I've been trying to take advantage of this lovely weather we've been having lately (seriously, it's been beautiful here in the pacific NW....totally makes up for the long, drab winter for sure!) by spending some time outside. Besides maintaining the lawn, I've been planting a few new blooms since my old ones kicked the dust. What do you think of the new ones?
The plant in front is actually a tomato plant. This is going to be my experiment. If I can be successful growing even one tomato, I may branch out and have a bigger veggie garden next year. I know I'm a little late in planting, but I figure that since I only have this one plant, it'll receive extra TLC.
I also added flowers to the long planter on the deck.
I also pulled out the drill and FINALLY got some real chairs for this outdoor space. With the good weather and the installation of the fence, I'm spending more time outside with the dogs and I needed a place to lounge (especially in the mornings when I'm sipping my coffee and checking my e-mail). I had put a camping chair out there, but it just wasn't cutting it.
So, here are the new Adirondack chairs with bright green pillows!
The upside down planter is serving as a table until I figure out a more permanent solution. Here's the big picture of the whole deck area....oh, and please ignore the peeling paint on the deck itself. We're going to tackle that project later this year.
Inside, I found a small solution for a problem I was having in our living room. Here is our sliding doors to the deck when we moved in.
See that shade? I like the look of it, but I had to raise it each and every night (for privacy) and it's not really made to be going up and down on a daily basis. Plus it was starting to shred on the sides. So, last time the Apostles were visiting, I had Mike hang up a curtain rod for some future curtains. Later, I hung up some canvas panels I had on hand thinking that I would be done with dealing with the shade. Unfortunately, I did not like the result (please excuse the poor phone photo).
I realized that the rod was too low for the room and the curtains were too blah. I needed color.
I found some custom curtains online that I really liked, but the price tag was not to my liking. Plus, I still wasn't sure on the color. I didn't want to spend over $200 on custom curtains and then find out that the color doesn't work.
Then I found these at World Market in the blue seafoam color.
These were significantly cheaper than the custom curtains and although not my favorite, they would work to introduce color and make it easier to provide privacy without using the shade.
I raised the curtain rod, hung them up and they were perfect....almost. My measurements are never great and I found that they didn't fit all the way across the span of the windows. I was short by one panel. I didn't want to just add one panel to one side because then it would be lopsided and I'm way too type-A to have lopsided curtains.
Instead, I bought one more panel, in green, and cut it in half lengthwise. Then I sewed each piece to the blue panels in order to make them wider.
Remember this photo?
This is when I pinned the blue and green panels together. Then, I used my sewing machine to attach them and here's the final result:
I tried to get a picture of the whole window, but the lighting wasn't working in my favor. You can kind of get the idea though. I was short a few curtain rings, so I need to pick up more of those, but I'm pretty happy with the result. Eventually, I'd love to have the customized curtains in here, but for now, they suit my purposes.
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