The first pink hydrangea blooms of summer are fading, but there are more blooms to come on these Nantucket Blue® hydrangeas. Seeing the profusion of hydrangea blooms reminds me of my mother's love for hydrangeas and of her love for me.
Showing posts with label deck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label deck. Show all posts
Fading Pink Hydrangeas | Reminders of Mother's Love
Thursday, July 2, 2020
Monday, May 11, 2020
Six tips will help you get your porch or deck ready to enjoy all summer long.
Cecilia of My Thrift Store Addiction invited me to share what has been going on at my house this spring as part of a Spring Nesting Mini Blog Hop. Spring nesting is still taking place at my home this year, maybe even more so since we are sheltering-in-place.
A special welcome to readers coming from Kathleen at Our Hopeful Home. If you have not read her Copycat Lemon and Eucalyptus Candle, be sure you hop over for a great idea to give your home fresh scents for spring. Our Hopeful Home is a relatively new blog to me, but Kathleen grabbed my attention with her recent living room refresh done in French Farmhouse Style!
You will find the entire list of nine creative spring posts with links at the end.
Spring Nesting Mini Blog Hop
A special welcome to readers coming from Kathleen at Our Hopeful Home. If you have not read her Copycat Lemon and Eucalyptus Candle, be sure you hop over for a great idea to give your home fresh scents for spring. Our Hopeful Home is a relatively new blog to me, but Kathleen grabbed my attention with her recent living room refresh done in French Farmhouse Style!
You will find the entire list of nine creative spring posts with links at the end.
Monday, August 12, 2019
The greenhouse created from salvaged old doors and windows got a new/old deck earlier this spring. Salvaged redwood deck boards now allow an easy transition from the greenhouse's peach French doors into the small adjacent garden.
The deck boards came from the old deck removed from my house. Not enough boards could be salvaged to create a new deck on the house, but there were enough boards in good condition for a small greenhouse deck.
Saturday, November 18, 2017
NEW DECK FEATURES
Plan to make a new deck special
Replacing an old worn out deck gives every house a facelift. Adding small special features gives joie de vivre (joy of living)! With just a little planning on your part and a LOT of discussion with the deck builder, your basic new deck can have special SMALL design features that do not cost much.
The keys are planning, discussion, and sketches for your ideas.
Here's the story of rejuvenating the area out my back door and of building a new deck for the area.
Maybe you will find a few ideas to spark design features for a new deck at your house.
Friday, September 29, 2017
Five Ways to Add
French Design in Backyards
France routinely casts a spell over unsuspecting travelers and lures them to seek a French lifestyle and to imitate French design once they return home. If you are one who fell under the spell, loves all things French, and is now a self-proclaimed francophile, try these five ways to add a little French style to your terrace, patio, deck, or garden.
Step through a magical door and back into France in your own backyard.
1. S Y M M E T R Y
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
STEP BY STEP GUIDE
Is functional design all you need to be happy with a potting bench?
For me, I want a little something special, a little extra ZING, not just function, in any design. We needed a potting bench on our porch, and to give the potting area a little pizzazz, I decided to create a potting area filled with coastal colors.
Thursday, September 1, 2016
A treehouse deck at the same level as the French doors opens the living room into the surrounding woods. The new deck beckons sitting for long hours under a ceiling fan watching nature, even when it is raining.
Treehouse Deck with Adirondack Chairs
By using chairs, a deck space is easily rearranged for just a couple or for a large crowd. Giving New Life to Old Adirondack Chairs and power washing folding wooden chairs gives a bright clean look to all the furniture.
An old chippy blue painted box is the perfect size for a coffee table, and the box is convenient for storing supplies for the deck. Like the citronella candle in the blue bucket, extra pillows, a throw,...
On either side of the French doors are a French-style metal plant stand and a glass-topped table with a Singer sewing machine iron base.
Serving snacks and drinks is easy, easy, easy using the table. The coastal looking metal box on the treadle holds gardening gloves, some snippers, and a spare spray faucet to attach to a garden hose. When using the table for serving food and drinks, the box can hold extra napkins and glasses. Another possibility is using the metal box to serve iced-down bottles of drinks.
