Mindless Physical Labor Equals Mental Creativity

I had a lot of physical work to do today (steam cleaning the carpets) and it was the perfect kind of work for letting the mind wander, since it doesn’t take a whole lot of brains to push a steam-cleaner back and forth across a room. It was a beautiful day today so we were able to move our family room / playroom furniture outside in order to clean that room, and doing that got me thinking about how to enliven our patio for summer. Here are some of the ideas for beautifying that space:

1. We have an Ikea Klippan love seat that is currently living in our family room but is mainly used as a junk catcher and laundry staging area (i.e. its just taking up space). It was so nice to have it on the patio today, but clearly it can’t be out there as is since it would be soaked through and then rotted in a matter of maybe a week. I’m thinking maybe I can sew a cover for it out of oilcloth, and if I seal the seams and change out the legs from wood to metal it might last the summer outside. I have an old slipcover for the sofa that I can rip the seams out and use as a pattern.

2. paint our faded wood patio table and chairs a bright color – maybe orange?

3. transform a wall mounted candelabra into a mini garden. It’s got seven little votive candle holders which might be able to be planted into, or else removed and replaced with itty-bitty terra cotta pots.

4. plant a succulent bowl – I’ve got an old stainless steel bowl (actually a wok lid) that I’ll use for that.

That’s enough work for now, but if I managed to get all this done by July (the real start of summer around here) our patio would look amazing.