I live in an apartment, but I have a patio area and when I’m entertaining, we always end up out front. I have set it up to be as garden-y as possible with lots of plants and two small seating areas. When the weather allows, I pull out a portable fire pit and we sit around the fire.

I found this Summer Living® Slate Party Bucket for about 50% off at Kohls. It’s portable, so perfect for the patio. When the weather changes and Winter arrives, it will be easy to store. It is 28 inches high and the insert is made of a lacquered copper. The frame is steel.

Fill the insert with ice and some Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, brewed down the road from me, and you are good to go. 

Image credit: Kohls.com

Post from: Blisstree

Summer Living Bargains

And this is our outdoor umbrella. We have searched high and low for this. MrG and I didn’t want an umbrella that you stick in the middle as we found that this blocks our view of our friends and family members during our conversations over our meals.

What I like about this is because the umbrella is quite big, the reach is quite wide as well and you can move the umbrella depending on where the sun is or sometimes we point it out on the lawn where we spread a lounge chair under it so I can….lounge about! LOL Very relaxing indeed!

What I don’t like about this umbrella though is that I feel that it could get swept any minute when there’s even a slight breeze outside. We were told to keep it secure, we should fill its base with water but we found in one of our meals on our outdoor table, the outdoor umbrella wasn’t that secure even with its base filled with water. So, we only use this on days when the sun is shining but the breeze isn’t that strong.

Post from: Blisstree

Outdoor Umbrellas, anyone?

One or two people can live in one of these homes; it’s obviously not really an appropriate large family home. This project of micro homes was first launched in Munich back in November 2005. It started as a case study village sponsored by O2 Germany. Below is a shot of the O2 project (students lived there).  The micro homes were clustered in a family-like setting.

Currently this slick project can be viewed at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; through October.

[images via [m-ch]]

Post from: Blisstree

The Micro Compact Home

Offbeat & outdoor showering fun!

I found these killer showers at Home Design Find. I think someone should build a tall offbeat home and put them in their bathroom.
Learn more about said showers.

I recently received an email from some nice person at HDF informing me of their blog. Being a sucker for homes (shocking) I headed over and saw these showers. I looked around some more, and although HDF is new, I’m going to recommend you check them out. They’ve got some cool offbeat stuff – some stuff we’ve seen here and some new. If HDF continues on with more of what they’ve already got going on, it should end up a pretty fun blog. I’ll be visiting again.

Visit HDF and let me know what you think.

[photos via HDF]

Post from: Blisstree

Best Showers Ever!