inspiration for decor

I hope you are enjoying turkey, pumpkin pie, family, and friends this lovely Fall weekend.

(image: via Pinterest)

My summer started out with grand plans to decorate our condo balcony.  If you recall, I pulled together a few great options for patio furniture and outdoor rugs (see full post on prepping the patio for Summer 2011 here).

I really wish I could tell you our balcony patio now looks all city chic and cozy like one of these:

But because I was so  eager to find the perfect combo of outdoor furniture, I forgot about the reality of our balcony: we have a really crummy view and the construction happening all around us leaves a lovely layer of dust and dirt  EVERYWHERE.

Yeah. Not the prettiest view. So in the end, we decided not purchase new patio furniture this year and instead, work with what what already had – an old wooden bistro set. Thanks to my Mom, who found some amazing decor items at the dollar store (like chair pads and orange quatrefoil plates!), here’s what our balcony patio is looking like:

It’ll do. BIG plans for next year though.

BTW – if your outdoor space needs some TLC now is the time to do it!  IKEA, Crate & Barrel, West Elm, Restoration Hardware, and tons of other retailers all have their summer stuff on sale now. Shop it up.

(images: 1-me, 2-marion house book, 3-lonny mag, 4-rue mag, 5&6-me)

Happy long weekend everyone! I hope you are kicking back and enjoying the sunshine; I know I am…

Throw open those windows.

(images: 1-remodelista, 2-dwellings)

I am going to ignore the fact that there was snow on the ground yesterday morning. La la la la la. It didn’t happen.

It’s time to start planning for summer 2011!  Our condo balcony has space for exactly two medium size chairs and one side table -small but just enough room to sit out on a warm summer night to watch the sunset and have a glass of wine.  I’ve been scouring the internet for an affordable but stylish set available in Canada (sigh, the selection is so much better in the US), but I came up empty-handed because all ‘sets’ are very traditional and usually pretty ugly.  So instead, I did some picking and choosing from a few different sources and came up with three options.

There is a fairly big price difference between these sets but before you look at the prices, what do you think?

Option 1: $647.00 CAD

(1) Outdoor rug by Martha Stewart available at Home Depot, $119 CAD, (2) Garden stool available at Target, $169.99 USD (this will require a trip over to Buffalo), (3) Mojito rocker by CB2, $179 CAD (we don’t have a store yet but CB2 now ships to Canada!)

Option 2: $349.95 CAD

(1) Outdoor casbah rug by CB2, $ 99.95 CAD, (2) Nordano armchair by IKEA, $85.00 CAD, (3) Stool/table by Tikki Offi available at Modern Karibou, $79.99 CAD

Option 3: $758.00 CAD

(1) Linear outdoor rug available at Costco, $79.99 CAD, (2) Sawyer chair by CB2, $299.99 CAD, (3) Stool/table by Tikki Offi available at Modern Karibou, $79.99 CAD

Which would you choose?