Outdoor furniture and accessories at great prices
My mail box has been over flowing with catalogs full of outdoor furniture and accessories. Now I’m itching to spruce up our patios. So since I have been browsing all the sales, I thought I would share some great deals I have come across.
Target has some great outdoor seating on sale for under $300
Or if you need something a little bigger how about this Threshold™ Conservatory Sofa for $299
Add a matching Chaise for $179. {look at that nice detail on the backside..crazy good for $179}
Threshold™ Conservatory Chaise Lounge
I fell head over heals in love when I saw these benches. Aren’t they fun? Love all the colors. And it is on special right now for $299 {I need to check the shipping costs, sometimes that can be the deal breaker for me}
I love using garden stools for side tables. Or pair them together for a coffee table. This one caught my eye from Grandinroad. The interlocking chains give it such depth and texture
You can never have enough serving space when you bbq and this outdoor buffet is a perfect size for just $299
Yorkshire Buffet {comes in black too}
Overstock always has great prices on their outdoor rugs. This one is 5’3″ x 7’7″ for $99.79.
I love my trestle table and chairs I bought last year from Frontgate
Boxwood obsession
I am getting quite the collection of faux boxwood plants in my yard.
See, I love the look of potted plants around my house, but I’ve realized I am not too good at watering them. They always look good for a couple of weeks and then I forget to water them. So my solution is to use fake. GASP! That is such a no no in the design world. But I don’t care, it works for me, and that is all that matters. HomeGoods is where it all started, they have some of the best looking faux boxwoods at the best prices. I have been posting pictures of my topiaries that I have acquired in the last 6 months on Facebook. But Facebook has been implementing a lot of changes {for the worst}, and half the people that like my page, {if not more}, don’t ever see what I post. Ugh, so frustrating. So I thought I would share them all in one post today. {these are taken with my iPhone since that is what I use for my Facebook}
Here is the view of when you go down our main stairs. As you can see, the patio is very visible through the french doors. Normally you would see half dead plants or just an empty containers sitting out on the patio. But not anymore with my new “live” potted boxwoods .
Inspiring blogs
Happy New Year! To start off the new year, I thought I would share a couple of projects that I did last year that I didn’t put on my blog. The great thing is that all these projects were inspired from blogs that I read. Not Pinterest, but from actual bloggers who put their heart and soul into showing you how to make things and introduce you to new ideas. To me they are where the true inspiration comes from.
I was inspired by Lucy from Craftberrybush to I make my own version of her sugar cookies for Thanksgiving
Hers of course were much more healthy and prettier, I made mine from a box mix.
Who hasn’t been inspired to paint a wall or door in chalkboard paint from a blog? It was Janelle from House of Fifty back in 2010 who first introduced me to chalkboard walls.
I didn’t get to do a wall like Janelle, but I did do a chalkboard door for my daughter’s room. We already had the old door, I just inserted a thin piece of wood that I sprayed with chalkboard paint.
Ever read the blog Before & After? TONS of inspiring furniture and room makeovers. Plus Lindsay who writes the blog is pretty darn funny in her descriptions of the before and afters
Which inspired me to make a cushion for my daughters settee
Decorating with Ikea artificial plants
I know that artificial plants are not perceived as a classy staple for decorating, but I am here to tell you different. The problem is, I can’t seem to keep a plant alive. They always look good the first couple of weeks and then they start to turn on you. They wilt, turn brown or grow in weird directions, or just plain die. Unless you have a green thumb, which I don’t, putting live plants in bookcases or tablescapes can be defeating. Until I discovered these artificial plants at Ikea for $5.99 each and my decorating world changed
They are the bomb for fillers in decorating and for people like me who can’t keep plants alive. They look real, have great texture and are the perfect size as stand alone or in clusters.
My favorite use so far has been using them outside. Yep, fake plants outside, and they totally fake people out when I tell them they are not real. I have had these Ikea plants outside for over a year and they are hardly fading. Here I used two different varieties in one buket
Even close up they look pretty realistic don’t ya think? You might remember when I “potted” some in my Radio Flyer Wagon last year {and they are still looking fresh a year later}
But I mainly use them inside the house for fillers in my tablescapes and bookshelves. I used them in this fall trayscape mixed with dried hydrangeas
Neon to LED..the “antiques” sign all lit up
I can not tell you how excited I am that my “antiques” neon sign is up and working. It really makes a statement hanging over my new Frontgate table and chairs, I couldn’t be any more happier with the way it all turned out.
