Patio Rugs

This morning I'm heading out to search for a rug to cover up my cracked out patio.  In my inspiration board, this rug came from Dash & Albert, but I want to see what I can find at my local stores before I order something online.

As I'm sure you've heard, we now have Target in Canada.  I checked out the online selection and found a couple rugs that interested me, including this one:

I also like this one from Home Depot:

And this one from Canadian Tire:

The final place I'm planning to look is PC Home at my local Superstore.  I love so many of the products  they make - affordable and usually so on trend. I had a jute rug for my front entrance from PC Home for years and loved it.  

Anyone local have any other good suggestions?  Know of any great online deals on outdoor rugs?

Happy Monday!

xo Meg

Currently

1.  Reading

This book was Canada Reads selection this year and I love, love, loved it.  Heartbreaking and beautiful.

2.  Watching

My team is in. the. playoffs.  For the first time in nine long years.  So exciting!  So much fun!  

3.  Wearing

In honor of my team, I'm donning the blue and white.  I pretty much wore this outfit last week.  Minus the shoes, cause mine aren't swanky like that.  

(my team)

4.  Eating

 I can't get enough oatmeal with berries.  Every single day for breakfast.

5.  Working

It was a sunny weekend here so I spent as much of it as possible outside in my yard pruning, weeding, raking, and mowing.  Progress is slow but very rewarding.  I'm hoping to have a reveal of my patio this week.  It's starting to look pretty nice.  I mean, relative to the before:

And moving on the basement.  Family room all mudded, just onto the hallway now.  The left side of this picture shows the framing for my laundry room.  The right side shows the spot that still needs new drywall and will eventually be my built-in storage area.  We certainly could use the storage.  

What'd you get up to this weekend?

xo Meg

Backyard Zones and Inspiration

I don't know about you, but all this outside work is making me think about relaxing in the summertime.  

I love a backyard party in the summer.  I love to entertain in our backyard.  There's lots of work to do before that can happen but we're basically creating a few zones in our yard. 

 First, there's the dog area.  

We are fortunate enough to have a big yard.  Gilmore loves to run around and he is often outside for hours at a time.  So we need to make sure there's enough room for shennannigans and stick throwing. 

Second, there's a firepit area.

We are building one similar to this one.  Our resin wicker lounge furniture will be going around the firepit for comfy seating.  And I'm also considering cantina string lights.  I've always wanted them and I think I can work them in back there.  

The third sone is our eating area.  I still have to clean and condition our teak table and chairs.  They are looking pretty grey and worn but a little elbow grease goes a long way, right?

If you're looking for patio inspiration, check out the beautiful patio projects from the Home Depot Patio Style Challenge? 

The Hunted Interior

Brittany Makes

So many projects, so little time.  

How's your backyard looking? 

xo Meg

Pulling Together the Patio

It's an amazing day - the sun is shining and I'm so looking forward to sprucing up our patio.  Right now,  it looks like this:

Ugh.


This patio is really the only existing space for our lounge furniture, table and chairs and firepit area.  That's a lot of function for a small, cracked up patio.  Removing the patio and replacing it is not in the budget for this summer.  Instead, we'll be camouflaging the cracks defining the space for the table and chairs with a rug.  We'll also be adding some new pillows.  Budget sprucing.

We bought some amazing pillows from Tonic Living a couple of years ago  in the Sweet William Teal fabric.  Although this isn't an outdoor fabric, we store them in inclement weather and they have held up beautifully.  We are planning to add an additional set of outdoor pillows from Tonic Living to the mix. I can't say enough good things about this fabric store - an amazing Canadian source for beautiful fabrics. Until I discovered them, I would head state-side to make all my fabric purchases.


I pulled together a board of the things we'll be using on the patio.

1 / 2 / 3 / 4

The Dash & Albert rug is a bit of a splurge for us right now in the size I need, but I love it.  I'm saving my nickels!  Of course, there will also be containers and plantings too.

Any suggestions for budget friendly additions to my patio?

xo Meg

Down & Dirty with Frank Fontana

     Today I'm doing a little segment with Frank Fontana on The Down & Dirty show on blogtalkradio.  The producers called me last week to see if I'd like to participate and I said yes, despite the fact that I'm so nervous I could barf.  Maybe the butterflies in my belly are just excitement?

We're chatting about my Backyard Disaster project.  If you'd like the backstory on my backyard project, go here and here and here.

If you want to tune in and listen to me making a complete fool of myself, go here at 12:00 CT.

