Enhancing Outdoor Spaces

Maybe it's because I am from New England, but I wait all winter long for the days to come that I can finally get outside and start being in my yard to do all the fun tasks like grilling steaks, planting flowers, pruning bushes, adding garden art like my decorative stakes with fleur-de-lis finials, putting up a new turquoise patio umbrella from Bali, which I found on Overstock.com, painting my porch swing bright pink for a change of pace and filling up my stone bird bath.

This swing was made by my dad and has traveled to the many houses I have lived in. A few times it stayed in the basement until the next house had a porch. This is a side area that accesses a basement apartment where my college age son lives. The originally white swing was nice, but this ho-hum area needed a spark...and this pink paint delivers. Check the before pic of my son standing with the white swing.  I think this pink swing spells summer!

Here are some other lovely porch swings. Swings are a welcome sign to your friends and neighbors.

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 However Garden Gates make you wish you had an invitation to what lies beyond...

They create mystery and give your entrance a sense of importance or excitement.

Did you read The Secret Garden?

A garden gate makes you want to sneak inside....and take a peek!

I am a sucker for anything with paint on it...

look at this simple garden gate embellished with a cottagey floral design complete with matching tools.

This is how I image the Secret Garden entrance to be!!

 And once you have snuck inside...you hope a beautiful garden awaits...

Wow, an outdoor fireplace! I love this space!!

So many ways to set up a table and chairs in your garden....

I love the informality of this setting...throw a white sheet over a folding table and grab all your forlorn chairs and set them under a canopy of trees and you have captured the essence of al fresco dining.

Or make do like Martha Stewart does in her inimitable elegant way...

have the servants bring out your wooden kitchen set!

This enchanting setting owes a lot to the lighting.

Lanterns with candles, and a candlelier hung from tree boughs

and a string of tiny white lights will create this party for two.
Mmm, pass the chardonnay darling!

But if it is going to be rainy or windy and you still want the outdoors, add some pavillion drapes to your porch, like I did for my sister's home.

She's going to have fun decorating her new space

with container plantings and brown wicker furniture.

                    Here is another gorgeous outdoorspace with carpeting and even a lamp.

Last, but not least, if you have a little shed

or outbuilding you can transform it into the centerpeice of your garden.

My mother-in-law has a neglected little old chicken coop in her back yard. I have drawn a sketch for her in the hopes she will let me work my magic on it so it can become a source of delight for her.

Right now it is filled with old tools and sleds and roofing paper and leftover job materials.

YUCK!

I want it to look like this:

So when I get my way with this little old building, I will post the before and after.

 Until then I will enjoy my garden with my pink swing and my turquoise umbrella and my old granite walls!

Try adding a little pizzazz to your outdoor spaces.

 Add a  kicky new umbrella, repaint your old iron furniture in aqua, paint your swing pink

or hang up some breezy porch drapes!

My porch swing is entered at Dometically Speaking's Power of Paint Party!