Ah yes, we can certainly appreciate impromptu, but correct and recyclable wine storage. Putting one together on the spot would be a great ice-breaker at a party to hold everyone's wine contributions, but then again, an intimate get-together with that amount of wine may not have much ice to break.
We've been on record to appreciate color for color's sake outdoors, and this yellow patio wall tickles our fancy. This is obviously a serious architectural feature of a highly designed residence, but there are plenty of low-end ways to get a similarly color-saturated space.
Our indoor and outdoor planters and vases might match, but that's simply because they're standard terra cotta you can get anywhere. We've enjoyed Melissa Borrell's etched glass lighting, and thought these planters — and matching vases, if you please — were an interesting addition to her collection.
It's got all the features of a modern patio, without the small detail of the outdoor part: the indoor patio at Seattle's Ace Hotel. Check it out after the jump...
Not that we've had a bad word to say about corrugated steel in the past, but this use of it is more impressive than we ever expected of the material. Who knew? (Check out the before photo after the jump).
Score! We love those tiny little glass jars of jam and honey we get in restaurants sometimes, and never tire of thinking of ways to reuse them. This idea for turning them into longer-lasting, brighter and cleaner-burning votives hadn't occurred to us, but we're intrigued.
We've seen, and loved, plenty of verdant patios with lush, overflowing container gardens. But that's not the only game in town; this spare outdoor space can also be an oasis of calm, with only one or two potted friends.
As we have made no attempt to keep secret, terrariums are an inexhaustible delight to us. The mini landscapes provided delicious fodder for weekend daydreams when we were little, as we're sure they'd continue to do, if only our days stayed as endless as they were back then. But this particular terrarium is also literally delicious.
It doesn't take a huge stretch of the imagination to consider that rooms designed to get humans clean can be mutually beneficial to plants — the right plants in a steamy, well-lit bathroom do very well. So it comes as no surprise that an outdoor shower and a container garden is a match made in heaven.
A patio garden that's just starting out can look a little scraggly, but benefits of greenery, visual pleasure and sometimes food make it well worth it. And as this garden demonstrates, it doesn't take long for foliage to fill out. Check out the garden above a mere two months later...
There are so many shelving options out there, from Ikea components to vintage systems, and on up the price and quality spectrum. But shelving is also notoriously (and bafflingly) difficult to get just right out-of-the-box, perhaps explaining why custom and built-in shelving are such popular indulgences.
Outdoor artwork is an intriguing idea to us; our inside artwork is often geared towards bringing the outside in, so what's the point if you're already outside? But if these shadow boxes are easy to open and close, they could be a cute way to instantly display shells, rocks and glass from the beach, for example.
"Stained glass" is a bit of a misnomer for this window project, one of more than a few neat ideas in an eco-friedly renovated loft in Milan. Rows of jars filled with dyed water in a deep window frame make a colorful accent, one that would be super easy to recreate almost anywhere.
These days we've been combing the internet for examples of people who have used apartment patios to create outdoor living spaces and gardens. But this picture reminds us that not even a patio is needed to cultivate a bright spot of colorful flora.
We're having a barbecue at a public park by the lake this weekend, and a little bonfire action is definitely going to be part of it. This portable fire pit is a bit more rockin' than we had in mind, but it's certainly awesome.
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