Yikes!

xo Meg

Landscape Progress

We have been working so very hard on our outdoor spaces this spring.  You can read about the process here and here.

before (obviously)

Just to refresh your memory, the gardens at this house haven't been touched in many years.  We took possession of the house late last summer, so we couldn't really do much except watch and see what plants came up.  

Then we came up with a plan.

The plan changed a bit.  We have added a patio area to the back fence.  And we are certainly not done.  But here we are now:

We put sod along the garden at the back but we can't mow it for another week.  The dead cedars have been removed but we decided not to replace them since there is plenty of privacy and foliage there.  Instead, we have decided to put a patio and pergola where the dirt is currently.  Eventually, the fire pit area will move back there too.

Not many flowers are blooming yet, and I don't expect much this year since they were all transplants.  But the hostas are doing very well and the hydrangeas also seem happy.  I also planted some lavender because I love the fragrance so much.  I'm hoping that gets big next year too.

Try to ignore the stack of old bricks I piled to the left of the new garden bed. 

Here you can see the big hostas coming around the side, the new curve to the bed,
the flowering lilac and the limelight hydrangeas.

I love that we don't look like hillbillies any more.  And that things are mostly tidy.  One more area to go, the garden bed that borders the house on the driveway side.  I will be transplanting some more hostas there and perhaps some shasta daisy.  I'll keep you posted.

On another note, the electrician came yesterday to work on the electrical for the new kitchen.  It is looking pretty much the same, just with some more wires hanging down now.  But it is ready for light installation, I guess.  This makes me happy since I was getting tired of dishing out late night ice cream bowls in the dark.

Happy Tuesday!

xo Meg

Abracadabra!

The hunt is on.  We are looking to wave our magic wand.  I could use some input.

Do you think this:

Can be changed into something more like this:

???

Or how about changing this:

 Into something more like this:

???

Think it's possible?


xo Meg

Grey and White

     The temperature here has been so moderate that we're seeing all the signs of spring in our garden.  I love the little crocuses and tulips that are beginning to show their pretty faces.  It has me plotting and planning for summertime.
     On our search for a new home, we're looking at properties that are outdated and, well, kind of unattractive. I don't want to say ugly...
     The exterior of these homes need lots of work.  I've always wanted a home with medium grey siding or shake and crisp white windows.  My family's lake house looked like this when I was a little girl and I've always been drawn to the look of that home.  I think it's my true North.

This style is exactly what I'm after.  love the siding colour, black french doors, crisp
trim and coach lights.  We're even looking at one property with a run down pool and
pool house with potential.

Such a pretty garden path.

I love the yellow door.  Such a welcoming entrance!

Happy Monday, everyone.  I hope you all survived the spring break!

xo Meg

images via pinterest

Taming the Weed Jungle

Good Morning Everyone!  Happy Monday!

    I actually mean that.  My kids are in camp this week so I'm hoping to get a bunch of things accomplished around here while I have the time off.

    Speaking of accomplishing things, you should see the work I did in my jungle backyard this weekend!  I tamed the nasty weeds spreading across the entire expanse of the back fence.  Felt really good to accomplish something.  However, we weren't really planning to tackle the landscaping in the backyard this summer.  There are too many other places to throw money on the inside of the house right now.

     All that weeding made it so we could enjoy a campfire with the kiddos on Saturday night without me crying over how messy everything was back there.  I sat in my chair and looked out over my tidy yard and felt good about it.  These are my backyard dreams - to be accomplished next summer...

I love boxwoods with white hydrangeas.  This pathway is so pretty and cottage-y.  It would be perfect with our shingle style house.

Uh... White wysteria?  Amazing!

 More magnificent hydrangeas.  I don't know if I could ever stray from the white ones 

but these are really pretty.

  Right now, we have several dead or dying old trees that give lots of shade and privacy.  But when we take them down, I'll need to come up with a solution like this one to give us a little more privacy.

I dream about window boxes like these.  

images via my Pinterest

 Here's the thing,  I swore to myself that I would work on rooms one at a time, actually finishing them.  You see, Jay and I have this terrible habit of getting getting a room finished 90 percent of the way and then stalling out and leaving the last few details unfinished, meaning that the room feels, well... unfinished.

     So, I'm still plugging away on Elliott's room.  We are now installing the barn board onto the wall and the desk is being built.  I'm working on curtains today.  Hopefully I'll have some photos up to show you soon.  

Have a great Monday!

xo Meg