Gorgeous right? The size, the scale, all so perfect.
To turn this cool old “antiques” sign into a working fixture, I first took all the neon electrical components out. Which made it 100 times lighter, neon transformers weigh a ton. I loved the glass gaskets and thought it would be cool to keep them and light them up from inside. A couple of them were broken, and I had no clue where to get them. But wouldn’t you know it, Amazon had them. What can’t you buy on Amazon right?
The wiring job was way out of my realm. I used an electrician to do all the electrical work.
From the inside, he placed amber LED’s through all the glass gaskets
The underneath of the sign was in pretty bad shape, so I went to a metal supply place here in San Diego and had them cut me two pieces of sheet metal to fit. I spray painted the metal with a color I had in my stash called “jade”. My electrician thought it would be better to use LED down lights rather than halogen lights to save on electricity. He told me that the light output was a warm white color and it would illuminate the table nicely. I was skeptical, but I said ok. So he cut the holes for the LED down lights and screwed the new metal to the bottom.
Making an “Antiques” neon sign into an outdoor light fixture
A couple of months ago I bought this LARGE antique neon sign at Architectural Salvage in San Diego.
I was looking for an unconventional item to use as a light fixture over my new outdoor table from Frontgate
This is the plan I came up with to make the transformation
The sign is an old and rusty neon sign that is 8 feet long. The store employee told me it was double sided, and since I couldn’t see the other side being that it was against the wall, I took their word for it. And technically it is, but not exactly. Since the sign is so large and heavy, I wasn’t able to thoroughly check it out until they delivered it a week later. That is when I actually got to give it the good once over. I still loved it, in all it rusty goodness, but the other side looks nothing like the side I saw in the store.
There is a trace of the word “antiques” on the other side, but barely. So I have been hand painting the letters back on the sign.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to make the letters look old and rusty like the other side. I started with the “a” and the “n” and used white acrylic paint, which was probably not the best choice. I lightly sanded the area first but didn’t bother to put on a primer or rust inhibitor before painting. Totally winging it as I went along.
Target outdoor daybed
I am pretty excited about Target outdoor daybed that I recently got. I purchased it online, it was on clearance for $549, which was 54% off, pretty sweet deal. {i just noticed it is now out of stock}
I have this area in my yard that needed a focal point where the sidewalk ended. Looking at an iron fence just wasn’t doing it for me
The daybed was the perfect solution, I love how gives the end of the walkway a purpose. Mind you, this area is a work in progress, I keep moving furniture from other areas of my yard to see how they will look next to the daybed. But for now this is what I have come up with, but that could change.
For the price, the outdoor daybed quality is good, but I am not a fan of the fabric on the cushion. It feels like you are laying on a plastic mattress pad cover. And the drapes have a shower curtain look and feel to them. The Target picture shows the drapes much longer and fuller
Since I got such a screaming deal on the daybed, I have decided to change out the fabric on the cushion and drapes and add some throw pillows. I need to step it up a notch and make it more luxurious and comfy. I am going to keep the scallop top part, for whatever reason having that fabric on the top doesn’t bother me.
My new arbors
Sometimes when you build a home, and you finally get to move in, you just want to enjoy it and see all the workers gone. That is how I felt when we finished construction on an area of our yard back in 2007. I had big plans in my head on how I eventually would like it to look, but was just happy to be able to enjoy it as it was.
My dream was to have a wisteria arbor like this
Isn’t that just beautiful? My vision was to do it across the concrete walkway here
(See those table and chairs? They rotted and fell apart from the sun. And the fireplace behind it blew over and shattered. Such a bummer)
We have a wood bridge that connects the walkway to the bbq area. We put the columns up 4 years ago aded the Costco bbq island and some chairs but that was about the extent of it
I was dreaming of finishing off the columns over the bbq area by adding the dark wood beams like this picture {but no fireplace}
But I think I dream too big. Because once I got the cost of the engineering, materials and labor it was way more than what we wanted to spend. So there it sat unfinished for 4 years. It did not stop us from enjoying the area and having parties, but it was time for me to come up with a plan “b” and get it done.
