DIY Outdoor Table & Shade for 2

from Martha Stewart Living

This is one of those “duh” ideas, but I have to admit that it didn’t cross my mind until I saw it on Martha Stewart Living. I am really enjoying having a deck. We have a small table with a small umbrella that we use for dining. We usually eat outdoors in the evening when there is no need for the umbrella. If we are out during the day, we are usually relaxing with a glass of tea. No shade. This is a bummer, especially with a hot weekend coming up. I want to be out enjoying it before the rainy season. I think if I did something like this, the umbrella would get much more use. It’s an easy project. I can find a small wood table at a thrift store or yard sale. I’ll slap some of my exterior mistint paint on it. I

Here’s the tutorial.

I’ve been very busy this week wrapping up some loose ends while I still have the time. I’m still working on before and after pictures. This helps me see how much work we’ve actually done. It’s easy to get obsessed with the “what’s left to do” stuff and ignore everything that you did. It’s supposed to be near 90° this weekend. I doubt anything will be getting finished on this house. Time to hit the coast!

-Victoria

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Outdoor Living Spaces: The Hip New Way To Say Patio

Featured in Country Home

I really should be cleaning off the deck and scrapping paint off of a vintage aluminum picnic table so that I can repaint it, but I it’s easy to procrastinate. Even when it is beautiful outside. Are you surprised that I don’t want to scrape paint in the midday sun?

I was very excited about having a deck this year.  It is very nice but I thought it would be a great outdoor living space. It’s not. It’s nice to set on and nice to eat on space. That’s it. I always see this whimsical fantasy pictures in decorating magazines featuring beautiful daybeds outside (outdoor spaces here featured in Country Home and House to Home). What’s the purpose of these spaces and where are they? I assume that they only exist  in photographs and couldn’t make it in this harsh, cruel world. They are better decorated than my indoor living space :). These fantasy spaces have comfortable outdoor seating with throw pillows, paper lanterns, outdoor rugs, and even coffee tables. It’s all beautiful but far from practical. I say that if you are at the purchasing an outdoor rug stage in your life then you need to reevaluate your life and maybe get a new hobby or go on a vacation with that expendable income. Maybe I’m clueless, this is very possible, because I live in the Pacific Northwest. We have nice summers, not very long and the rest of the year it rains. I’m better off investing in a nice deck stain than nice patio furniture and paper lanterns. Maybe you can live like this in Southern California? I see these in pictures on resorts in Mexico. Maybe you have to haul this stuff in and out every day? I don’t know. Regardless, these outdoor living spaces take a wonderful picture and I always wish I was relaxing on one of those comfy outdoor daybeds. I won’t have a perfectly decorated living space but I’ll have a nice one if I just get out there and pull it together. And these pictures have motivated me to do so. Time to pull together my budget-friendly and totally practical “outdoor living space”. This is the cool new way of saying “deck” or “patio”. And if you say “outdoor living space”, you sound really rich. Have a great weekend!

-Victoria

Featured in House to Home

David’s Commentary:

I find this idea to be the kind of irrational thing that a designer comes up with without thinking about too much.  The moisture, mold, insect, rodent and bird-poop assault that would be pressed on your furniture in this setting will make almost any textiles nasty in under a week. One slight rainfall on a foam cushion will keep it moist enough to mold for weeks.

Perhaps this gets pushed by retailers so much because it’s a really attractive concept that requires that you replace the items used 3 times a season?

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An Umbrella I Like: Yep, We Do Get Sun You Know.

We're practically Vanderbilts.

So, I’ve been told that after all of this restoration and rehab, that we will have a killer deck. David also tells me that it has an Olympic and Cascade views. I haven’t seen this, but I have spent limited time on the current deck because it is rotted and looks like a death trap leaning over a blackberry bramble. Currently, we do not own any patio furniture or any patio “supplies”. So, I’ve been looking around. Much of the patio furniture I find is huge and ridiculous. Well, at least for our anti-social selves. I really want something simple, vintage, metal or cast iron. I have feeling that I will be on the look out for sometime, at least until next summer. David mentioned an umbrella. I thought  it was a stupid at the time. I wanted to be in as much sun as possible; I mean we do live in the PNW. I also thought of umbrellas as nylon beige things that went with your ugly hammered glass topped table and with your ugly metal chairs with the Hawaiian floral seafoam and peach print. Yuck, gross, and boring. I stumbled across this picture of the Vanderbilt’s and their amazing fringe umbrella, table, and chairs. This is what I want to keep my skin Belle Epoque creamy during our 3 drought and sunny summer months. I found some fringe umbrellas on-line but they were too “tropical” and I thought they would look silly unless we plan on having tiki themed parties for the rest of our lives (don’t tell David, he wants tiki themed parties and most likely a tiki themed funeral). These natural fiber fringed umbrellas are nice but not very Washington. I then found this amazing, “very Venice with a touch of circus tent” umbrella on Z Gallerie’s website. The last I looked it was marked down to $150. It’s dreamy and I want it. Not enough fringe but it will do. I told David that I could make my own because when I searched umbrellas, I also found hand-painted ones. I could do that and tassel and fringe however I please. He said this would be tacky. I feel he has no faith in me. I mean I am not going to bedazzle it. But, I really know it is because he found out about all that tiki stuff. Rats.

-Victoria

It's dreamy.

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