Look At Our Spiffy New Back Yard!

The Gardens by Gabriel team dropped by yesterday to finish off their landscaping work. They began in June last year, and look at the transformation!

Here’s what it looked like last year.We love our new deck. The boards are Ipe, a sustainably harvested Brazilian hardwood that resembles mahogany and is incredibly durable.And look at the fabulous C. Jeré mid-century outdoor art that Chuck found on Ebay. Jeré pieces were mass produced throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, and they’ve become fashionable all over again.

 This gorgeous piece isn’t a Jeré, but it’s still period-appropriate. We got the idea for the wall art from staying at the Hideaway in Palm Springs…And now we have a little Palm Springs flair in Pismo Beach!

Light Up The Night

Now that the inside of our house is done, we’re finishing the backyard. I’m really excited about having a useable space where we can enjoy outdoor living year round. We’re putting in a new deck, plantings, hardscape, and one of the essential, but often overlooked touches: landscape lighting. Proper lighting can completely transform a space after dark, making it seem warm and inviting. Our new LED lights from FX Luminaire will look fantastic.

Photo from FX Luminaire website, not our backyard

These are architectural-grade lights meant for professional installation, not do-it-yourselfers. You can’t find them at big-box stores. A few years ago at a different house we bought the cheap DIY lights and put them in ourselves. They worked OK for a while, but pretty soon the seams showed. Lights would go out if you stepped on the ground in the wrong place, my amateur wire splices burned up with alarming frequency leaving a scary mess of molten plastic, and we always had to keep a supply of halogen bulbs on hand since they constantly burned out. I’m looking forward to years of hassle-free outdoor living with this new system.