First Up - My Dream Outdoor Space

Apparently there's a guy - Jamie Durie - who has a show on HGTV called The Outdoor Room. I really didn't need to know that. If there's anything I could be addicted to, it's HGTV. I haven't watched TV (other than the occasional late Saturday night Criminal Minds re-run) for well over 2 years. But now that I work from home, it's just not right that I should discover a show on how to create something I've wanted since we were able to buy a house of our own ... an Outdoor Room.

So I chose the article about how Jamie Durie can advise me on creating the perfect Outer Sanctum in the September 2011 issue of Better Homes and Gardens as my Project "Good Advice" 1st try.

"Jamie encourages everyone who has a small patch of earth - or even just a patio or deck - to re-imagine their exterior environment as a functional, eco-friendly living space."

OK … Here's what I recently tore out of a magazine as my OMG-I-Want-That outdoor space.

Nice, huh?

Jamie’s featured space in BH&G is also quite nice.  I was particularly interested in the pictures of his “green roof” pergolas.  He made planter boxes at the top of the pergolas to hold plants of all sorts, that beautifully, elegantly and naturally hang/sprout/blossom around the edges of the roof.

Well, I think I have this one nailed.  I don’t even need to read how to do it, ‘cause we already have that going on.  See that, at the top of our roofline?  It’s vegetation my friends.

Yep, we are avant-garde at our house, and now boast an eco-friendly, green roof of our very own.  So it’s a little brown now, and I’m pretty sure that what’s growing in the gutter isn’t supposed to, but I interpret this as a start to my new and improved outdoor space.  Whaddya think?
We are constantly trying to re-imagine our spaces.  We’ve been in home improvement mode since 1998. These last 2 years we have been outdoor focused.  Taking out a crumbled and broken old driveway, expanding and re-paving it, and slowly (for real – very slowly) have been reconstructing our front space to include little luxuries such as steps and walkways.

How close are we to getting my dream outdoor space?

Yeah … even my favorite tree just up and died this summer waiting for this to get finished.

When Mr Durie tells me to grow a green wall, I’m pretty sure he isn’t thinking NW Moss.  Or to get comfortable and set out a day bed with soft luxurious cushions as a must-have, we’d be talking moving furniture out of the house or garage for about 10 (non-consecutive) days out of the year (the rest of the year it would just take up space we don’t have). Or to add fire as a sensual element, but comes with a huge caveat: not if you own any of these!

I remind myself that he lives in sunny southern California, is a TV Host who can write off his hobby as business deduction and was born with wicked creativity and imagination – none of which are part of my particular situation at this time (and unlikely to be in the future).

Here’s my take away though:  our spaces should accommodate our life, not the other way around.  I will work on that piece of advice for all the projects we undertake.

And if anyone knows Jamie, tell him to stop by … and lend some much needed specific advice I can really hang a flower basket on.

Cheers!

Let Project "Good Advice" Begin

Like thousands of others, I love to read. As a kid, I devoured books. I'd read in the morning; while making/burning lunch for my family (we lived in Europe where our school lunch breaks were 2 hours long at which point we ate our main meal of the day – more than once my reading resulted in charred meats and inedible food); at night with a flashlight under the covers; in the car; on hikes in the Alps ... pretty much everywhere and anytime. That is, up to the time when I transferred into an American High School after moving to the States. Having to make friends, adjust to American living, schoolwork and a job left little time for pleasure reading. Even less once I started college and held 2-3 jobs simultaneously to pay for it. With responsibilities and loans to pay back after graduation, jobs and my own business became my obsessions, my ambitions, serious business ... no time for childish whims or activities, like reading books that weren't, you know, serious business.

But like any "addict", I found myself needing a reading fix and my love of magazines was born. With little time for lengthy books and unable to shoulder the guilt of, god forbid, indulging in a novel, the magazine article became my perfect mental holiday.  So it has been for the last few decades that my apartments, offices and now house are littered with a variety of magazines, many that I can’t part with even after reading cover to cover.  There always seems to be some nugget of wisdom I’m meant to absorb and fold into my life.  As a chronic malcontent, I am lured by the promises each cover of Self, O, Shape, Fast Company or Entrepreneur make to me each month.  They tell me there is a better way, a better life just waiting for me just inside the front cover. 

Well, because I’ve now invested a small fortune in subscriptions and considerable time and space to my beloveds, I’ve decided that maybe it’s time to put some of that good advice to work.  Can I actually live a balanced, fabulous, healthy, beautiful, delicious, organized, inspired, wealthy life just by taking the counsel offered so readily month after month?

I am challenging myself: starting with four September issues, I will attempt to apply the guidance proffered in these magazines and track my balanced life quotient.  And I will blog about my experiment.  I can tell, even as I write this, that I may be setting myself up for failure.  Reading the words is so much easier than actually doing things to tangibly improve my life, but to add the writing about the process … uh, yeah … well I can only try my best.

Just so I can come back to this post in about a week or so and understand what the heck I was thinking, my purpose in doing this is to gradually improve my life and inch towards happiness, contentment, satisfaction, fulfillment.  For my practical self, it’s to finally make use of the investment of time and money into these product-mongering publications.  And to be totally honest, it is practice for what’s coming up in my new business venture and the blog, newsletters, articles, products, reports that I have committed to putting out there for people to avail themselves of to improve their lives and their small businesses.

I’m already late in the game since the October issues are pouring in, but to stay true to my idea, I will start with my favorites in the September issues of Self, O, Prevention and Better Homes & Gardens.  September is my mental new year, the time when I try to get clear on my intentions and take actions to move them forward.  It’s my renewal time in a way.  I know that for many people Spring is renewal, but Fall for me tends to be ‘buckle-down’ time, ‘get-productive-and-get-‘er-done’ time, a relic of my school training and habits formed early on and drilled throughout my academic career.

I don’t think there’s anything in this month’s issues that says drink after you post on your blog, but I may start my own first tradition and pour some bubbly to celebrate.  Cheers!!