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Turn a patio or deck into a year round sunroom

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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.






Durable outdoor teak furniture to spruce up your patio

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Sometimes during the cool winter months when I can’t garden I spend time planning for the following growing season. I think about what plants might do better if I were to move them to another spot in the garden, or what plants I might purchase via mail order to plant in the spring. Do you make plans for your garden or backyard in the off season too?

When I’m not making plans for the growing season I sometimes try to think of other things that I can do or purchase for my backyard to make it all the more enjoyable. I mean, you can only work in the garden for so long right? You’ve got to sit back and relax and take in all that beauty at some point!

During the summer we often have friends drop by several times each week and we spend our time sitting in the backyard enjoying the view while we talk. Other times I have backyard BBQ’s and dinner parties.

We have a nice high glass patio table right now. I like it, but since we often have several people over for get togethers I find that the patio table is too small to accommodate our guests. The table is meant to sit four people, but we purchased two high stools so we can sit six. It’s a tight fit at times!

I’m seriously thinking about getting a larger patio table and perhaps some other patio furniture. I took a look at the outdoor patio furniture at BeFurnished.com and I really like their selection of teak outdoor furniture.

Teak is a fantastic wood to use for outdoor furniture because it’s so durable. It holds up well outdoors and I believe that the wood is resistant to pests like termites so it doesn’t get damaged the way other wood furniture does.

Another reason that I’ve thought of replacing my patio furniture with teak is because it’s so windy here in Toronto. We have a lot of wind here and we also have some major thunder storms. I always worry that the wind will blow our glass patio table over. Of course if that were to happen the glass insert would likely break and it would be quite expensive to replace. A teak table would be much less likely to be blown over in the wind.

BeFurnished.com is a US based company but they will ship anywhere in the world. That’s another reason why I like this company. Not only that, they offer free shipping within the continental US. Since I’m in Canada I always check an online stores shipping policies before I start browsing and adding items to my shopping cart. I’m always pleased when a company with products I like ships to Canada.

If you’ve been thinking about getting new patio furniture be sure to take a look at the selection at BeFurnished.com. They have teak sets, teak tables, teak chairs and benches, Adirondack Chairs, loungers and steamers, teak bars, cushions and accessories such as patio umbrellas. They also have a selection of outdoor furniture that they call “Deep Seating”. This is a selection of outdoor chairs, sofas, benches and even an ottoman that has extra deep seating for added comfort. There’s garden accessories too. Storage boxes, lazy susans and mini teak planters just to name a few.

I really like their selection of teak patio tables. They have teak extension table sets, round tables, benches sets and deep seating sets that look like outdoor living room furniture. I love it.

We have a fairly small patio so I can’t get really large patio furniture, but I do like the idea of getting an extension table. We keep it at it’s smaller non extended size most of the time, but we could make it larger to accommodate more guests when needed. I love that idea.

As most of my readers know my backyard is fairly small. It’s long and narrow and I have raised garden beds running along all of the sides of the yard, with one oval bed extending into the yard to divide the patio area, which is near the house, from the rest of the garden. The back half of the garden has a grass covered area where we sometimes pull out folding chairs when we have an outdoor gathering.

deepseating.jpg Looking at the deep seating loveseats and sofas at BeFurnished.com I thought how nice it might be to perhaps have a deep seating set for that area. I’ll have to get my husband to have a look at the outdoor furniture and see what he thinks.

I’m sure he’ll like it.

Visit BeFurnished.com to see their selection for yourself. I’d love to know if you like their teak outdoor patio furniture as much as I do.

My garden is one of the things I hold important to me

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Grab the Photo Hunt code.
Photo Theme. Visit participants.


This weeks theme is Important

This weeks photo hunter theme is important and I decided to show you what’s important to me as far as gardening goes.

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It’s no secret to anyone that reads this blog or any of my other blogs that my garden is important to me. Gardening is a great hobby and activity. I’m passionate about gardening.

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The act of planting new plants each year and maintaining my garden helps keep me fit and gets me outdoors for some much needed fresh air. My garden is also a source of comfort and peace. It’s where I go to relax.

I’m off work due to Crohn’s Disease, but when I’d come home from a hectic shift in the ER, no matter how tired I was, I’d often head straight to the garden. Either to simple enjoy my plants and flowers or perhaps not so surprisingly to do some work! Just a few minutes in my garden would erase the stress of an ER shift.

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lucious strawberry I’m an organic gardener. I don’t use any chemicals in my garden beds or on my plants at all. Everything is natural and my garden is fertilized with manure, leaf mulch, and alfalfa tea.

cherrytomatos I mainly post photos of my flowers on this site and others that I maintain, but I also grow a fair amount of veggies and fruit. Some of the veggies, particularly the leafy greens, are grown in large balcony planters beside my back porch.

Other fruit and vegetables such as Tiny Tom tomatoes and beans are grown in planters on the patio, while plants such as peppers, carrots, raspberries and strawberries are grown right in the garden beds among the flowers.

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Now wouldn’t a nice bowl of fresh raspberries be great right now?

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