Setting food and drinks, or your feet, on the chippy blue box are no cause for concern. The old weathered box will not be harmed, but will gain even more patina that adds to the relaxed atmosphere of outdoor living.
Nothing new, except plants, was purchased to furnish or to decorate the new deck. Everything was either on the old deck or in the house... like the old blue box that was upstairs holding seasonal items.
A coastal summer theme is easy to create with existing blue and white shell dishes, a starfish decorated glass, and a set of coastal bird decorated metal tins.
The Adirondack chairs were refreshed with power washing, sanding, and painting.
Surrounding woods, however, remind us that the deck is not on the beach, but is nestled on a country plot instead.
Potted ivy plants receive rain water and sunlight because they are on the four-foot extension beyond the roof of the covered section of the deck.
Trees surrounding the deck offer deep shade during the summer months, but will allow winter sunlight to warm the deck when they drop their leaves.
The plants on the blue box and glass table will be rotated to sunnier areas periodically.
While the overall look on the deck is coastal right now, there are still French country touches that will always be a part of any decor of our house, outside and inside.
There is still the open area of the deck yet to be shared.
We had rain for a solid week after the new deck was built, and more rain is forecast. So much rain is highly unusual for north Texas in August. We are enjoying the covered porch part of the deck in the rain, but the open area needs several sunny days before it can be pulled together.
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| My Sanctuary |
One day the sun will come back out.
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First Party date is Sunday, Sept. 11, 2016 @ 4:00 p.m.
Looking forward to seeing all the links to Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Blogs!
Follow me on Instagram by clicking on my Instagram button at the upper top right.
I hope to post Paris photos on Instagram.
Please join me at these inspiring places for more joy of living.
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Dishing It and Digging It @ Rustic and Refined
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Thursday, August 25, 2016
Where is your favorite beach? Perhaps one spot comes to your mind instantly or perhaps, like me, no beach comes to mind as your favorite. Yet, the beach always comes to my mind in summer, and the two go hand-in-hand in my mind.
Summer and the beach
Since I am not going to the beach this summer, I brought a little beach to my deck. Here's how to bring coastal summer to a deck far from the beach.
Start with a glass decorated with a beach symbol... a starfish, seahorse, shell.
Add sand to the glass. Since I had sand left-over from when my garden shed was transformed from An Ugly Duckling to a White Swan, I used some of that. If you don't have any sand from other projects, local hardware stores stock more than one kind of sand usually, and sell it in bags.
Place a small candle in the sand, and add seashells around it. Use a candle that is in a small glass for three reasons.
1. The small glass contains the burning wax keeping the sand and seashells clean.
2. The small glass keeps the larger glass from getting as hot.
3. The small glass inside the larger glass provides two structures between which to contain the small seashells.
Display a small collection of seashells in a small glass container like this recycled glass dish.
These small shells were collected along the shores of Cape Canaveral when I went to see one of the last launches of a space shuttle, but that launch was scrubbed due to the weather. What to do when vacation plans fall through? Make other plans. Like collecting seashells...
That was the second time I went to Florida to see a shuttle launch, and both times the launch was cancelled. Third time was charm since I did see the launch of the Endeavor shuttle, the next-to-last ever shuttle launch.
Growing up in Huntsville, Alabama, I was very aware of and interested in the space program. Several family members worked for Marshall Space Flight Center or subcontractors. I have vivid memories from the 1960s when booster rockets were first tested over 15 miles away from our house. On summer days with clear blue skies, my bedroom window would begin to shake as thundering, rumbling sounds filled the air, sounding like a thunderstorm. The rockets were "tied down," and the engines were fired for testing.
The dream was to see a live shuttle launch. Collecting shells was a fun way to while away the time while waiting for the exhilarating event. The shells became mementos of a life dream fulfilled.
White sand, white shells, and a white candle coordinate well with other decor, including French country.
Add a heron decorated tin to hold fresh white stock flowers, a freshly-painted white Adirondack chair, and a blue and white throw pillow printed with summer phrases.
