The one pandemic hobby that stuck around: veggie gardening. And this year I’m going big(ger). It started in the panic of 2020 with one little 6’x3′ raised bed (similar here) and some crappy curbside pickup soil. It was enjoyable enough that I kept at it and even added a second garden bed in 2022. After … More Tiny Garden Expansion
When we were replacing the underground gutter drainage pipes in our backyard, we swapped out an old rain gutter for a rain chain. We rigged it up ourselves and weren’t sure how much water a chain could direct vs an enclosed gutter pipe. Turns out, they can handle A LOT of water, even doing the … More Rain Chain
Not sure if anyone has any interest in watching a garden grow, but my tiny raised vegetable garden isn’t dead yet and it has been one of the surprise hobbies (therapies?) of this weird year. Along with…drumroll….sewing, another activity I previously hated but I guess I don’t in upsidedownworld 2020. I have been super happy … More Garden is not Dead
Continuing the summer of making the backyard better, the patio got some work done too. Basically, this will be a post about the life-changing magic of vintage mosaic coffee tables. Our patio, for so long, has been the home of misfit, mismatched, and broken furniture and, like everyone this year, I was ready to invest … More Patio Updates
The stock tank that was scheduled for May finally arrived a few weeks ago and we are now pool people!! It took a lot of persistence to make it happen with general above ground pool supply shortages, but I think it will go down as the bright spot of a hard year. A pool – … More Stock Tank Pool DIY
I’ve been searching for a vintage outdoor sofa for awhile, ideally an iron set with hairpin legs, and have come up with nothing. Ready for a patio napping spot now and not willing to spend $2k on something new, we decided to build what we wanted – floating side tables and all! It cost us … More DIY Plywood Outdoor Couch
Playing a little chronological catch up here with a project we did in May and June: redoing the backyard grass. If ever a small task has snowballed, it’s the one where we had some extra dirt left over from another project and thought maybe we should use it to level out a few areas of … More Fresh Grass
A note: I have to start by saying BLACK LIVES MATTER. This is a relatively trivial blog about house projects and creating a home you love – all that means nothing in the face of injustice and oppression and systemic racism. So non-Black readers: thank you for showing up here today but, if you aren’t … More Front Yard Updates
Following years of avoiding things that tie me down, it felt like it was time to venture back into vegetable gardening – on a small scale. Since we obviously aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, why not? I wanted a smallish, modern, movable, non-wood raised bed and I’m really happy with the one I ended up … More Modern Container Garden
We have been anxious to replace our backyard fence since the day we bought our house six years ago. You can see kinda where we started in this post. Those images are overly generous. In real life, the scene was utter fence clutter. We started thinking about this project last fall when the house was … More Corrugated Polycarbonate Privacy Fence
We’ve needed to rebuild our gate for like years. It was water damaged, flimsy, and only hanging on by 50 unsightly emergency screws. It was one of those semi-easy projects that we continually ignored, only thinking about it during high winds when it would bend and bust open. Design indecision really dragged progress. I wanted … More Modern Gate DIY
Our front yard Acapulco chairs are goners, although only a few years old. BUMMER. While the ones in the shade out back are fine, apparently the sun breaks down the PVC webbing and the chairs eventually crack into a million tiny pieces of plastic in your gravel. Or at least that has been our experience. So … More Modern Adirondack Chair Roundup
Let’s talk these wacky front yard screens! I routinely get requests for constructions plans, and although I shared a bit of the process when we put the first one in last year, we’ve since built a second and I’m here to give some additional info! Pardon our June gloom whiteout conditions… First things first, we … More DIY Mid Century Inspired Exterior Screens
A few Christmases ago, I had the wacky idea to light up the sides of our house with some red and green flood lights, in addition to the string of colored lights along our roofline…and it was better than I even anticipated. I was inspired by a mid century house I used to be infatuated … More Modern Mid Century Exterior Christmas Lights
*Update: See photos of the exterior paint here – only 1.5 years late :) I’m slowly trying to put the lid back on the can of worms that the exterior paint job opened up. In an effort to save money, but mostly deterred by color decisions and the repairs we needed to make before painting, … More Exterior Paint Progress
Great news over here: we are having the exterior of our house painted. As in, HIRING THE WORK OUT! I was planning to spend the fall doing the job myself, but after such a stressful and overwhelming first month of school/homeschool for me, we were curious what it would cost. When the quote came back … More Exterior White Paint: How I Picked a Color
*I gotta preface this. I’ve been sitting on my posts for the past few weeks because I don’t at all want to contribute to a “business as usual” vibe and be all “yay for my house!” while children sit in detention centers alone in fear and their asylum seeking parents live out a nightmare. It’s … More Front Yard Landscaping
I’m trying to put together a monster front yard post and realizing that I never shared our new mailbox. Shame. It’s adorable and deserves a dedicated shout out, so here we go! You may remember this mailbox post full of beautiful modern boxes and me wondering whether the cost of a new mailbox was worth the … More Mailbox
Totally unintentionally, the patio has been all switched up! It all started when one of my kids Chris Farley-ed one of our acapulco chairs. The chair was ruined during the funny, but destructive fall. So, I brought out a black acapulco chair from inside (left without a home after this room’s recent rearrange) and decided to … More Patio Shenanigans
Somehow this has turned into a saga. Two years ago I bought some replacement covers (actually two different kinds ugh) for our backyard vintage butterfly chair frames and wrote this long post on places to find them. I have detailed info there, but to summarize: if you want replacement canvas covers for your (non folding) … More Circa50 Butterfly Chair Covers
SUBURBAN * POP 