Garden Getaways...

Ask yourself: are you making the most of your garden? Does it inspire you to steal away for a spell and read, chat, daydream...or create? While it can be as simple as a great Adirondack chair or a breezy hammock, have you ever thought of creating a place that is yours alone? We are in the midst of building our daughter a playhouse, and it has me thinking that someday I'd love such a place for myself..

photo: Butik Sophie

The current summer issues of our favourite magazines have wonderful examples of cabanas, potting sheds, artist's cottages, pool houses and boat houses with glorious lofts. Each option sounds heavenly, doesn't it? Well, of course we can't all conjure up (or afford) such perfect spaces, but we can carve out our own little corner of the garden for our use.

photo: Victoria Magazine

photo: www.coastalliving.com

The next photo is of my mum's former backyard (frequent moving runs in the family...). This is a shot I took of her pretty garden shed. She also has a sweet, little potting shed in the garden of her present home. It is not as large (or functional, she might add) as this one, but it is charming all the same!

A couple of homes ago (which I know sounds odd...), we had what we jokingly called a secret garden of sorts. It was a small area at the bottom of our deck steps that served as a threshold to our open-area backyard. It was a sheltered spot, with a canopy of trees that provided the only shade in our garden. We knew it was also the only spot that afforded us some semblance of privacy; so we decided to create a garden within our garden: a place to sip a cold drink on a hot day - shaded as we watched our then-toddler daughter play with the neighbourhood children.

Below is the only picture I could find of it...and it was obviously taken during the construction phase!

My husband built a bench with a trellised back on which to grow vines and hang flowering baskets. The floppy branches of the trees above served as the perfect spot from which to hang our outdoor chandelier. We used pea gravel as the ground cover, and we placed an iron bistro set underneath. We thinned the little wooded area (more scrub than woods) for our boys to play in, and planted shrubs and flowers in the planter behind the bench. It turned out quite charming, and was the only pretty spot in our otherwise treeless, back garden.

My sister has a wonderful big yard and plenty of trees to shade herself under. She has wooden, outdoor chairs that I have coveted for many years now, and they are the perfect spot to sit and chat when I visit her each summer. She loves to comb the local yardsales every Saturday and her incredible finds kill me...!!!

My current yard's tiny proportions are utilized to capacity, but someday, when my children are grown, I will strive to create a beautiful garden get-away of my very own to perhaps pot flowers, create something of interest, nap or just read. I am a shade lover anyway... so by that time, I will undoubtedly also be trying to prevent further wrinkles as I enjoy the great outdoors. For now, I will enjoy ducking my head as I enter Sophie's playhouse to admire our work and squish myself into one of her little chairs and pretend I am seven again. It is a bigger project than I first anticipated, and I look forward to sharing the outcome of our joint venture with those of you who share an appreciation for whimsical get-aways!

photo: source unknown

The little yard that could...

photo: Rodney Smith

I am in the process of stretching my yard to the max. As I have mentioned before, we live on a 60 x 100 lot, which in these parts, constitutes 3/4 of a regular building lot...at least in suburbia. We have already erected a large deck which surrounds our pool area, and it allows for plenty of outdoor lounging. That said, there is very little room left in our back yard to do much else. Or so it would seem...

I am in the process of testing that theory. In fact, I have decided that since my yard is too small to use for much of anything, I am going to cram as much "living" into the space as I possibly can. As I have hinted at, my hard-working husband has committed to building my daughter/me a sweet, little playhouse. Now, it won't be large by any stretch, but we are rational people: no little girl needs this:

In fact, we are quite content with whatever my husband decides to create and will be thrilled down to our toes just to have such a fun place to play. I say we because I am honest; and I am as excited as she is to have another pretty place to create memories. We have big plans for the inside of it, and Sophie even has her daddy excited to see just how much "living" he can cram into the rather tiny space. We are already planning a "sleepover" in it, tea parties, and craft sessions. I have been picking up furnishings and accessories for it for awhile now, and Sophie herself has drawn up the "design" of it along with her colour choices. We'll see about those colours... photo: Baby Goes Vintage

