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~ My love of gardening, making home comfortable and entertaining friends and family.

Garden, Home & Party

Tag Archives: Kooboo chairs

{Garden} Backyard facelift

27 Tuesday Sep 2011

Posted by Karen B. in DIY (do it yourself), Gardening, Maintenance, Outdoor living

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Kooboo chairs, Outdoor living, pea gravel patio

My readers will remember that Hubby and I were able to take on two over-due facelift projects for the house this summer.  One of the projects is the guest bathroom (to be blogged about later).  The second project is/was the grass in our back yard, along with a pea gravel space for some teak chairs (otherwise known as the killer patio chairs).   The killer chairs were relegated to the back yard when I purchased the Kooboo chairs from Cost Plus.  The teak chairs were always quite comfortable but would NOT slide on the concrete patio and because they were adjustable chairs, they would collapse on our guests when anyone would try to scoot back from the table.  So once again…

Once we placed the chairs under the trees it became clear we needed some kind of surface  under them to create a sort of patio area.  The grass has never  thrived  in this spot since there is so much shade.  My blog friend over at French Kissed posted a picture of a similar area  (she had helped  design the area during a styling job) where she had created this oasis of pea gravel, potted fern and comfortable chairs.  I knew that would work for our yard and voila...the inspiration for our project...

before:

This is after the grass (weeds) had been sprayed to kill out the invasive devil grass and weeds.  Jose, my talented gardener had started the removal process when I remembered the “before” pictures!

You can see the sparse grass and roots of the trees.  Our next door neighbor replaced the fence with a more weather friendly redwood fencing and the design is so much prettier.

after…

Now that our back yard has lush, green grass, sans all of the weeds, and a pea gravel pad where we can enjoy the shade of 2 very large trees when we’re looking for a spot to put our feet up and sip something wonderful we’ll be spending more time out there…that is until it’s too cool, which may be some time.

Amazing how much better the yard looks with green grass, not weeds and bare patches.

We’ve had this teak coffee table stored for years, it is so nice to be able to use existing items around the house.

The white cushions are $5 / Ikea.  the gravel is birds eye pea gravel.  We had our gardener plant a crescent of boxwood (above) which will provide a visual wall behind the chairs.  We have a calliandra vine (below) planted on the fence.  The vine won’t bloom in this much shade but the plant thrives even without sun. 

This sasanqua ‘noel’ will be blooming by November.  The stone border was the result in our changing out the stone bath we used to have leading to the teak bench.  My gardener put the stones on edge to create a nice border for the gravel space and edge of the flower bed.

The white helebore has seen better days but its getting ready to bloom and hopefully will multiply for next season since it was given some new compost nutrition during our back yard re-do/clean up.

I’ve planted some Irish moss in this little metal bird feeder.  I planted Spanish moss in the spaces between the river bed rocks…it’s a very shady area and I’m hoping it takes off.

This calliandra vine has gotten very large (it’s on the patio) and I’m hopeful the 5-gallon vine planted on the fence is as happy as this one.

The side yard was refreshed with additional Krista Mountain gravel; the lantern is lit when we’re outdoors at night.

We added the lattice overhang recently in hopes that it will provide a little break from the constant south facing sun that beats down on our bay window…it’s been a challenge for fabrics and furniture in the library, the room this bay window is in.


I apologize, our garden shoes are by the door…keeping it real.

So, the back yard is ready for relaxation and fun…even if it’s only a short time before it’s too cool to be out there!

Thanks for coming by for an update.

Happy fall.  Do you have any fall yard work on your list?

{Garden}Kooboo chairs and other backyard delights

27 Monday Jun 2011

Posted by Karen B. in Gardening, Gardens, Outdoor living

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

backyard, Kooboo chairs

Please note…I inadvertently published this story when it was not complete.  Please excuse the missing pictures from the post on Friday.  It’s intended publish date was Monday,  complete with pictures.  Sorry.