With just a few items, it is easy to bring coastal summer to a deck. The keys to achieving the look ...
a blue and white color scheme
traditional beach symbols like sand, shells, seahorses, herons
Adirondack chairs
Voilà ... Without seeing the rest of the setting, this scene could be on a deck along the coast.
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Thursday, August 18, 2016
The new south deck is not really a treehouse deck, but the deck is over four feet off the ground and has trees on all sides making it feel like a treehouse deck. And it is finished!
Thursday, August 11, 2016
I had a Fixer Upper moment today with the construction company building a new treehouse deck on the south side of the house.
Went like this... picture Joanna holding her cell phone flat in her hand, palm up. Phone ringing....
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Deck updates at my house usually take several weeks, sometimes months, and some updates even take years. Budget, energy, time, materials availability, and worker availability are all factors that influence how long updates take.
Let's not forget Mother Nature's role. Sunshine needed. Rain and hail delivered.
What did I do that made her so angry?
Isn't that what happens in most people's lives?
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Warmer weather means sitting on the deck...
For morning breakfast, mid-day break from gardening, lunch plein air (outdoors), mid-afternoon nap, perusing catalogs, reading Grantchester mysteries, romantic dinners, late-night star gazing...
For morning breakfast, mid-day break from gardening, lunch plein air (outdoors), mid-afternoon nap, perusing catalogs, reading Grantchester mysteries, romantic dinners, late-night star gazing...
Sunday, November 8, 2015
The November meeting of the Monday Book Club met at my house for lunch and discussion of this month's book selection. Preparing for the book club gathering, I wondered about what to serve that says Fall and thought about how to decorate the deck for the season.
What food and decor will welcome friends in a special way? What things will make the day memorable? What to serve and to display that will create lasting memories of our times together as good friends eating, laughing, and enjoying a good book together? How to create snapshots in our minds that we will lovingly recall?
For many parts of the country November is damp, windy, and cool, even cold, and calls for hot drinks like apple cider to warm everyone.
But not in north Texas the first Monday in this November. Daybreak was full of sunshine with promises of temperatures in the mid to high 70s by noon.
Drinks changed from hot to cold. Easy to do with apple cider. No H O T apple cider on the menu for the the book club.
What food and decor will welcome friends in a special way? What things will make the day memorable? What to serve and to display that will create lasting memories of our times together as good friends eating, laughing, and enjoying a good book together? How to create snapshots in our minds that we will lovingly recall?
For many parts of the country November is damp, windy, and cool, even cold, and calls for hot drinks like apple cider to warm everyone.
Drinks changed from hot to cold. Easy to do with apple cider. No H O T apple cider on the menu for the the book club.
Instead, C O L D apple cider served outside on the deck under the shade trees was a refreshing drink with a seasonal taste, a taste of Fall.
White mums, purple and yellow violas, a spiral ivy, and oak leaves with acorns helped set the season as Fall despite the warm weather. An old Singer sewing machine base topped with glass made an excellent outdoor drink station. Just today I saw an old sewing machine base for sale at a local flea market, priced at $39.
Cool weather and a shady spot are perfect growing conditions for the variegated spiral ivy that added a touch of green to the drink station table.
An old leaky outdoor water faucet with a green crusty patina was replaced with a new faucet and now helps hold down the paper napkins in case of breezes.
Perfect outdoor appetizers that say Fall are grapes and cheese. Plus they are easy to serve... no forks or plates required. And for friends who are trying to eat healthy, fresh fruit is always a welcome appetizer.
Looking for cheese to go with grapes? Consider Apple Smoked Gouda cheese that added another traditional Fall taste, apples, to the book club gathering.
Hot artichoke dip and bite-size tortilla chips were also easy to serve outside on an old weathered redwood bench that served as a coffee table.
Table centerpieces are sometimes in the way of the food and conversation. Try using simple potted olive trees like these for adding a little greenery to a serving bench without crowding the food or blocking conversation.
