Oh, so sad. I remember long long ago, when I was young and beginning, I read that sand would be good for the soil I was working with. So one time when my parents took us to the beach, I took many buckets and loaded up. Came home and very gently and careful placed all that SALTY sand around my freshly planted pansies, and it spots I was planning on adding more plants. Dead, dead, dead. If I'm remembering right it took a couple years for the rains to dilute and wash away all that salt, even though I had removed as much as I could around my plants and tossed it down in the gully, but I do remember watching as it slowly improved and planting again. How long till yours is healed ? Hard to say, lots of variables. It might help to remove some of it if it's not been too long and it has not been really washed in a lot yet. That would also potentially keep it from moving out further and killing more area. I would not plan on planting there now, but in time, when you finally see weeds move in, it's probably safe to try some less expensive test plants. In the meantime there's many other ways to get started gardening. First you will want to fill in the trench you have there from removing some soil. You could do a border of nice looking bark mulch, pick a color and size that looks good to you, then as it breaks down over time, it will be there to add organic matter to the soil when it is safe to plant. If you purchased the townhouse, you might want to explore garden design with some decorative pavers added around the existing patio. Google things like gardens+ pavers or such. Then click on the images option. Pinterest is great that way too. So many unique ideas. Now for the plants, besides the rest of the yard, I love planters and a patio is perfect. There are web sites, books and monthly publications showing planter combinations. The biggest secret there is the bigger the container, the easier it is. Larger containers maintain temperature and moisture much better than small pots that can be hard to keep watered in the summer and difficult to keep from freezing in the winter. Planters would be a good way to experiment without large commitments to color, design or cash. You may also want to check out the new summer garden magazines that focus more towards the starting gardeners, and maybe find one good basic garden primer to keep on the bookshelf and be able to refer back to when questions arise. The local area groups here would be the place to ask which basic book is the favorite reference material for others where you live. All is not lost, and hey..it could have been lots worse. Trust me. This post was edited by plaidbird on Fri, Apr 26, 13 at 20:30

Zinsser makes a great primer. The others are right though, it won't go on evenly like your final coat. You're doing fine. :) I painted a wood desk last summer and when I finished with the primer, I thought the same thing, "oh, what a mess I've made." But then I put on the first finish coat (a black high gloss paint), all of my doubts went away. You may need to put on two coats of your regular paint though since you're covering the wood and primer. I would put one coat on and then see if you even need to fill those corners. A little spackle will work - no mixing needed. When you first apply it it will be pink and then it dries to white. Then you can lightly sand it and paint on your final coat. Also, as others mentioned..use a really good regular paint brush. It will have finer bristles and give you a nice, smooth application. The inexpensive brushes have courser bristles. Believe me, the brush does make a difference. Bottom line is... you're doing great! :)

I spent several hours tinkering with it last night and this morning. I replaced needles (the old ones were ok), rethreaded everything according to the manual using different color threads to check tensions and such. It actually stitched/sewed about 6 inches before quitting again. Whatever the problem is it's in the loopers. The needles stitch as they should but there's nothing happening with the lower threads. I've played with tension, stitch length, etc. It's not doing a thing. Thinking back, it messed up in the middle of a stitch and hasn't been the same since. So maybe it did jump timing. I'm leaving for a few days next week and was planning to take my other machine in for service. Looks like I'll have to take both. :(

Yes, the neighbor whose fence you see was fine with our fence; he's complimented us on it more than once. Of course I'll ask his permission before going on his property, and I'm sure he'll be fine with us needing to be on his property to complete the staining. The reason for the tall fence was the neighbor on the other side. She brought in two pit bulls who don't get adequate exercise; she leaves them outside while she's away at work and that's the only exercise they get. She has a chain link fence so her dogs go nuts when I and/or my dogs are in my yard. Her dogs act like they want to rip my face off and it's only a matter of time before they figure out they can jump over her 4' chain link fence. The fence installer suggested a 6' fence because he and his crew were concerned that the pit bulls were going to attack them when he came to give an estimate. In staining the fence, I've found multiple problems with the fence - so many boards have warped - and I'm having problems getting the installer back out to fix the issues. He did such a good job with my neighbor's picket fence that I thought he knew what he was doing, but apparently that wasn't the case.