After all the beautiful pictures I’m feeling like I need to clean up my outdoor spaces. My tables are dirty, the chairs aren’t all in line. The cushions need a vacuuming. I have one chaise cushion that needs sewing or to be replaced.
This is all gorgeous and so inviting! Do you use the fireplace much?
But that plant - love,love,love! Will it flower? Almost looks like it has little buds.
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We don’t use the fireplace as much as we should but it’s really nice when the evening temperature is in the 60s (which it has been these past couple of weeks).
That big succulent pot was something my son put together for my mother several years ago. When she passed away I appropriated it for my own patio. It didn’t used to be so full (it’s on the left in the photo below). It just keeps generating new little plants. It does have tiny flowers now and then.
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We added the porch in 2008 and it is my favorite room in the house. DH and I shared the gardening before he passed — and I’ve tried to keep up ever since. Most of the flowers are perennials.
We have lots of herbs (lemon thyme, chives, rosemary, mint, basil, parsley) and soon the tomato plants will go in (probably 3-5 this year). Zinnias from seed (so easy!) That’s a fig in the pot — it winters over but won’t ever do much. I want to put a bigger pot with geraniums in that spot this year.
There’s a table for six on the porch, with two more chairs and a side table. Toward the back is a gas grill that I use all year long.
The house sits sideways on the lot and this is the view from the street, but there are two other groupings of shrubs that block most of the view from the street. Walkers can “see” for only 3-4 of their walking steps.
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This was our weekend home on a lake when the kids were little. When I bought the house, it had a small porch. I always wanted a house with a wrap around porch. I guess I went overboard with 3 levels deck. On the side, the house looks like a ship.
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Wow—I’m in awe! Everyone has such lovely outdoor spaces! Ours is much more modest but we actually are mostly indoors.
I’m going to come back to this thread to post pictures in about six weeks when everything is finally in bloom (and after DH and I have finally assembled that damn couch).
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@abasket - Would you consider a gas firepit? We like ours very much. Part of the appeal was less concerns about sparks from wood fire in our dry/fireprone area. But it’s also nice that it is so quick to start/end a fire pit session. Used it a lot during covid when a bit nippy for outdoor entertaining, cocktails easy to set on the ledges. Extra bonus is we always have spare propane for the grill.
This is same (or similar) to ours - $270. From our local store, but probably they are available many places.
https://www.mcguckin.com/2840882/product/living-accents-srgf11626b
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That is nice looking!
I think we’d still prefer a wood fire pit -
Literally for practical purpose of collecting (plenty) of sticks and branches that fall in the yard for occasional fires. I actually LOVE making a small fire.
I actually saw a “premade” one at Costco last week that I liked quite a bit . A Tiki brand one:
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Certainly my family has had many a nice evening around wood fire while camping. (Though is recent years, it’s often prohibited due to fire risk.) I’ve joked that when my husband and I are dead and gone, it will be the “fire stick” the kids will fight over… it’s just an old aluminum tent pole we found abandoned in a campsite… carried it around in the camper for years, stashed it in basement when we sold the camper.
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The burn bans here in the PNW start earlier every year. We have a wood burning fire pit that my husband put together, but when we’d most likely use it, we can’t. If it doesn’t rain on memorial day weekend, we light it up. The rest of the summer it’s the gas fire on the deck.
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Our friends fired up their “fire stump” aka Solo Stove last weekend. Their next door neighbor, a crazy busy lady called 911 to report “illegal burning.” Yikes 
. The firemen who showed up at their house said there was nothing illegal about using a Solo Stove but politely declined invitation to join them for snacks and drinks around the fire.
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Tiki is good. Solo Stove rocks, too. We gave one to our friends as a Christmas gift (see my post above). They love it.
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Yes I think the Tiki concept is similar to Solo. I just liked the looks of the Tiki for our setting an where we would put it. The inner burn part is gold rather than silver.
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Fire pits rust out quickly in our climate. Keeping them covered is a PITA and the covers are typically good for at most a few years.
Sometimes it’s best to think outside the box. We’re using a very heavy gauge piece of steel that was designed for something completely different and 10 years later, it’s still holding up great.
I bet no one can identify it’s original purpose
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Like @BunsenBurner, we went to Canada for our railings. We didn’t want a top rail occluding our view, and these posts are easier to find in Canada.
I don’t know why they’re harder to find in the US; it isn’t due to a difference in building code, as they comply with the International Building Code, which is the basis for US codes.
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My first thought was some kind of wok, and poi popped into my mind.
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I like the way you’re thinking, but no. For a sense of scale, it’s 1/4” thick and 3 feet in diameter, and I’m guessing it weighs 40-50 pounds.
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Bottom of a propane tank? Am I close?
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We have a winner!
Just for fun I’ve asked many visitors to guess what it is. This is the first time it’s been correctly identified.
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