Outdoor Kitchens and Reality TV

I finally got home early one day. It was five o'clock and that meant I would get to watch my favorite show, The People's Court. Since I started working again, I've missed getting my half-assed TV law degree, unaccredited, of course, and wanted to see if there were any new precedents I was missing. So I watched the show, keep your dog on a leash, verbal agreements count, and don't sell a car to a minor, and then after did what most lazy people do, I stayed in bed and channel surfed. I haven't watched live TV in awhile so I was just looking to see if I was missing out. I found something called "Unusually Thicke" starring Alan Thicke and the rest of his guh-ross clan. It was so off-putting, it gave me PTSD's. Why is he so mean to his wife? You can tell even she is like, "Wait-what?!" I watched, like, five minutes and then flipped over to anything else. Which happened to be HGTV. HGTV and The Food Network both have a tendency to lull me into complacency. Their programming is so benign, I can sit and stare and not move for hours. And that is how I ended up watching House Hunters International: Nicaragua.

Thanks to Rick Bayless's brilliant show, Mexico: One Plate at a Time, I have decided to retire in Baja California, Mexico. Because gorgeous. But if you have a show with ANY Latin American country, I stop and watch like I'm gettin' paid. And here's the thing I love about Nicaragua, and more specifically Granada, they have outdoor kitchens and it's the norm! Like no one said, in a whiney American accent, "Ugh, why is the kitchen outside?!" She was all, yep, gorgeous, love the space. And I was all, Nicaragua, ehhh?

The pic above and the one below are from homes in Nicaragua. I think I found them on home rental sites. It was hard to find photos of real outdoor kitchens, mostly I found new builds, which are way boring.

Also, that episode inspired me to work on designing my outdoor kitchen. We have no air conditioning in our kitchen and in the summer it's silly to turn on the oven to heat up a pizza for 12 minutes.

Finding smaller, interesting kitchens was hard. Most of them were giant stone monstrosities with the same square footage as my house. I like this one because of the warm wood that was used.

Another tiny one with brick and a fireplace. I will always be attracted to the ones with the string lights.

Traditional Patio by Englewood Architects & Designers Godden Sudik Architects Inc

A small cement grill area with pergola. Simple and small enough for my yard.

Traditional Patio by Novato Landscape Architects & Landscape Designers Derviss Design

More wood! And a tiny deck. And string lights!

Contemporary Deck by Brooklyn Landscape Architects & Landscape Designers New Eco Landscapes

This one was very much my style. Lots of color and found furniture and materials.

Modern Patio by Other Metro Photographers Marco Antunio

This outdoor kitchen is stunning! I almost didn't post it because it's quite large and requires an architects eye. But the kitchen is actually small and the mirror above the prep area is genius!

Contemporary Patio by San Francisco Architects & Designers SB Architects

So here's where we veer off course. This kitchen is so lovely, but waaaaay out of my budget. The sliding window and door would probably not be cheap. But its so incredibly creative and bright!

Contemporary Porch by Sydney Architects & Designers Danny Broe Architect

Aaaaand we're back! Purple wabi-sabi house with a tiny kitchen. This would make me so happy!

This outdoor kitchen is actually pretty close to what I want. Grill, sink, pizza oven and all in a small amount of space. And who wouldn't want that bright yellow oven?!

This one is so simple and chic, I am in love!

Another space with the sliding doors. But how amazing would that be?! To wake up on a Sunday morning and open the doors and make pancakes?!

I think this outdoor kitchen is in Spain. But I also think it's from a rental. So it's inspiring both design and travel-wise! Also, I love white appliances.

Here's another little guy, no cooking surface, but still, lovely and small and adds a lot of fancy to a backyard.

Now, one more, before I go. More sliding doors, but is that a hot tub? I love the color scheme in this one, wood and black and white, and the tiny pool. I would love something like that, small and kind of shallow for my boys to play in.