 

I first read about the Kooboo chair at one of my ‘must read’ blogs, Cote de Texas.  Joni had written about them after making her purchase of the more expensive sister chair from Pottery Barn and then buying the Kooboo from Cost Plus World Market.  HERE is her latest post about the chairs.

Isn’t this a wonderful outdoor dining space?  These are the lovely Kooboo chairs (above).  Love the stone pillars and stone table.  A lantern over the table is so pretty!

 

I had mentioned the “need” for new patio dining chairs HERE and HERE and it wasn’t until this year we could actually afford to buy all 6.

The furniture has grayed nicely…the wood chairs look innocent don’t they, well cue the “Jaws” music  and be ready to be swallowed by them if you attempted to scoot your chair up to the table!

As you probably know, if you do one thing to your home or yard, sometimes it creates the need for more projects in a given space.  Such is the case with our back yard.  Here are some of the improvements I’ve made this spring with more to come later.

Ta-da!  These are the new chairs.  I will eventually have the cushions recovered in a Sunbrella fabric.  But for now  the white cushions that came with the chairs work just fine and they are comfortable.  We used them Saturday night and I’m happy to say that all agreed the chairs were comfortable.

The good news is that the “Jaws” chairs work well in a couple of other locations around the yard.  No need to move these when they are acting as seating independent of a table (they are actually very comfortable).  I love it when I can re-purpose something instead of eliminating it altogether.

I wanted to plant a bank of hydrangea in what I call my secret garden.  I managed to get 3 good sized bushes planted.  One is an Endless Summer hydrangea and seems to be putting the other two to shame.  I’m hopeful that after a year of acclimating to their new home the 2 ‘homely pink sisters’ will begin to perform and I’ll have a wall of hydrangea growing by next spring.

Because we replaced the killer patio chairs with the Kooboo, we decided to get rid of a pair of Adirondack chairs (along with the foot stool and small table) on Craigslist.  The Adirondack chairs were purchased for Hubby’s patio when he had a work assignment in Oakland and while they looked cute on his patio, they have never been very well suited to the corner of the yard we relegated them to.  The killer patio chairs look much better don’t you think?  I want to add some stone and pea gravel to enhance the area…soon.

Sold on Craigslist                                                                                                                                       Sold on Craigslist

 

New to the garden…

We will ultimately add pea gravel and there will be a stone border.  These “jaws” chairs are comfortable as long as you do not have to scoot them on concrete.

We had the trees in the back yard trimmed, professionally, and what a difference.  There was an area of the yard that never saw sun due to the thick foliage.  We now have dappled light and everything seems happier (or maybe that is just me!)

Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the trees trimmed/sun shinning through to the ground after moving the “jaws” chairs to that location.

I’m trying my hand at growing clematis this year for the first time, wish me luck!

The side yard has been a challenge.  I planted some camellia a few years back and they were on a snail’s pace as far as putting on height, which is what the wall needed.  Well, while enjoying a birthday breakfast at my good friend Debbie’s house I noticed she had a bank of ‘ligustrum’ privets growing along her wall and they reached the top of the wall in a relatively short time.  Being the compulsive person that I am I requested that my gardener duplicate this look for me.  It will be a year or more before they reach the top but I believe they look better than what we had there before.

These will grown tall and cover the wall in green.  So much better than a blank, white wall, don’t you think?


Burgandy ‘iceberg’ rose grows in the side yard and seems very happy.

There are still jobs to be done but hubby and I are pleased with the overall look so far and we’re especially thrilled that none of our dinner guests will end up with a broken limb due to the ridiculously heavy, killer chairs.

Meanwhile, we continue to work on parts of the garden that could use some attention…under the watchful eye of Madison…

We look forward to lots of dining outdoors, if the weather warms just a bit.  *I sound like we live in Alaska, seriously, this spring and summer are some of the coolest I can recall and I’m a native born California gal!  We’re still enjoying summer and truth be told, I prefer cooler weathers.

How is your garden growing?  Do you entertain outdoors much?  I’d love to hear from you.

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