I also finally have a clothesline of my own to assuage the guilt of using my dryer for almost two years now. We finally decided that although we didn't have the perfect spot to put it, it was going up anyway. I love a good clothesline, and it just feels wrong to use my dryer when I really don't have to. I love the whole process of hanging laundry out on a line, and nothing beats the fresh scent of the clothes as you fold them afterwards. Hanging clothes out has other benefits besides saving on electricity: your clothes are actually sanitized by the sun, and the sun works to bleach out stains naturally.

My last project to impose on our tiny backyard is a vegetable garden. Now THAT will be small indeed, but I am determined to have some semblance of one. I plan to grow potatoes like this:

...and I will grow other veggies like tomatoes, lettuces, and cucumbers in pots on my deck. Strawberries are also in order, and I will also poke around for the perfect spot to grow some yellow beans - favourites amongst our family.

photo: Decorative Country Living

So that's it...in a nutshell. If I manage to achieve all of this, I will share the photographic evidence. I will not, however, be showing any photos of me making a fool of myself, perched on a too small for me child's chair, sipping warm lemonade out of dusty, plastic teapots. Some things have to stay in the vault!!

Swing to their heart's content...

I love to swing and my daughter Sophie has certainly inherited that from me. Building a small swingset is on our list of things to do this summer. I thought I'd show you what is out there to entertain our kids when they play outside. Do you think they'd actually entertain themselves for more than five minutes if they had some of these objects of indulgence? I don't know, but they sure are beautiful and expensive!!! I

have to laugh at how swingsets have grown exponentially from the one to the left to the ones above. No tippy swings there...!!!

These playhouses are pricey too. The Victorian style is listed at $23,692, while the built-in tree house goes for the bargain basement price of $10,999 (and not a penny more!!!). Aren't they amazing? Too bad they are nicer than most real homes...but doesn't your little darling deserve one??!! Maybe you should get two, kind of puts things in perspective doesn't it? I'd rather pack up a nice picnic lunch and take my kids to the park...you could do a lot of good with that much money instead. Again, how times have changed...

More than a playhouse...

When I was a little girl, my sister, Wendy, would tell me all about the playhouse my Uncle Jimmy had made for her in Ireland. We left Ireland when I was only five so I have very limited memories of my birthplace. I remember feeling envious of this playhouse that I had no memory of. It was called "the Wendy house" and it sounded like a dream. How I wished I had one of my own...
As I grew older, I vowed that if I ever had a daughter, she would definitely have her own little outdoor oasis. Fast forward to now: I have a six-year old daughter and no playhouse. But all that is about to change this summer. My talented husband, who is a very doting daddy, is going to make her the play house of my dreams!!! We are putting in an above-ground pool with a deck all around it and attached to the side wall of the deck will be her playhouse. We have a very small backyard, so the width is not there for a pool and playhouse. We were stumped as to how to incorporate the playhouse until a lightbulb went off in my head! It will obviously be at deck level so it will have a slanted ladder going up to it and she will climb up to her little house. Essentially, she will be playing in her house while behind her is the side wall of the pool deck- they will have a shared wall. Confusing I know, but do-able. I am so excited and cannot wait to bring it to life! I picture it with window boxes, cedar shake roof, pale yellow clap-boards, and a gothic style window in the peak. It is to be seen whether hubby will go along with all that!!!

I had originally thought I would incorporate a playhouse into a garden shed for us. The idea was to have the playhouse as the front of the structure and the shed in the back with its own door. This would definitely be a good idea for anyone with a proper sized backyard and really means only building one structure with a dividing wall in between. You could even have the playhouse be a cabin for boys or a fun hangout for pre-teens. In my case, we had better get at it. Time is a' wasting! I want Sophie to have her playhouse while she is still young enough to really enjoy it!!