Tag: outdoors

Paris-Inspired Terrace

Is it just me, or are Wednesday afternoons kind of a drag around blog world? Do lots of bloggers give themselves Wednesday afternoons off? Hope this post can serve as a little pick-me-up.

So, in my dream world I have a two-story row house that faces a quaint street and has a balcony on the top level overlooking the street. Private parking space in back, please.

 

Perfectly calling to mind the ubiquitous smoking terraces outside French brasseries, two of these café chairs with this little side table would be the perfect place to have breakfast or watch the world go by. The chairs are $159 each, which is pretty steep but considering that they are commercial-grade chairs I’d expect them to de very durable and last a really long time. I’d master the perfect Cafe au Lait (Photo by Piefinger) and sip it while flipping through my new favorite picture book, Paris in Color.

There is something so Parisian about smoking and ash trays. However, if you don’t smoke (I don’t) you can still use this little catch-all for sunflower or pistachio shells as you snack outside on a lovely afternoon. If you don’t have a real small dog to sit at your feet (like many Parisians do), this bronze one looks ready to play. Complete the Street-side motif with this authentic vintage street sign.

There you have it! This seriously is my dream balcony. If anyone finds 2 café chairs cheaper than this one, please let me know! 

One question: Do you prefer me writing the items in paragraph form like I did here, or bullet form like I did yesterday? 

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Outside (May)

The last time I shared with you, dear readers, any glance of my home’s exterior was here, where I talked about grandiose backyard plans. We have made no progress on that front. Maybe on Memorial Day I will get a chance to go to Lowe’s and get prices for different kinds of decking and fencing. Then, with dollar estimates in hand, we can move forward.

The last time I touched on the front exterior was clear back in November, a few weeks after we’d painted the house an “oops” color. The color has grown on me since then. The fact that the yard is perking up and new plants in the flowerbed are doing well helps, too. Yesterday, after Doug had mowed the yard I stepped outside and got a good photo. The sunlight was pretty nice, too.

Mowing the lawn is something he loves doing, by the way, and does weekly. If it was my responsibility I would let it get scraggly and mow only every 2 weeks. Glad I’m not in charge of lawn care!

In March we planted seeds for poppies, zinnias, and cosmos. Two of our flowers have bloomed! I hope we get to see lots more flowers before we head off for our vacation in a few weeks. What I don’t want is for the flowers to all pop out while we’re gone and wilt before we get back!

Speaking of plants, the above photo does not do it justice. The plant we have in the little front door alcove is just about the most beautiful plant ever. And, according to my MIL, near impossible to kill, too! Anyone know what it’s called?

What I’d like to do ideally is to tie in the terra cotta roof tiles somehow. The house color, shutter color, and roof color do seem to play nicely together, but I want to work in more of that orangey red. Seeing how nicely the flowerbed is coming in (the poppies are kind of going overboard, in fact) doesn’t leave a lot of room for terra cotta potted plants, which would be the easiest thing to do. So any suggestions are welcome!

PS: It’s clear that I should stop editing photos on my laptop. I thought the pictures looked fantastic until I came back to write the post on a different computer (one without a broken “shift” key,) and they look terribly green! Yuck! Live and learn, right? It’s always something…….

PPS: Ashley at Any Lovely Thing has given me a Liebster award! More on that in a couple of days.

Backyard Boogie

Spring is absolutely, without a doubt, HERE! We had a heat wave a few weeks ago, and a week of rain, and believe it or not I think we’ve FINALLY seen the last of the fall leaves.

About the leaves: there are a ton of trees in our neighborhood, and with a warm winter and no heavy snows that sat on the ground for weeks at a time, the leaves just never seemed to go away. We must have taken at least five trips to the transfer station, with five bags of leaves each. (The nice thing is that they have a huge pile for leaves, sticks, and other green waste).

After the heat wave, we had a rainy week and have had rainy days since then. The problem with the backyard is the amount of sun it gets. The “back 40” as we call it, or the area behind the existing fence, gets plenty of sunlight:

The fenced-in space behind the house (near) stays pretty shady, which means that none of the grass we planted last year took off at all. Not even weeds really like it. Not compared to the more sunny spot (far), once you get past the kitchen’s wall:

Additionally, there is a slope from the base of the house down to the “back 40” which I estimate to be about a foot. I haven’t busted out Pythagorean’s Theorem or anything to figure out the real difference in elevation, but I do plan to so.

The solution we’ve come up with is a deck behind the house, covering the “mud pit.” It truly is a mud pit for several days after a good rain, and to let Mosey outside (while it’s in its “mud pit” state) we have to take him out on the leash in the front yard. In the middle of the night. When it’s chilly. Sad face. Back to the deck though. I’d like to see one built out of trex, the plastic “wood” that will not rot, crack, etc. It’s more expensive but the deck will last longer. Wood is fine, if kept up with regular maintenance. Seeing how the house is a rental owned by the in-laws, unfortunately it’s hard to tell how much effort and upkeep the future tenants will put into keeping a wooden deck nice. Flagstone would be OK if the ground was level, but I like the slope since it keeps water away from the base of the house and building a retaining wall would–you guessed it–retain water in all the wrong places. I think. (Not an expert over here. Just using logic).

Here’s what I dreamed up for the backyard on floorplanner.com. Note that there are lots of “extras” I’d like to see if we in fact owned the house or were planning on living here for, say, 5+ years. For instance, the additional flagstone patio set farther back (ideally with a meandering flagstone path from one patio to the other) and large shrubs and a garden area.  Since we don’t plan on ringing in 2017 in this house, they are just that: dreams. Sorry for the tiny text.

And just for fun, here’s a little 3D action.

And from the back:

Of course, I’ve posted before about how fun it would be to build a small structure or move in airstream trailer in the back half (where the imaginary flagstone patio) for additional indoor-outdoor living space. I mean, there is PLENTY of room. A backyard this big is kind of a trip for a California girl like me, used to teeny tiny strips of grass out back!