Hill Country Memorial Day Weekend

We spent the weekend at the hill country house and stayed over for Memorial Day. Fortunately, we got quite a bit done despite the thunderstorms!

From the balcony off the master bedroom, we watched the storm clouds roll in from the distance! 

I couldn't get a panoramic photo, but it made a dome over the horizon. We could see the lightening in the distance and could hear the thunder. 
Since we don't have a working kitchen, we had brought a grill and steaks to cook for our lunch. We were beginning to make alternate plans! As it turned out, we had a very hard rain until about 11:00, and by noon the sun was out and we were able to enjoy the fresh air! (Unfortunately, we got word that the Pleasanton area had flooding! On our way home, we saw cars parked beside the road because some people were unable to get to their houses!)

We came to some decisions about the kitchen while talking to the contractor, and because we needed to wait on him to do a few things,  we started on the downstairs.

This closet is 10' x 12'. We have plans to completely reconfigure the downstairs and this will become a guest room. We will add a large window and a closet will fit under the stairs which are on the other side of the wall on the left.

Here it is before hauling all the shelves to the workshop area. 

 I have a watercolor my sister painted of my granddaughter and me at the beach. This will be the room for that. Soft tan walls, white trim and linens, and touches of blue from the painting. We will reuse the white berber carpet from the living room and some of it will go in this room. 

I found the perfect lamp at Home Goods and made a couple of throw pillows. The pillows are made of canvas and burlap, with the bulap sewn to the top and edges frayed. I painted "beach" on one and "sand" on the other. 

I have a picture in my mind of how it will look, but I will have to wait a while before I can start decorating. Meanwhile, I have a little corner in our apartment where I am stashing my "finds"! (Oh, and I found a bucket of seashells in the yard, so I have more ideas for that!) Most of the house will not have themes, but this room will be  for special memories!  

Mystery "Plum" Revealed!

I have been looking forward to harvesting any fruit the deer leave me at the hill country house! I have also been very curious about what type of plum I had in the garden area. Well......now I know! It is not a plum at all! It is an apricot tree! 

This is the photo I sent my parents last weekend, saying "Here is the plum. Have you ever seen a yellow plum? I went ahead and tasted one and it tastes more like a peach than a plum!" 
In my defense, I had never in my life seen an apricot tree. They don't grow well as far south as San Antonio because they don't get enough cold hours. I also thought that apricots must have a seed more like a peach - all rough and pitted. Yes, I've eaten apricots, but never a fresh one! 
I drove back yesterday for the sole purpose of picking those apricots before they got too ripe! 

Here is the beginning of my harvest! I ended up filling this large tub. I have been trying to put them up in my mother's freezer so I can decide later what to do with them. (We really don't eat much jam, so I hate to use them all for that.) I've encouraged everyone to eat as many as they want! 
The kitchen is coming along slowly but surely.

The door to the garage has been moved to a different location. It was in what is becoming the pantry.

The pantry now has a kitchen entrance. We will have narrow double doors here. You can see the former opening for the garage door studded out to become a wall.

The "breakfast area" (it will become a sitting area) is a little larger now due to the built in buffet being moved down to my quilt room.
I have to do a little more thinking about the kitchen design because of a hidden problem with a beam. That has slowed us down until we can come up with a way to add a structural post to an area where the contractor thought a beam would do. It is actually fortunate that we discovered the problem or we might have had problems down the road. 
I am working hard on finishing my picnic quilt! I am ready to sew on the binding! Can't wait to finish! Hopefully, I'll be back before the picnic! Until then I'll brush up on my fruit identification! 

                                                    

Update on Hill Country House, Mid May

We spent Friday night and Saturday morning at the hill country house hauling construction debris to the landfill. On Friday evening, we walked around the property trying to think of ways to landscape. This is going to be a challenge. I'm used to planting tons of colorful flowers, but the deer population would have them eaten up in a night! There is also the problem of planting in rock! I have no doubt we will figure it out. It is not our top priority right now.

I would love to know the stories this interesting tree could tell me! I love that it has survived obvious adversity and has tripled in the effort!

I found these Prairie Coneflowers growing there. I am assuming they are not as attractive to the deer as most of the vegetation .

I haven't done my research yet to find out what this Texas wildflower might be, but these are growing there also. These are the unopened buds.....

...and these are the opened flowers.
(My thanks to Donna, who let me know that this is Antelope Horn Milkweed. This is loved by Monarch butterflies.)

A contractor is starting on some kitchen work today. He will do the things that we know need a professional touch. We will come in each weekend and do the things that we know we can do! It's exciting to finally be on the construction side of this remodel instead of the demolition side!

I am reusing some of the kitchen cabinets in what will be my quilt studio. Here is my rough sketch. It has already been changed some because we no longer plan to put the media room beside the quilt studio. (It will no doubt change several times before we actually get to the stage where we are working in that area of the house. My husband has threatened to take away my "thinking license" because I keep coming up with new plans!)

Here is the rough sketch so far!

I just had to share this old photo here. 

My granddaughter was only 2 at the time (she is 11 now!) and we were remodeling a kitchen in our house in Georgia. She was so excited about helping! Remodeling has been a part of our life for as long as we've been married!

I am working on a picnic quilt for the upcoming picnic blog hop. I can't wait to share it with you!

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day! I was given a new Bible. (Mine was lost in the fire. I do miss the notes and underlined passages I had spent many years on. Fortunately, the message has not changed! I can start again filling the back pages with scriptures that fill me with joy and hope.) 

Have a wonderful week!