Painter's Greenhouse Old Fort, NC

                    Last year when a couple from the Netherlands was at my home getting bamboo, they told me of this greenhouse that they love tucked in the mountains above Asheville.  Bob and I took a drive up there to get some things for the farmhouse garden.
 

Not at all what I expected. I thought it would be some small homegrown nursery, at least the impression I got from their FB page, but this place was enormous, acres and acres of plants and a LOT of people! They had a lot of unusual things that most nurseries don't carry.

                                                     

      My cart had some columbine, mums, brown eyed Susans and the hard to nearly impossible to find, peacock moss, which I LOVE and in the deep shade will turn a brilliant turquoise!

                              White bleeding heart.

                          I was looking for a Jacob's Coat climbing rose, found that, but saw this beautiful shrub rose and said, why not?!  Odd name is Pop Art.  It smells wonderful!

      The town of Old Fort doesn't have a lot going on, but some interesting monuments and paintings.

    It did have this hoppin' brewer

   A nice afternoon, worth the trip.  Nothing has been done at the farmhouse for the past two weeks.  Jake says he will be here next week to finish up, so a lot will be going on because they sure have a lot left to do!

The Driveway Is In!

                         The driveway is in, and it turned out better than anticipated.  Originally Jake, our contractor, wanted me to get Duke, our electric company, to do a free, underground line to the farmhouse.  I am so glad I had lots of time to talk to Duke and think about how that would go because I think it would have been a disaster.  Yes, this one cost us $5300, but in the end was worth it! This photo is walking down our road from our driveway to the farmhouse driveway on the left.  
 

                           Looking down the drive, the Deodora Cedar is the focal point.  What's nice about this area is that it's flat and will be easy to maintain.

                        This is one branch of a Deodora Cedar which Dennis, the grader, wanted to take down and I was adamant about keeping this branch.  He now agrees it needed to stay and is calling it the bonsai. I think this is my favorite "tree" down in this area.

        It also has a nice view with a mountain in the distance.

    I decided to only bring the driveway so far, not all the way to the farmhouse.  It will be just a short path to a gate that will lead to the farmhouse porch.

  There is also a pad to back into or accommodate a second vehicle.

                          This is where the path will go.  We have yet to decide on more gravel or stepping stones.  

     The sunny dirt spot is where I will replant what I dug up down here, some arborvitae, magnolia, red bud. I even have a chestnut tree that I dug from another spot, then would like to put in butterfly bushes, gardenias and crepe myrtles.  Just what I need, another garden to take care of!

   Dennis wanted to haul off these two locust trees that had fallen, but I would like to have them cut and split for firewood.  On the agenda this week, call Mr. Ayers to see if he will do the job.  We are currently under budget on the reno.  I am really hoping there is enough left to put a stone fireplace in the living room.  I already have my antique mantle that I bought many years ago in Atlanta with old green paint.  We'll see if I can pull that off, may take some convincing since Bob is sweating writing the checks lol.

                     Looking out toward the road, you get to see the bonsai!

   This week I'm hoping the barn doors go up for the bath and bedroom.  Electrician will be coming back to finish things off, and then I think we can paint!  Jake and Ben will be doing the back deck.  There are a lot of little things to do like work on doors and windows so they operate smoothly, some shoring up of the floor with jacks under the house, we still need to put in the PVC shiplap walls around the shower.  I can't wait to get to the fun part of painting and decorating!

The Leaded Window

 Finding the right size window for the vent in the front of the farmhouse was no easy task.  We have more antiques stores than most, but this was the only window I could find that might work, and it was damaged.

                    At only $30 I figured it was worth a try, but I needed to find some way to keep the shattered glass together and add a piece where one was missing.

       I have a set of plant stakes with prisms and used it with clear glue to hold all the pieces together, and to my surprise it worked!

   Once in, the missing piece was too obvious, so I bought a pink permanent marker and filled in the space on the back of the prism I had attached.

    Aside from having the window placed, woodwork was done this week and both ends of the living room's vaulted ceiling are now in.

