Patio inspiration

So we are hoping to redo our back patio sometime soon- it somehow keeps getting put off to do later and later but I’m thinking it’s coming soon! P wants to do it RIGHT NOW! In fact I think if it were completely up to him it would have been the first thing we did to the house! My thing is that, while its hideous and somewhat of a tripping hazard, it is still usable and when its 110 outside I don’t want to be out there anyways! And there are so many things I want to do in the house, it’s hard to make the choice to wait on those things I see/ use every day. Like painting the living room/ dining room area, or getting a new dining room rug, so that rug can finally go live in the guest bedroom! Or just some new furniture! We desperately need some furniture but it’s so hard to choose that over something that is adding value to the house. But now that it’s cool it would be nice to fix it up. So I’ve been pinning some outdoorsy items on Pinterest (which you need to be on btw! It’s amazing!) and I thought I’d share- since I’m not sharing the “we’re finally redoing the patio” post for a while!

So. . . I actually wrote all of that at the beginning of December (actually December 13th- exactly a month ago!) which is amusing considering we are now very close to re-doing the patio, as in like- we are starting demo this weekend and I'm super exciting. We bid it out to several contractors/ designers and have come up with a design I'm really excited about. But I still wanted to share all the inspiration pictures I started with- I'll post more next week about the whole project and how we came to all of our decisions!

While I have always known we aren't going to have such an amazing outdoor room as this, I really liked the striped pillows and the greenery growing through the pergola- for added shade in the Texas heat!

LOVE the globe lights overhead- and we could easily string them diagonally in the L of the house

LOVE the slate and the fireplace is amazing (although I already know we won't be able to do that but still amazing) and I Really like the white picnic table/ benches too

Stamped concrete in a slate pattern- LOVE

would love a little pergola- at least over the dining table and grill

more pretty stamped concrete

and some more!

Can you tell what I'm leaning towards???

Merry Christmas!

I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! Hope everyone had a wonderful 2011 and I can't wait to be back in 2012 with some exciting house updates!

I wish I could send a card to everyone but instead I'll send it right to your computer!
Merry Christmas from our family to yours

And we had to have a pic of Sam running away with his bag!

I would love to see EVERYONE else's cards too! Thanks Faith for hosting this sweet link-up. Head on over to Faith's blog to link up and share your card too in her Christmas Card Carousel 2011 link-up.

I'm dreaming of a . . . cold December

I realized I never posted about our gardening adventure a few weekends ago. Well in preparation for a hopefully cool if not cold December we've ripped up our pintas and zinnias, pulled up the caladium bulbs and planted some pretty white and purple pansies. Not a huge project by any means but fun and with a great impact!
We also took this time to rip up our old soaker hose which had cracked and put in higher quality ones and bury them under the mulch! Hopefully we'll have some cold weather for our pansies to thrive in (and by cold I mean like 50s!) I totally forgot to take before pictures- I know we have some of other work but you can't begin to understand how big the pintas had got! They were easy over 2 feet tall!

you can kind of see how tall the flowers on the left side of the pic are compared to the ferns

a side shot

All cleared out and ready to plant

pardon the leaves and such- forgot to take a picture right away and the wind brought lots of leaves!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow more pillows

So along with finally having some pillows made from the fabric I got back in JULY! I also recently bought some pillows off of One Kings Lane. Have you heard of it? It’s this great discount site for home goods/ décor. Just like all the others, they have four or five new shops open daily at 10am CST and the shops stay open for 3 days.  They have some amazing stuff and great deals, so I always check to see if there is anything I NEED on there!

These pillows I clearly NEEDED bad!

I mean, they are HUGE and they are reversable- what else do I need to say!

I LOVE them, especially the size of them, and the softness they add to the colors in the room!

Now that I have these, I can put both lumbar pillows on the denim couch so I think I’m almost done with the pillows in this room

 . . . . ALMOST! I've been eyeing a different floral print on Etsy that might be a better fit!

Ha! poor P!