Like everyone else in the neighborhood, I’m looking at beefing up my planting beds, replacing dead plants, adding more bulbs, and working on slowly building up my driveway entrance. They never tell you that when a new house gets built, it takes years and years before mature landscaping helps complete the picture. At least not without spending lots of money that I don’t have. Ever since I planted bulbs out by the entrance, they’ve been coming in great spots of glorious color. I have the best planting beds in the neighborhood, and my friend tells me it’s because I get great sun out in this spot. Maybe. So, this past week I had more soil added to the area. I’m slowly expanding the bed to go along the driveway. It’s been raining like cats and dogs, but I figure that I can still add more soil to the area and get it looking great. Anyway, someone mentions that I should add TAGRO to the spot. I remember hearing about this product. It’s supposed to be a potting soil mulch mix created from among other things, human waste. TAGRO stands for Tacoma Grow and it’s sold for $10 per yard. Apparently, Tacoma is the only municipality in the country to make potting soil out of its biosolids but apparently, it’s got award winning properties for gardens and landscapes. To read more about TAGRO and it’s uses, go to http://www.tagro.com.Â
April 9, 2008
April 2, 2008
An Auction Experience
Last weekend, Steve and I went to an auction. It wasn’t my first auction at this particular location, but it was the first time I came prepared to spend, and with a clear idea of what I was looking for. The weekend before, Steve and I picked up a set of cabinets for a kitchen island. All we needed was the granite countertop. We had checked around. Granite countertops, already bullnosed and ready to go went in the cheap places about $1300. I didn’t want to spend that type of money, particularly not for a countertop in an unattractive color. I was going for black. Absolute Black. And Ehli Auctions had the item in question.Â
We got there around 9am. We spent the time looking around. And we found what we were looking for. At six foot by 38 inches, it was perfect. And there were 8 slabs available in that color, type and quality. We looked carefully around and came up with a few other items that were worth bidding for.  And we waited til 11am, until the auction began for the items in question. We were careful and lucky. We walked away with our perfect slab for $150 bucks. It was a pain getting it home, and it was heavy. But we got it into the house by being careful, and sliding it in on rugs, carpets and blankets. I’ll post a picture of the granite later, after we get the kitchen island installed in the kitchen. We have a few more items that I’m looking for, before we began renovation of the kitchen, which is the subject of another discussion.
 But we also came away from the auction with a bigger haul.Â
Four wrought iron barstools to go with the kitchen island for $50 each, a large 7 foot by 4 foot down couch in a rugged green textured fabric from Macey’s for $200, a large leather recliner for Stevie for $130, and 2 matching end tables for $25 bucks a piece.
 
 
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