      Better!  Another coat of pink marker should do the trick, just have to get back up there to do it.

      The morning sun streams right through this window into the living room and kitchen, and it's amazing the amount of light this brings in. Even Jake noticed! We left the other two vents as vents, there was no way I was going to find two more windows in time for them to be replaced, but that's okay, I am very happy with this one window!

   The azaleas are in full bloom throughout the property, and I am digging up babies and potting them for the garden I will be doing down at the farmhouse once the driveway goes in, which is supposed to be this week.

      I planted this native orange azalea last year at the main house and have just bought another for the farmhouse, but I would like to get many more to plant under the trees in the side yard of the farmhouse where the Mexican hydrangeas are.

    Evening at the farmhouse.

Going At A Snail's Pace

The redbud seedlings are showing some blooms for the first time down at the farmhouse.

                 Also at the farmhouse is the quince I have been nursing back to life for the past six years, and it is finally paying off.
 

  A week passed without seeing any of the guys, but they did come two days last week. They managed to get the sink in the cabinet and are working on using my old butcherblocks for the top.  

      There were two large, very old, very heavy butcherblocks up at the main house when we bought it.  They weren't very convenient to use for chopping, too large and heavy, but I knew one day I would find a use for them.

     With the sink all the way to one side, this leaves a space to chop or set something down as the stove will be next to it.  I doubt there are many guests that want to cook when they are at an Airbnb.

   The chrome faucet was replaced with bronze.  All accents in the farmhouse are going to be bronze, except for the bathroom where the sink is dictating the chrome accents.

     These are the antique bronze knobs for the sink cabinet I bought on Ebay.  I really love how simple they are. Very heavy.

                             The other thing they did last week was remove the old propane furnace at my request.  This metal grate is in the doorway between the kitchen and living room. Since we now have a whole new heating system which is electric, I wanted the grate removed and the floor repaired.

                       I didn't get a photo of the big metal furnace, it was rusted and had holes and there was so much trash under it.  When they tossed it in the truck to take to metal recycling, a huge rate jumped out and ran back under the house, so time to get the humane traps out. 

     So as the guys are working on the inside, Bob and I have been working pretty hard on the outside.  Not that we needed another project right now, but the bushes on the driveway are getting so huge that the driveway seemed to be getting smaller and all the guys have  huge trucks.  We decided to start removing the ivy to the original  rock wall that lies beneath.  It gives at least six more inches to the driveway and this rock wall is going to be gorgeous!

     This rock wall starts at the street and goes all the way up to the main house.  It will be a project that will take some time to complete.

                            We also have two very old crepe myrtles at the farmhouse that have not been flowering like they should.  Trees have grown up around them, they don't get the sun they need. We cut those trees back and then hard pruned the crepe myrtles hoping that bringing them down lower they will receive more sun and flourish.  Bob got that fun job!

                         While Bob was doing that, I was on the other side of the fence where the driveway and path up to the farmhouse will go in. 

                         I've been working for weeks cutting down overgrown bushes and trees and deciding how I want to do the driveway, and I think I now know the best way to do it, not the initial way we were planning.  I was glad I had time to think on it and get it right.

                          You can see how overgrown things are, vines and bushes growing into trees.  I have been cutting all this down and hauling it off to a pile.

         I still have more to cut, but you can see the difference in this photo, the huge bush is beginning to e

  The pile is getting big.

     I've also been digging up and potting trees, magnolias, camelias, and evergreens that were in the path of the driveway and will be replanted once it's in. 

     The area down there is open with sun, I'm going to love planting a butterfly garden with gardenias and crepe myrtles, lots of color and perfume.

     One other thing that was done was the wall in the bedroom to the attic space was enclosed with the wood taken from the ceiling, which will be painted white. Moulding will be placed on the seam to finish it off.

   Tomorrow is Thursday, I have not seen the guys all week, but I did just get a text from Jake that they will be there tomorrow, so hoping they can get a lot done in the next two days so I have something to post soon!