Our Yard’s Blue + White Theme

It’s starting to look like Fall in our yard,

as some of our + our neighbors’ trees are dropping their leaves

Speaking of  leaves, check out these, on one of our Oak Leaf hydrangeas:

 If only I’d taken this photo a couple days ago,

when those red leaves were so vivid + gorgeous!

They already pop nicely against our neighbor’s light wood fence,

so imagine how stunning they will be when all the leaves turn scarlet!

They’ll eventually grow to 8′ – 10′ tall + will provide lots of privacy.

I blogged about them last August when we were planting them.

They were only about a foot tall.

They’re now almost 4′ tall.

This first season, we had only about 6 or 7 total blooms,

but fingers crossed they will look more like this next summer:

While I was outside this morning,

I decided to snap a few more photos of my groovies.

There’s my very pretty blue gazing ball on an old hollow stump,

 a vintage Dachshund statue,

+ some velvety Pulmonaria (a.k.a. Lungwort) plants:

That bit of a fern belongs to our large Boston fern (below),

+ those cobalt blue glass stars are from my favorite garden center,

Blumen Gardens in Sycamore, IL.

Here’s a better look,

with some companion globe thistle plants, in our last house’s yard:

So pretty!

And wouldn’t you know it — I got the globe thistle plants at Blumen Gardens, too!

Anyway, it’s easy to see that our yard has a bit of a blue + white theme.

Some pretty blue Endless Summer hydrangeas

are growing just across the yard from our Oak Leaves.

We even painted our garden shed blue.

That’s our bee garden that we planted this summer.

The pretty white Coneflowers are the stars right now,

+ yes, we attracted bees!

That bird bath on a stand is also from Blumen Gardens,

+ how much do I love that mosaic blue + white transferware plate!

Oops.  I should have tidied it up before taking a photo!

Finally — in closing — next spring

we’ll have all sorts of pretty blue + white spring flowers.

We planted lots of bulbs, about which you can read more, here.

One of the few flowers that are a true (not purple) blue!

That’s really going to be a much-needed morale boost

when everything’s gloomy + muddy in March

+ I’m so cold I can’t feel my toes.

Welcome To Hydrangea World!

Our relatively small yard is now home to a whopping 18 hydrangeas!

What I am now calling “Hydrangea World” began last fall,

with this informal hedge of oak leaf hydrangeas planted on our lot line:

We bought 7 plants, 8′-10’T, @ $11 apiece, from Menards,

+ 4 of them are happily blooming already:

Next up — the western foundation of our Dutch colonial:

Once again, we planted a row of hydrangeas —

this time in mixed varieties.

You guys.

Look at the gorgeous blue of that Twist ‘N Shout, 3’-5’T!

Once I spied it (at Menards), there was no going home without it! —

which means that there are now 2 of them in our foundation bed:

There are also 3 Pistachio hydrangeas, with beautiful pink blossoms, 3′-5’T:

Aren’t the petals beautiful?

At the window bay, we planted 3 Endless Summer hydrangeas, 3′-5’T:

Wow oh wow — that blue!

In my last post, I spoke of this fertilizer for acid-loving plants.

Turns out that hydrangeas love acid soil, + adding acid to said-same soil

results in blue Endless Summer hydrangea flowers.

That means I will be regularly fertilizing my hydrangeas with it,

as nobody loves the blue flower more than I do!

I would have happily added even more hydrangeas to our foundation,

but G.O. was insistent that we have a mixed-plant section.

Here ’tis

Upper left: Stirfry hosta 20″T x 36″W — Upper right: Ostrich fern 3′-5’T — Lower left: Younique Pink astilbe 16″-20″ — Lower right: Firefly coral bells 30″T-12″W

Coral bells

That’s going to look great, once the plants fill out, don’t you think?

And finally, in closing, here’s our climbing hydrangea (who knew?),

which was originally planted to grow up this trellis

on our garden shed . . .

. . . but which has since been transplanted to here,

underneath our pretty maple tree:

Wait.  What?

There’s an interesting story here; I’ll share soon.

As always, stay tuned!

 

My Love For A Classic Rug

Yesterday I blogged about our new curtains that I sewed:

Love them!  Don’t love hemming them!

Anyway, as I mentioned, I am officially in NESTING mode,

which means I long to make a huge pot of chili + re-do the living room.

Time for a new rug!

My beloved kilim rug has been retired,

after 10+ years of total grooviness . . .

. . . + here ’tis its replacement — a denim rag rug from Land of Nod!

http://www.landofnod.com/true-blue-rag-rug/f1794

People — less than $300 for an 8 x 10 rug!

Say no more!

But wait.  Needle scratch, even.

Isn’t a rag rug something that I would have had in the 90’s?

Um, excuse me?  Granny!

Further more, doesn’t G.O. hate rag rugs?

Please. I don’t think that it’s hopelessly outdated.

No way! — it’s more of a timeless classic!

Like jeans — they never go out of style + they go with everything!

Check it out!

The Land of Nod rug is chunkier (+ softer) than those of years gone by,

which adds a lot of texture to our room.

At this point, I am fretting over how monochromatic my room is.

Gray, blue, gray, blue.

Time to add some of my other favorite color, red!

RED!?  HA!  I think I’ve got it covered!

How about you?

What classics do you still have in your decor?

2 Finalists For Our Bedroom Rug!

I’ve been shopping online for a rug for our bedroom for weeks!