Ten book club members snacked on the appetizers and cold apple cider while I finished the last-minute lunch details. After lunch inside, we gathered again on the deck for the discussion of Sydney Chambers and The Perils of the Night by James Runcie. Many of our books are thought-provoking, socially-conscious selections, but this month's book was easy reading that left me with an uplifting feeling, similar to the Mitford series written by Jan Karon.
Monday was a perfect Fall day spent with long-time friends who always make me smile and who always create snapshots in my mind to recall.
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See the following for additional views of the new deck.
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Can you believe that in only three weeks we will be celebrating Thanksgiving, and
then it will be time to begin decorating for Christmas?
Mark your calendars for Christmas inspiration from all over Texas
when over 20 Texas bloggers share a window into Christmas in Texas.
Stacey at Poofing the Pillows
is hosting
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| December 7-11, 2015 |
I was thrilled when Stacey invited me to be part of this
first-ever Christmas blog hop of over 20 Texas bloggers, and
am honored to be on the first day line-up on
Monday, December 7, 2015.
Several of the bloggers have shared their plans with all of us,
and this is going to be a great Christmas blog hop!
You don't want to miss any of the posts
that include decorations, crafts, recipes, and even a fashionista.
Watch for more details in the weeks to come.
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Please join me at these inspiring sites...
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Wednesday, November 4, 2015
Fall is in the air........
finally
The leaves are still mostly green, but many brown ones have fallen to the ground. Most years there is little color to fallen leaves here. Instead, the leaves change from green to totally brown on the trees, then fall to the ground. The first brown leaves to fall are dying of thirst, not from plunging night time temperatures. When the autumn rains begin, the temperatures cool causing the next wave of brown leaves to fall. Small oak twigs with tiny acorns also fall during autumn rain storms that include lots of wind, thunder, and lightning.
The new deck is perfect for enjoying the crisp fall mornings and for a gathering of the November meeting of the Monday Book Club. As I arranged the furniture over the weekend between rain showers, I kept my fingers crossed that the weather forecast calling for bright sunshine on Monday would be accurate.
It was! I could not have ordered better weather for the book club.
All of the deck furniture is old. These wrought iron chairs were part of a table and chairs set bought thirty-seven years ago for a surprise party to celebrate the Long Tall Texan's graduation from graduate school at the University of Texas in Austin.
When you live long enough, all of your furniture has history.
Well, most of your furniture. These folding wooden chairs across from the old iron chairs are fairly new, bought a couple of years ago for a previous book club gathering under the pear tree in the backyard. Along with the fleur de lis iron topiary they add a French look to the deck.
Ivy is one of the plants that not only survives the harsh summer and winter Texas weather, but seems to thrive when I remember to water it and to protect it from the snow in the winter. These are being trained as topiaries which also adds a French touch.
In the background, on the old lower deck yet to be replaced, is a large group of potted ivy plants, most of which are being trained as topiaries also. The old bench made from a wrought iron bed sits at the edge of the new deck so that no one will accidentally fall over the edge. Once the lower deck is replaced and is the same level as this new section, the furniture will be rearranged.
Until then, barriers are needed for safety reasons.
The potted boxwood plants on either side of the iron bench also serve as barriers at the edge of the new deck. As the boxwood plants grow, I will train them into a ball shape and use the clippings during the holidays. I don't think there will be enough boxwood for any homemade wreaths this Christmas.... One day... There is always hope.
The vintage wrought iron bedstead bench came from an antique store in Forney, Texas more than twenty-five years ago and probably is the first thing in my house that had a fleur de lis, the beginning of my love for French design.
On the opposite end of the deck from the bench is a small seating area. A L A R G E heavy potted mum and graceful concrete swan statue serve as the barriers at the edge of that end of the new deck. The small table is perfect for holding my Coca-Cola.
The table's tile top depicts a little blue bird with a message of HOPE that reminds me that there is always hope. Hope for all decks replaced, hope for glorious fall weather, hope for visiting with dear book club friends, hope for homegrown boxwood, hope for soul-lifting happinesses in the future, hope for life's unexpected, unknown joys.... just around the bend, out of sight.
One of my hopes today is that you will come back for the next post where you will see more of the deck and preparations for the book club meeting.
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