I am the type of person who wakes up one day and says to herself, "I want to plant an herb garden in window boxes on the front of our 3 large windows off of our living room!". So I think it's just a matter of going to the hardware store or garden center and buying window boxes, then going to the nursery and buying some plants and plopping them in there. What's the problem? By that evening, I should have a luscious garden that readers of BH&G would drool over.
Ahem... no.
Years ago when I lived in Manhattan with a good friend from college I woke up one day and decided to sculpt. I opened the yellow pages (yes, those were the earlier days of the internet when I still referred to the Yellow Pages for information) and found a sculpting studio, called them, went down there and picked up the basics including a large rock of soapstone. I decided to start with something simple: Sisyphus rolling the boulder up the mountain.
I worked on it for a while, discovered that [gasp!] sculpting was much harder than it seemed, and carried a shitty, half-finished Sisyphus around with me to three apartments (including one cross-country move) before admitting that I would probably not finish him.
I have never put up window boxes before. So I went to the hardware store in Park Slope to see some window boxes that were entirely ordinary and made me sigh with mediocrity. So I went online (see, now I'm savvy) and found three, cedar, scalloped window boxes that were cheap and exactly what I had pictured for our lovely 'suburban' Brooklyn apartment.
Our landlords are incredibly cool people and are very supportive of my attempt to grow an herb garden outside of our windows, with some flowers as well, of course, and said we had artistic license.
So I ordered the window boxes from HERE. I told my husband about my purchase and showed him the photo and he agreed, they were cool. Duh. I KNOW THAT. I picked them out!
So when we got them he looked at them and said, "We'll probably need to put sealant on them, and caulk them, and put plastic liner in them and do you want to paint them?"
I sighed. WHY was he making things so complicated? You get a box, and you plop plants in there! Voila! I thought, "He doesn't know what he's talking about" feeling SURE that I knew what I talking about having done no research and never even approached a window box before in my life.
He did some online research to find that yes, one should put sealant on bare wood boxes if you don't want it to rot immediately, and caulking is a good idea too as well as a plastic liner. FINE. So we went to Home Depot to get supplies where I almost lost my mind. I am very patient sometimes in life: in crisis, I am a good person to have around. I think quickly on my feet and am able to make quick, informed decisions. At a place like Home Depot, I am your worst nightmare. I sigh a lot and look bored as hell and shift my weight back and forth between my feet every 30 seconds. It's too big, with too many options and men don't ask questions. My tactic in a place like that is to corner an employee with my list and make them show me where everything is before I thank them profusely and go on my way.
My husband knows about wood planks and sealants and saws and brushes and shit. So he does it on his own. Who knew there were certain brushes for paint and others for sealant? It's a BRUSH.
We made it out of there with everything. I am going to paint the window boxes white. I am so excited.
While Jon was sawing in the driveway, I was putting the first of THREE coats on the window boxes and enjoying the evening of what was a very hot day and now is a warm, breezy entry into night.
My cats spent the day lounging in poses that resembled melting clocks by Dali in the heat. And, of course, I had to take photos.
NEXT weekend I will get to walk up the block to the garden center and buy herbs and plop them in sealed, caulked, painted, and lined window boxes. Harumph.
