Living, Loving, Decorating...the Porch

Each day I spend so much time on our screened in porch, it is truly my favorite space in our house, in the evenings it just glows, and during the days I've been painting out there, and even from when we first moved in its the space that the kids and I just like to goof around in.

So, this spring I reorganized the space. We shifted the furniture around and I had Frank cut the legs down on our round outdoor dining table that we've had forever. I think its so much more functional as a big coffee table.

One of my favorite new details of the space is that Frank painted the ceiling light blue! It opens up the space and is also a Charleston tradition, painting your porch ceiling blue is said to confuse insects, who think it is the sky...but we just liked the look.

I had fun with the details. The lanterns that we made for our Waldorf Playgroup lantern walk back in Brooklyn, sit right in the middle of our table, beautiful and reminding us of special times with friends.

Along with some new lanterns that are fun in the evenings and remind me of exotic nights in far away places...

Our shelf still holds lots of details, including part of my grandmother's green glass collection that catches the light so perfectly out here. Along with things that we collect, mostly on the beach...I found the large plastic half clam shell (on the second shelf bellow) at a consignment sale and its the perfect spot to throw beach finds and trinkets.

I also filled plastic bins with the kids art supplies on the bottom two shelves, right next to their little table, so that art time is always an option with we are out on the porch.

Its where we often are these days, filling this room with all of the wildness that goes into living.

I've enjoyed Pinterest so much recently, especially as I was gathering ideas for how to organize this room. Do you see the new Moroccan inspired latticed patterned outdoor rug that I got for the porch? Totally inspired by Pinterest! Come on over and check out other things that are inspiring me there.

xo

Time Lapse

Its been so exciting to watch things growing and changing in our yard over the past month, I can't stop posting about it! We've got this amazing Magnolia tree that is blooming these huge dinner plate sized blossoms right now. But, the craziest growth recently came from one of our Sago Palms, these are a really common plant in Charleston, but exotic to me. So, when ours started sprouting something new a couple of weeks ago we watched closely,

At first we almost couldn't tell that something was going on, but the kids pointed out that the middle of the plant looked different,

Sure enough, it gave birth to a whole layer of new fronds, 

We're calling it our alien plant for right now. Such a fun discovery!

Another Garden Project

We've been poking around our yard over these past few months, finishing up projects that have been on our minds for a while like our Tire Swing, as well as starting new ones like our Vegetable and Herb Garden. Recently we finished another quick project, hanging a swing for the kids that we've had sitting around in a box since our move last year.

Its a simple cute Ikea swing,

which we decided to hang from the base of the kid's tree house that Frank built last summer.

I'm working (still working!) on a long overdue post about our yard renovation that we did last summer, its really hard to believe that when we moved in last summer this was all just dirt surrounding the big old trees, its come so far and looks great this season as many of the plants that we put in are filling in more.

Its such a special place to hang out and play.

We all goofed off while Frank hung the swing, Jasper took some silly pictures of Carys and I.

Then, it was done! And I don't think they've stopped swinging since, between the tire swing out in our front yard and this new one! But....I've still got one more cool swing idea using just a thick nautical rope, our friend here made one for his kids and I think we're going to attempt our own. I'm excited about that and I'll share it with you as soon as we figure out how to make it!

Sweet scenes from our world

 What are your plans for the weekend? I'm sure we'll be out enjoying this amazing summer weather that we are having.

Here are some sweet scenes from our world.

I am endlessly inspired by the view of the tidal marsh near our house, which we drive across to get to the beach, the wide open expanse of space always makes me exhale deeply, ahhhhh.

Here's another tunnel of trees that we discovered recently on a walk back from the beach...what a cool pretend fort it would make.

Fresh strawberries from the Farmer's market have been a favorite at our house recently,

 we dipped some in chocolate to share with friends, yum.

Here's Carys getting ready for her end of the year Ballet recital was super heart meltingly sweet, oh boy she was excited,

The other day after a rain shower we saw another amazing rainbow at the end of our street, seeing a rainbow never looses its magic, even if it only last for a minute like this one did, I seriously RAN outside to take this picture!

Every Saturday morning since April we've been loving cheering on Jasper's soccer team, the Asteroids, go green! This weekend is his last game and they've had so much fun this season.

And last but definitely not least here's a scene from Frank's opening last week, that's Frank's back while he's chatting about his paintings,

we had an evening out in downtown Charleston for the art walk that his opening was a part of, we had so much fun but I was exhausted afterwards, phew!

I've been doing a lots of painting this week, so many ideas that have been percolating are coming out and I can't wait to share them with you next week.
Have a relaxing weekend!

xo

Our Garden

 

One of the things that we've been looking forward to doing with our new large yard since we moved in is to grow vegetables. We missed the start of the growing season last year so this spring, way back in March, Frank had a jump on things by building three large cedar planter boxes against the fence on the sunniest side of our house.

We filled them with good dirt and compost (you can see our compost bin in the way back of the picture up there by the bamboo, where we recycle all of our compostable kitchen scraps),

Then we chose vegetables and herbs and planted them mid-March.

Fast forward almost two months and here's what they look like today!

We've got tomatoes (called "Big Boy variety" and already totally living up to their name!), cilantro, basil, rosemary, mint, green peppers, squash, strawberries and lavender.

This tiny sprout will grow up to be a yummy green pepper,

and these are some of the "big boy" tomatoes already ripening on the vine.

In one of the bins I planted flowers, this one is edible, I forget the name but I remember having it on salads at a lovely organic restaurant in Maine ages ago, I think I'll just use it as a cut flower though, I think its so pretty.

I love Cleome, one of my summer favorites, 

In the third bin we started everything from seeds. This will be my cutting garden, hopefully full of flowers blooming in another month or so.

The kids and I had fun choosing our packages of seeds, and we're growing many flowers that I've admired in cutting gardens in the past. I can't wait to have bouquets of fresh flowers in the house, and I've always loved sunflowers so we planted a bunch of those.

 

For now I'm content with the bouquets of herbs and nasturtiums that I've been bringing in. I can't wait to update you as our garden grows!

Planting Succulents

In the springtime I always get the itch to get my hands in the dirt and plant things. We have a lot of sun on our deck here so I decided to try something that I've been longing to do for a while, create potted arrangements of succulents.

I just love all of the colors, variety and textures of succulents, combining them in a planter made me feel like I was creating little works of art with them as my palate.

Carys and I had fun picking out our plants at the garden center.

I set out to make four different low arrangements with four spots in mind around our deck and patio.

And here are two of them finished, adding interest to our seating area,

 This was the only planter that I bought, the rest we had sitting around, but I liked that this one has been planted with mosses in the terracotta. Isn't that a cool idea? So, over the course of the summer the exterior of the pot should become mossy and "worn" looking in the best way.

I did one hanging planter, which looks so pretty next to our lotus cooper rain chain .

Making them was such a satisfying project, one that we'll enjoy all summer! This week I want to share our other big garden project with you, we're growing vegetables!