Spring Is In The Air!

Spring has come once again.  The birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming, the trees are filling out with luscious green and the intermingling spring fragrances permeate the air. It can mean only one thing, time to deck my terrace out with flowers and decorations. 

I posted about my terrace before.  Last year, I purchased outdoor furniture including an outdoor rug and an umbrella.  For flowers, I chose a color theme last year of purple, yellow and white.  This time around, I decided to kick it up a notch and add more variety in the types of flowers and also  I added RED.  Last year, I was looking for some kind of buddha statue or something to put in one of the corners of my terrace.  I actually purchased a few things and then returned them all.  Nothing felt right.  Well, I happened upon this buddha statue the other day at my favorite store, Home Goods.  I took a few days to think about it and I decided that I like it.  Let me know if you do to. 

Yesterday, I went to Home Depot to take a look at their flowers and I overheard people talking about Stew Leonard's having better flowers.  So, I went there instead and man did it pay off!  They had so much to choose from and many varieties.  Okay, I made you wait long enough, here's the statue and the flowers pre-planting.

It was nice that I didn't have to buy all of the flower boxes and hanging pots this time around.  It was fairly quick to set up too.  I had the brackets ready to go from the prior year and all I had to do what to put them on the railing where I wanted them.  The flowers are beautiful now but they are going to be even more spectacularly beautiful when they grow in!  Here are some close ups.

Those purple flowers right above are so tiny, you wouldn't believe it from the picture.

From all of these:

To these:

I can't get one picture that shows the whole terrace.  I wish I could but since I can't, you get various views.

Just wait until the flowers grow more.  I'll have to take more pics then. 

Thanks for stopping by and Stay tuned for more creativity!

A Room With A View

During my search for my new home, I saw lots of apartments.  When I walked into this one, I saw so much potential.  But nothing excited me more than the idea of having my own terrace!  It's not too big and it's not too small, it's just right.  An outdoor living space was completely unknown to me for the 13 years I lived in the shoebox in Manhattan.  Not anymore! 

I'm not quite sure how much time I spent looking out the windows of my studio apartment. I had inherited a window decal from the previous tenant.  I thought it was so cool so I left it.  I used to try to find the decal from the street down below.

As you can see, I looked out on a lot of buildings and had a little bit of sky.  I was hoping in my new place, I would look out on more green.  Well, to a certain extent I do, though I still look out at buildings too. 

This view is a little to the left and not exactly straight on, but look the trees and they are much closer than they used to be.

Did I mention that the terrace is another "room" to decorate?  First, I needed to replace the metal folding chairs I was using as temporary seating.  I discovered Tropitone outdoor furniture.  I wanted great quality furniture that would last through years and years of being outside.  I custom ordered two swivel armchairs in silver with silver mesh fabric for the backing and a small matching round table. I added to that set a white metal tilting umbrella in lime green fabric from www.HomeDecorators.com, I found a really cool umbrella stand/weight from Kmart.  Then I added an outdoor rug that I bought off of www.onekingslane.com.  I also found a really tall white ceramic modern planter, which was very heavy, from Home Goods.

Here is the outdoor rug by Safavieh, Thom Filicia in Key Lime.

!

All that was missing were flowers!  I decided to stay with a color scheme: purples, yellows, whites.  And speaking of a room with a view:

Add more flowers in flower boxes (from Home Depot)

And more flowers in hanging baskets (from Kmart)

And watch them grow and grow

Not only a room with a view but also a built-in room deodorizer with such a sweet fragrance from the dark purple petunias.

The flowers lasted from May to after late October when we had the first and pretty much only snow of the season.

Thanks for stopping by and Stay tuned for more creativity!