The room is already sporting a dark gray accent wall + pale blue ceiling.

The walls + trim will be white,

 + I want to add a lot of blue accessories.

The pine floor has been sanded + stained a nice, warm brown.

The room measures 9’10” by 11″,

so of course, I am having math anxiety

+ cannot decide between a 4’x6′ or a 5’x7′ rug.

Help!?

* * *

Oh, never mind about that — for now, anyway.

Let’s talk about what I might order!

I’ve whittled down my favorites to these 2 rugs from Overstock.com.

Notice the blue + gray combination — excellent for my color plan!

They are both from the brand Safaveih’s Patina collection.

As you can see, the name Patina refers to the rug’s aged appearance,

which is a ‘thing’ now — new-but-old-looking rugs!

Perfect!

These are cotton rugs + soft,

which is kind of a must-have for our G.O.’s bedroom.

Now all we have to do is decide which rug + which size.

Stay tuned!

PAINT REMORSE

Today I am thinking obsessing about all things PAINT

+ changing my mind a lot.

This is never a good thing in G.O.’s world.

Oops.

But back to paint.  I want my bedroom to look like this:

Emily HendersonN

I want that dark blue accent wall!

The rug’s dark blue is a tad more ‘now’ than my go-to paint ,

NAVY.

However, because it’s granny’s my ongoing quest to stay somewhat current,

I forced myself to step away from the navy paint

+ buy a quart of this navy-ish dark blue paint (large swatch):

Deep Blue Shadow from Glidden

One quart of paint + one decorating magazine purchase later,

I dashed back to the Dutch colonial,

where I painted a small sample on our bedroom wall.

How very HGTV of me!

theturquoisehome.com

Oh, how I feared I would get periwinkle.

The good news, though, is that, much to my surprise,

my new dark blue (in the morning) was GOOD!!

.(Since I failed to snap a photo of said same, you’ll have to trust me on that.)

But wait.

 Fast forward to yesterday afternoon,

+ my formerly “good” dark blue had turned to Welch’s grape jelly!

The humanity!

Full disclosure — this happens to me all the time.

 I’ve actually coined a little pet phrase for it:

PAINT REMORSE

And yes, of course, it’s not just our bedroom.

I also dislike this icy blue of our main bathroom + have plans to change it:

I need something warmer + darker to make that wainscoting pop.

SO. As of right now, my plans include switching to one of the blues shown here:

Stay tuned!

Our Kitchen’s Color Story

Let’s have a look-see at the color story of our Dutch colonial kitchen, shall we?

At the far left, we have Chambray (Pittsburgh Paints),

a medium blue that is already up + at ’em on the kitchen ceiling.

Yikes! — that swatch is way too bright!

This photo is more accurate:

Much better!

I’ll admit that the blue ceiling looks a tad odd by itself,

but I think that it makes sense when combined with my other color choices.

Speaking of which:

The small white swatch represents the room’s future white crown molding,

all the woodwork + our white IKEA cabs:

Third from left is the palest of grays —

Thin Ice (Pittsburgh Paints) — for our walls:

Yes, it’s pale, but pale’s a good thing, sometimes.

I made certain that it does pop a bit against the white cabinets,

+ yet, it won’t be as dark as the gray backsplash tiles I’ve chosen:

Home Depot

I love those tiles so much!  I want them to be the ‘stars’ of our kitchen!

Just look at this inspiration of mine!

Don’t you love the gray tile backsplash?

heavyontheveggie blog

But I digress!

Back to my color swatches + the darkest of my grays, fourth from left.

It’s Volcanic Ash (again, from Pittsburgh Paints):

We will paint our kitchen door (see below) this dark gray,

along with the other interior doors throughout the house:

So far, I am very happy with all my colors + hope they’ll play nicely together!

But wait!

There are a couple more colors — the 2 dark squares to the far right:

They represent my choices of floor tile for our kitchen.

I’ll talk more about them in another post.

Stay tuned!

Garden Shed Blues

Now that our garage is nearly completed . . .

. . . my thoughts are turning to really IMPORTANT things like this:

East Coast Weathervanes

. . . because of this adorableness:

I’m not sure if I’ll spring for the Dachshund weathervane,

but wouldn’t it be cool if I did?

* * * * *

Meanwhile, back to the less superficial portion of our project . . .

. . . today our humble garden shed finally gets its roof:

B e f o r e

In Progress

Yes, I paid nearly $20 on sample paint pots from Benjamin Moore.

No, I didn’t like any of them.

Fear not, though!

One can find color inspiration on Pinterest.

I recommend doing said-same!

livingincoloriwthsonu.typepad.com

If you’re me — type “blue** paint colors” in the search + voila.

That’s how I discovered the fabulous Benjamin Moore, Santorini blue:

One quick trip to our Benjamin Moore paint store later,

+ I have these ^^ swatches.

(**Disclaimer: I have to have a blue garden shed

because of my fondness for any blue flower.  It’s my scheme.

There’s a post for another day!)

* * * * * *

I’m undecided about WHICH Benjamin Moore blue I’ll chose . . .

 

. . . but I do know that those plain Jane plywood doors MUST be tricked out!

I dig the diagonal bead board detail on these vintage garage doors:

I think I’ll push for something like this, though:

Remodelista.com

Fingers crossed I get to paint tomorrow!  Stay tuned!