I think searching for all these pretty spaces has nearly wiped my memory of any type of gross reality show that may have tried to infiltrate my brain. And, hopefully, moving to Nicaragua will keep them away from me forever!

Pics are either from Houzz and clickable or on my Outdoor pinboard on Pinterest.

I love my crazy backyard. My tiny, crazy backyard. It makes no sense and it looks thrown together by a maniac who's sniffed and sprayed too much paint, but I think that's why I like it.

I can't grow plants. Most start to wilt as I walk in their direction, but for some reason everything grows. I like things to be perfectly spaced and level, and nothing is straight or level. Even the birdbath tilts. I love all kinds of pottery, especially outdoor pottery, but most of the containers are random thrifted items, repurposed for my purposes, i.e. the duck pitcher, the foo dog bookend, the ice bucket, and the random filing cabinet parts. Even the birdbath is made up of pieces purchased years apart that somehow work together in this garden.

And, best of all, it's boy and dog proof. Most of the plants are succulents and get broken off with abandon, only to replant themselves in an even better spot. Sometimes toys even make their way into the garden and take up permanent residency.

Because I love the color and the spirit of the garden, I would love to be able to sit outside. And read. Or nap. But it's so small. And there is no cover. And I can literally have full conversations with my neighbor who lives behind me because her house butts up against our fence. So aside from the full sun, the small space, and the "Hi, Diane!" thing, it would be a perfect place to build a respite spot.

That'll be my next project, figuring out how to spend more time in a place I like. Maybe something a little like ziss:

Goin' Down the Bayou

I've been sort of "off" in my crafty-osity lately. Like, a lot.

For example:

Somehow, in my head, painting the firescreen with high temperature paint in an amazing color was far awesomer than in reality.

But, wait! There's more! Before I decided to go blue, I went orange!

Did you think it couldn't be worse than the blue? My new theory is that the screen needs to be either dark or light, but no medium tones. Like maybe a navy would be better? Maybe.

So that happened and I still haven't painted it back to black again. And it knocked me on my creative keister.

Yesterday, I had another idea that may or may not be awesome. But it was cheap. So I went for it.

At the thrift store I saw a bunch of cheap-o vases in lots of colors. Together they looked pretty cool. See:

They were all less than $2 each. They reminded me of something I had just seen at Disneyland. In the French Quarter section, hanging off the balcony was a series of colorful bottles with twinkle lights tucked inside. I made a mental note to keep my eyes peeled for things I could use to eventually create that in my backyard.

And then, there I was, at the thrift store lookin' right at them. Except that instead of twinkle lights, I decided upon the solar landscaping lights.

A year or so ago I made one of those ubiquitous ball jar sun lamp things. And it worked just fine. Except that my kids opened it and rain got in and I eventually threw it away. But I knew the process.

This is a little different. You need:
Colorful Vases (or you could use that mod podge method of coloring your own)

Clear silicone

Solar landscape lights

I took the lamp part off the body and placed it on the top of the vase. Most of them rested just inside the vase and one was a little too small. I could've bought a bigger lamp, as they come in a few different sizes. But I just put a ring of clear silicone around the narrowest spot, waited for it to dry and used that as a ledge to hold the lamp in place. Then I siliconed around the fixture to both hold it in place and to keep water out of the vase.


Here they are in daytime in my yard:

And

The pink one on the far left is a little weird in daytime, but at night, you can't see the solar deal so it all works out.


Here is the best pic I could get of my yard at night:

The green and blue lights are the brightest. But they all look really pretty and colorful.

I think I need more, lots more. 

Edited to add: The day after I put them out, it rained! Whatevs, southern California! I noticed that the solar panel on my particular lamps tends to let water into the containers. So maybe a small bead of silicone around where the solar panel fits into the metal housing? I'm gonna fix it right after morning drop-off today! 

Show and Tell Friday on My Romantic Home

 The Shabby Creek Cottage

The Thrift Home

Someday Crafts









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