Patio: The Big Reveal

Well, sort of. I don't think things out here are finished by a long shot, anymore than I think that I don't have things to do in the living room or kitchen or bathroom or bedroom. I mean I've only been living in LA for less than 2 years (Fun fact: my two year losangeleversary is exactly a month away! WOW!) and I find the amount of home stuff I own to be kind of minimal. I don't have much art. I don't have more than 2 chairs, or 4 plates, etc. I don't have a bed. I do have a couch and coffee table, some curtains, a DRAFTING table, art storage, a wicked cool chandelier and some hangy racks in the kitchen, lest you think I'm complaining. It's just that it's a slow process to get settled into a place and accquire the right things.

So the patio. I moved into an apartment with outdoor space. Patio and dishwasher were the big things I looked for in a new home. And this patio had a pretty perfect railing from the design aesthetic I really desired: cat proof. Which is to say my cat can't get up on it, get in trouble. But it did have a major flooring flaw. It looked like they took concrete, coated it with glue, put down some fake grass, and then after they go over it, and ripped up the grass (leaving a waffle textured glue floor with fragments of astro turf embedded) they painted it a battleship grey which really made the public school beige stucco, the studio apartment white accent wall and the state park brown railing pop, as they say on Project Runway. (Fun fact: I've been watching season 4 of project runway pretty much exclusively while I worked on this project and last night I had a dream that I was both the designer and modeling my look and I'd not finished in time and Nina Garcia was really snarky at me, and Tim Gunn was disappointed. Boy. I wish my model had showed up! Of course my dream dress was a pretty flimsy cotton print, so it was also my dream self's fault.)

This is the before:Mmm sexy- I want to squat on that dirty floor and read a book so bad.

So I put in just the weensiest bit of work on this patio...say..5, 10 minutes top to get this result:

The view from my bedroom of the same corner

Floor closeup of happily imprisoned kitty cat

The other corner

My string of pearls pots.

Closeup of the beach pails I just bought to make into hanging planters.

I still have lots more vision for additions to this space. I'm in love with Woolly Pockets and perhaps later on, when I've saved up 40 trillion dollars I can festoon the railing with pockets and pockets of gorgeous plants. I'd like to up the awesome factor of the furniture with cooler chairs, and maybe some side tables for beverage swilling, and an ashtray for my friend Bridget (we're working on a concept called guilt-trays, which will be ashtrays that make you feel bad about smoking, in a humorous way.) I definitely will be putting in some kind of mat for footwipage as I keep going in the house with muddy-ish feet- althought the worst is over.

Also you might note that the underside of the seats contain a lot of bags of dirt and the like, or that some of the pots are empty. That's because some pots are renovations in and of themselves- I'm working on creating an entire garden of subirrigation planters (the two white containers are sub irrigation planters from Ikea- which are so/so), but the installation of said planters is taking a bit of time as all the instructions I've found out there are for making planters which I think look ugly. Also I want a good way of monitoring the water levels- very few of the planters designs have perfected this yet. Expect a sub-irrigation primer in the future.

BUT! The tile is in! The grout and mastic have been scrubbed off with a wire brush and pads of steel wool. There are plants (many of whom are thriving more than I expected given the only moderate light of the patio). Oh how I love the plants! And most are edibles. I'm concentrating on herbs for now, except that I do get distracted and grab other things which are pretty at plant sales. Like the maidenhair fern or the string of pearls or the polkdot plant in the planter. You know how it is though, they sit there at the store looking all sad in their too tight pots, saying, "If you don't take me home they're going to KILL ME!" And then I feel guilty and try to get them all fake norwegian visas and smuggle them out of the store.

So. Patio. Done-ish.