The Courtyard Project

Our Desert Home has a Casita. 

It is a one bedroom guest house... 

really just a detached bedroom and full bath.

There is a space between the main house and the casita 

that makes a courtyard. The first arch is the courtyard, 

the second arch is the alcove to the front door entry.

You can see that I have tried to cover the 

furniture to protect it from the sun.
Sort of... 

Not very attractive, is it?

Since the weather is cooler now, 

we are starting on some outdoor projects. 
The first is an outdoor curtain.

The Mr. is putting up a sturdy curtain rod he 
made out of some pipe and fittings.

I spray painted the pipe using the ever popular 

Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint. 

The curtain rings are a little bigger than I usually 
get because of the diameter of the pipe. 
I will also add tie back hooks.


Hopefully I will have the curtains up this week. 
I am also designing a gate for the courtyard. 
Below are some examples.

This is a house like ours (reversed) that has

a black iron gate. Not exactly what I want. 
Too plain. Too open. Too black.

This is very attractive but way to ornate and 

WAY TOO GOLD!

What I want is something that will keep 

the dogs in and the uninvited out. 

With a lock set and doorbell.

Something with BIRDS.

Yes, I love birds... just a few.

What do you think?


I am sharing this at these parties:

Outdoor Wednesday

Fall Into Fall



Wow Us Wednesday's

Thank you to these wonderful hostesses!


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Don't forget the Bunny Hop party
is going on right now through Sunday!

Faux Painted "Brick Floor"

This is a picture of the faux "painted brick"

I painted on the floor of my potting shed.

I wish I had a picture of the room

after it was completely decorated...sigh.

It was SO CUTE!

The counter top on the right was actually recessed down, to accommodate all the soil spillage... AND it even had a hole to push the dirt back down into the bin below. The surface was a laminate, so no worries about water or clean up. Those green bins were full of different soils, and garden stuff.

The floor was just grey cement or is it concrete. I never know which is correct and bit The Mr. says there is a difference. I wanted some more character to the room so I painted it to look like brick.

I just used the redwood fence stain that I had on hand.

If I had planned ahead I think I would have used cement stain. I think it comes in ready mixed colors for painting cement porches...

Actually... I stamped the pattern on using a sponge that I think was meant for cleaning the grout when laying new tile.

I broke bits off of the sponge until it was the size of a real brick.

I even pulled out little bits from the stamping surface so it would have "texture". I made sure to rotate the sponge so that each "brick" would look different. The cement spaces between each "brick" looked like the "mortar".

I will post a picture or two of the yard.

We lived in Northern California at the time.

We now live in North Central Texas...

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update: we have since moved to the Palm Desert of California.