Art and Sand: chaises

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

change . . . always change

A couple of years ago we bought 2 chaises at IKEA

with plain old black cushions.

The first thing I did was make covers for the chaises out of a pretty striped fabric that I had on hand.

I loved the colorful stripes, but they faded quickly.

I replaced the striped covers with new covers made from an old duvet.

I really love these covers, but I thought it might be nice to have a fresh look for summer.

I found my old childhood chenille bedspread in the attic and cut it in half to make new slip-on covers for the chaises.

All the pillows were borrowed from a garden bench and

the nice thing about the white covers is that I can use just almost any of the plethora of pillow covers I have cluttering the attic.

These pillows covers will be what I use next on chaises if I can just find the second red floral pillow in the attic.

A sad change in the garden is the clearing of the jungle.

The Matilija poppy plant that was nearly as tall as the windows had to be trimmed back, but things are slowly growing back.

Last week I showed you how I used my father's old pitchfork in the garden.

This morning I dug out more of my father's old tools, stuck them in the flower bed and decorated them with last year's beach toys.

I know it's silly, but we look at the wall of studio when we sit by the fire pit at night

and the colorful toys combined with the vintage tools make me smile.

You might be surprised to hear that I like this little change in the garden - I asked Steve for a tall, skinny painting for the living room.

He brought his easel and paints into the yard to do a bit of plein air painting of the view from his favorite bench.

This change is only temporary for the garden, but it will trigger some changes in the living room soon.

The one constant in our house is CHANGE!
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Thursday, June 18, 2015

Garden Party

When Brenda of Cozy Little House invited me to join her

Summer Cottage Garden Party, I was excited for several reasons.

First was to be joining some of my favorite bloggers who boast of beautiful homes and gardens.

But more important for me, was the motivation to get my garden in order.

The lyrics to Ricky Nelson's Garden Party (I grew up with Ozzie and Harriet) came to mind.

The line that I always liked best is,

"You see ya, can't please everyone, so ya got to please yourself".

That line really resonated with me as I was planting flowers, weeding flower beds, moving furniture and fluffing the garden to please myself.

A major change in the garden this summer is new covers for the IKEA chaises.

I'm on a "use what you have" kick and remembered an old duvet cover with matching shams that were languishing in the window seat.

Essentially, I made tablecloths with ruffles that just drape over the chaises.

They can quickly be put on, whisked off and stored in my little Garden House every day.

Lulu thinks the chaises are for her and spends more time on the chaises than we do.

With the chaises ready for summer, the next step was to move a bench from the side of the garage to underneath a tree next to the fire pit.

I found another sham in the attic to use as a cushion for the bench.

The fit of the pillow is "close enough" and an old SUMMER banner finishes off the look.

On the trip to the attic, I also unearthed the yellow pillows that used to be on our sofa and brought them down for the adirondack chairs.

I came across a scarf my mother brought me from a visit to relatives in Norway.

The scarf works well as a tablecloth and I smile when I look at it wishing that my mother could be here sitting in the garden having a cup of tea and reading - she was never without a book.

It has been 14 years since my mother passed away (she would have been 101 last Sunday), but I still remember the last time she visited me -she sat in the garden and chatted with me while I planted flowers.