

We painted the walls in Behr's Silver Drop and all of the trim and fireplace in Snowy Pine. I love that you think the walls are white until you see it in relation to the trim.