Category Archives: Home & Garden

Bathroom Decor December 2023

We only have this bathtub because demolishing it would mean future grandchildren had nowhere to bathe in our house since we have two walk-in showers in the bathrooms now (such a dream). However, this bathtub, as nice as it is with the big window letting natural light in was SCREAMING for something, so I determined it had to be a caddy. I love the way it looks!

Our small bathroom is Parisian-themed in part because I had an Eiffel Tower shower curtain before converting the bathtub into a large walk-in shower. Now that I have an odd number of Eiffel Tower icons, I can put them in one place again!

I’m constantly looking for utilitarian objects to manage our bathroom tools and supplies. Some are more practical than others.

A Bridge (Not) Too Far

We had a small bridge in this location for a while which the dogs didn’t really use much and which was hard to see. It also only took like one step for a human. This new bridge feature may be redundant, but it looks great and will contribute to the continuity of the paths that we have in our uniquely shaped garden. The guardrails are actually high enough for a human and it makes a great transitional piece that fits with our decor, as far as I’m concerned.

To his credit, Shando put it together himself in our garage. He never looks forward to these kinds of projects and when we first placed it in this spot it was dusk, so he was skeptical that it would work. We had to jerryrig one side of it to keep it balanced, but in the daylight, despite the rain, we both love it.

The smaller bridge that we used to have is now up in the tiers and will used exclusively for dogs!

For perspective, you can see BOTH bridges here:

New Fountain December 2023

I totally nerd out over water features in my garden. The four we have going each day are very zen.

These little motors don’t last forever, though, particularly as we run them daily between sunrise and sunset, with some exceptions. The good news is that I repurpose all the old fountains (three so far) mostly as planters.

Shando had the very good idea that this one should be brought in from the edge of the porch, which actually facilitated the wiring with the smart plugs. This one lights up, so having it on the back porch has a really lovely effect. It’s close enough to the family room that we can run it into the evening and hear and watch it from the couch. it’s not so close to the sliding door that it causes splashes and spots, which was annoying when the previous one was there.

I’ve had the frog figurine and the lilypad stool for a while. They were bought separately but I have to keep them together, right? I tried to glue the frog to the top, especially to cover a hole that exists there by design, but the curvature of the stool is concave, and therefore the flat part of the frog figurine will not adhere to it.

Repurposing Community Board Stand

Our Glen Cove Community Association installed this lovely community board up by the shopping center that one sees as one enters our neighborhood. The intention is to keep the public aware of our goings-on. The first sign that was shipped to us was damaged on top, so GCCA brought me the old stand. They figured that since I had offered to save on storage costs for the organization by using space in my garage, I’d take this extra piece as well. Using my garage as storage also saves me time when we get the microphone equipment ready for the community meetings. So instead of putting this weather-friendly post outside, I found a place to repurpose it IMMEDIATELY, and I love the results. This makes for a very stable plant holder!