Al Fresco Dining ~

Entertaining | Summer Inspiration

Today I am dreaming of al fresco dining. I just love it when the air is still warm at night (dear sun, we miss you), the bbq is fired up, some yummy wine is uncorked and sitting around the table with friends and family...ah! And as always, the more the merrier.

It makes me smile. 

  

Here are a few photos that do the same. 

I love the casual elegance and rustic touches.  

images: house beautiful, christopher baker, homes and gardens, house beautiful, unknown

How about you? Do you dine al fresco when you can?

We have more rain in our forecast, but a girl can dream right?

Outdoor Fountain ~

Garden | Landscape Inspiration

We are thinking of ripping up some of our moss lawn in our front yard and adding a simple water feature. Here in the Pacific Northwest, it is very easy for your lush green lawn to turn to soggy-boggy moss - now I am all for grass you don't need to mow, but really not quite the same! 

So in an attempt to reduce our lovely moss, I was searching around for some inspiration and found a few:

images: 1. gardenfountainnook.com, 2. stylehive.com, 3-5. sunset.com, 

6. bhg.com, 7-8. houzz.com

A Year Round Room ~

Outdoor Room | Inspiration

As all of us in the Pacific Northwest are crossing our fingers that the warmer weather is fast approaching, my darling hubby and I are daydreaming about our very own covered (very important in the Seattle area) outdoor room. A space we could really use year round - well, with heaters of course!

Here are a few inspiring photos that really get me in the mood!

Images: 1-4 Houzz.com, 5 Coastal Living

For the Love of Outdoor Spaces ~

With the Summer finally here, I was browsing through all of the fabulous outdoor spaces on Houzz.com and thought I would share a few that made me smile for one reason or another...

Outdoor Living ~

I don't know about you, but I REALLY want an outdoor room! Here are a few rooms for you to swoon over...

House Beautiful

Southern Accents

Southern Living

outdoorrooms.com

hgtvpro.com

Today is Spring Fling! Be sure to head over to be entered to win some fabulous gifts!

Swing Baby, Swing...

In addition to our new "extended" patio, we recently were the lucky recipients of a hand-me-down swing set from my sister-in-law. Unfortunately the below photos are the only before photos I can find. This was after we moved all the plants and had a bit of a mess in the middle of the soon-to-be covered up grass.

We pulled out our lawn, laid down weed fabric, installed 8 4x6's to contain the 14 yards of wood chips that we wheel-barreled in...now a brief note to all of you who may be in the market for wood chips, for roughly $200 more you can have these blown in in a matter of minutes. But we thought, hey let's save a couple hundred dollars, I mean how hard can it be???? Take it from me have them blown in!

I think they kiddos had just as much fun with the wood chips as they did with the swing set...
Here is the swing set right after it was set-up: And here it is after I sanded the entire set (with my handy dandy hand sander) and Behr Premium Solid Color Stain.