I worked on about three different outdoor projects yesterday, but one took me less than an hour (probably closer to 30 minutes) and I think it made a huge difference. I added a little sparkle to my workshop’s plain garage door.
This was the view of my workshop from the back door of my studio. I love the view from the front of the workshop, but unfortunately I can’t see this beautiful view from the studio. I just see this big, white, plain garage door.
And every time I pull into the driveway I can at least see the cute back of the workshop, but the big garage door still needs so much attention.
A while ago I purchased these magnetic faux hinges and handles (affiliate link) that give a garage door the look of carriage doors. I put them on and I liked the accents, but in my opinion they didn’t make sense. Carriage doors open from the center and swing like a door, but it’s obvious that my garage door is just a single, solid garage door. So the handles in the middle didn’t make sense, and the hinges didn’t make sense.
But I like the black accents. These go well with the black accents on the shutters, so I really wanted to use them. So I decided to throw caution to the wind and paint a tiny stripe down the middle of my garage door, hoping to give the impression at first glance that the one garage door was actually split down the middle. I used black oil paint for this.
It’s a tiny detail, and it’s much harder to see in tiny pictures than in real life, but it was the detail my brain needed to make sense of the hinges and handles.
I really wish I could somehow artificially manipulate the top four squares to make them look like windows, but I tried that about a year ago and they are just way too close to the top frame to make them look real. But that’s okay. I am grateful for what I have.
I still don’t think anyone could really be convinced that these are carriage doors, but I do think the black accents added just enough shine to the garage door for now. They’ve made it even better and now when I look out the back doors of my studio I’m no longer staring at a plain white garage door. Sometimes these little details can make a big difference.
At some point I still want to build a pergola over the garage door and grow real vines on it. And I also want to put a pretty light above the door. But until then I’m happy with this little upgrade.
And of course, landscaping has been on my mind lately. I want to build a walkway connecting the carport to the front steps of the workshop. On our landscape plan, the walkway should run from a concrete slab between the carport and the workshop to the front steps of the workshop.
But when I shared my thoughts with the landscape architect, I thought at the time that the workshop would be built at ground level on a concrete foundation. We chose a different option: the workshop was built on skids so that it was about a foot off the ground, and then the concrete connecting the carport to the workshop ended up being a ramp rather than a flat concrete slab. Now the placement of the sidewalk needs to be reworked a bit.
Now it needs to come off the side of the carport and lead to the front steps of the workshop. And unlike what is shown in the landscape plan, where the walkway meets the side of the front workshop entrance, the walkway must go in front of the steps. As I mentioned in a previous post, I really lean towards using crushed granite for any walkways I want to add. I think this would be most user friendly for Matt in his power wheelchair. It can glide over grass very easily, so I think it can handle crushed granite easily. And even if Matt would never use this particular path (he would of course use the ramp), I would like the paths to be made of the same material and for most of them to be accessible to him.
So I imagine this particular path would look something like this…
But then the question for me is what type of ground cover I want to use for the planting beds that remain between the path and ramp on this side and the area between the ramp and driveway and the area behind the workshop on the other side.
And this is really a question I struggle with with all the planting beds around our house. I can’t decide whether I want to cover them with pebbles or mulch and would like to hear your thoughts on this. I really love the idea of ​​pebbles. That’s the direction I’m heading in right now. But I’m completely out of my element with this outdoor landscaping. Interiors are my thing, so I feel very insecure about making firm decisions when it comes to landscaping.
So if any of you have experience using pebbles to cover your planting beds, I would love to hear your thoughts. Share the good, the bad and the ugly with me. Is it better to just stick with mulch? I guess I could use pebbles in some areas and mulch in others, but I’m not even sure how to make those decisions. I only have a vague idea of ​​what this is all supposed to look like, so I need some advice from those of you who have a lot more experience with landscaping and bed planting than I do.
UPDATE: Please excuse the ladder just lying in the middle of the grass. I took it out yesterday to work on a project and it was full of ants. So I threw it into the grass (well, weeds) and grabbed another ladder from the inside. I won’t tell you what project I worked on because I don’t want to give some of you that satisfaction. But my goodness, I never realized how many mothers I have. I always thought I only had one. But from the comments on recent posts it appears that I was completely wrong.
