As the Garden Grows

What's blooming today?


You are here: Home / Archives for designer

Turn a patio or deck into a year round sunroom

by

My brother is on holidays this week and on Monday he came to visit. It was a fairly nice day – not too warm although it was humid, so we sat outside in my garden for about an hour and a half.

Since the weathers been kind of odd this year – either lots of rain and storms or hot and humid, I haven’t spent a great deal of time sitting on my patio enjoying my garden this summer. It was nice to just sit in the garden and to not be doing garden work!

My brother and I talked about a number of things as we hadn’t seen each other for a while. He talked to me about plans for his garden and he also mentioned that he and his wife had been thinking of tearing down their deck and making a glass enclosed sunroom to enjoy year round.

I thought his sunroom idea was fantastic and I immediately starting thinking about how he and his wife could decorate the room with loose flowing curtains on the windows to give them so privacy when they wanted to be out of the eye of their neighbors.

My brother wasn’t that into my curtain idea as he really likes the idea of having the sunroom totally open, but if I ever turned our enclosed back porch and possibly part of our patio into a sunroom I think I’d have some flowing curtains that I could close for privacy.

I’d also decorate the sunroom with furnishings like some of the fantastic pieces of modern furniture from NYC Concept Furniture.

They have some beautiful sofas and sectionals that I think would look great in a garden themed sunroom. They also have some lovely tables that would work well in an open concept room.

Their selection of designer modern furniture is of high quality and it’s all been made in Europe. They’ve obtained a wide variety of furnishings for the living room, dining room, bedroom and other areas of the home from designers in Germany, Spain, Italy and Belgium.

Being in Canada I’ll probably have to get furniture for my possible sunroom locally, but if you are in the Greater NY/NJ/CT are you might want to take a look at what NYC Concept Furniture has to offer.






Have you ever thought of using a professional landscaper?

by

I know that many of you who read this blog have lovely gardens that you’ve worked on for years. Others are just starting out and some of you would eventually love to have a beautiful yard, but you’re still trying to figure out how you’d like your landscaping to look.

Have you ever thought of contacting a professional landscaping company? The company that I’m writing about today is called Leisure Landscapes and they service the Triangle area of North Carolina.

I’ve written about landscaping in past articles. Some people contact a landscaper and are provided with landscape design ideas that they can then either approve and have the landscaping company begin work on their yard, other people pay to have a landscape designer come to their home, provide design ideas that would work with their layout and their gardening zone and then begin the design projects themselves. In the last case they’ve just payed the landscape company for an opinion and design ideas.

Most landscaping companies provide a variety of services such as the installation of patios, walks and walls, landscape lighting, gardens, fountains, decks and arbors. Many will also install fences, lawns, irrigation systems, ponds and even plant small to large trees on your properties. I believe most landscaping companies also offer a maintenance service to keep your newly landscaped yard looking lovely. Certainly Leisure Landscapes provides all of these services and more.

Do think about contacting a landscaping company if you want to revamp your property and create something special.

Designer Gifts has quality gifts for every budget and occasion

by

designergifts.gif

I’ve taken some time to have a really good look at this website and my overall opinion of the site is that it’s a great place to get some quality gifts in a wide range of prices from under $15 and up.Speaking of prices and selection, you can browse through the site in several different ways – by price, by occasion, by category, by recipient, and even by upcoming holiday. I’ll give them an A+ for that feature because I love visiting sites that you can do a number of things in a number of different ways, preferably all easy and straightforward.

giftbasket.jpgOne section that I really like is the Cheap gifts section. You can find items in that category that are listed as being under $10, $10 to $20 and so on right up to items listed at $100 and up.

Since Fathers Day is the next major special occasion that’s coming up in the near future, those of you who are looking for gifts might want to have a look at the Gift ideas for men category. Once you visit this category page you’ll find male oriented gift baskets, personalized gifts such as a stainless steel Army knife that can be engraved, a Pilsner glass, or a flask among many other items that can be personalized. There are also MP4 players, Picture frames, BBQ and grilling type gifts and a whole lot more gift ideas that would be perfect for a man.

I like that the menu, on the left side of the page has pop out sub categories. You can get to the area that you want to visit very easily in that manner, or you can just simply see what’s in each section by hovering over it with your mouse.

There is nothing in particular that I don’t like about this site. The prices are more than reasonable and the quality of the gift items is outstanding. When looking through the site I found that if you take a look at the gifts by recipient section you can even find gifts for pets and military personnel. I don’t believe that there are many designer gift sites out there that also cater to pets and the military.

One of the sections that I got caught browsing in for some time was the Picture Frames section. Yes, picture frames tend to be a standard gift for all occasions aren’t they? The are of the picture frame category that most interested me was the Digital picture frames area. I don’t have one of these yet, but after checking out a few different brands and styles I really really want one.

With some online stores my complaints tend to fall into the area of purchasing and shipping. I can’t find a fault in this area either. Designer Gifts accepts all major credit cards and even mail order purchases. They also ship to Canada, they do not however ship outside of the USA, US Territories and Canada. I’m personally pleased that they ship to Canada because I often find items online that I’d like to buy but can’t because the stores don’t ship to Canada. This can be really disappointing once you’ve taken the time to find an item and perhaps even started the purchasing process. So Kudo’s to Designer gifts for shipping throughout most of North America. Now if they’ll start doing international deliveries I’m sure many of you reading this would be quite happy.

If you do decide to purchase anything from Designer Gifts you might be happy to know that shipping is free if your purchase total is over $75. Since shipping can really add to the cost of purchasing an item online I think it’s great that they offer free shipping on some purchases.

Do check out this online store. I think you’ll be pleased with both the selection and prices.

Meta