It's romantic until you're ripping the pool out

This backyard of event planner Walter Hubert, featured in the LA Times, is so lush and romantic. We have a multi-level yard so I was particularly interested in the large bushes that they have overflowing the lower wall. They are just perfect.


And that Eucalyptus tree? So fantastic. And romantic. Imagine it draped with dangling white lights for an evening soiree. Then reality set in pretty quickly. Isn't it a little close to the pool?

This could very quickly turn from a romantic backyard to one filled with strife. "We bought the house for the beautiful tree. Now we're ripping it out and building a whole new pool". Isn't home ownership fun?

One year later

The majority of our landscaping went in exactly one year ago today. It's amazing how it has grown in, so much so that I can't wait to see what another year will do. Our landscapers, Vigoro Nursery, have been wonderful to work with.

Here are the original photos from that day. And here we are today...






It has been a real treat seeing everything come in. There's always something new that surprises us. I'm beginning to learn that there's nothing like enjoying your garden.

Getting inspiration from a new source

One of the best advantages of our homesite is that it faces east. This means that we are regularly treated with gorgeous sunrises. Now, I'm not a morning girl and I grew up on the West Coast...so I always appreciated sunsets. But things are changing. I regularly open one eye at 5:30 to take in the daily spectacular show...and then promptly go back to sleep, storing the image in my memory for half a second.

A friend from school visited recently and she actually took the initiative to get a picture of the sunrise one morning. Why didn't I think of that?!? (Probably because there's zilch going on in my brain at that time of the day).

So just how pretty are these sunrises? I finally dragged my groggy head out of bed to capture one for you all.


So there you have it. This is a standard Cayman morning, which is pretty darn impressive. This whole morning thing might just grow on me. Might.

For family and friends

Okay, okay, I'll stop posting inspiration pics and put a few photos of our place up. I suppose that is what this site was intended for anyway.


This morning we had a lovely 7am walk with Jordan and Mr. Big's dad who is visiting. (Yes, you read that correctly, Mrs. Big was up at 7am on a Saturday...and I wasn't even grumpy. What is this world coming to?) After a few weeks of unusually cold weather (68 degrees!), it was a beautiful morning of clear skies and a slight breeze. Perfect for a few moments to appreciate how the house has taken shape.

But first, Jordan would like to say hello.

Hey mom, could say hi to everyone for me? I'll be extra good if they send their loves.

And show them how I like to find big sticks and run with them these days. Here I come!

So back to the regular broadcasting. The back of the house is taking shape. All of the painting has been completed except for the pavilion. Speaking of the pavilion, the Big Ass Fan has been installed and the ceiling stained dark. Now we're just waiting on the arrival of the doors before the exterior and interior walls will be completed. Mr. Big's barbeque space is taking shape inside and soon the island will be built.

The famous Big Ass Fan. This baby moves A LOT of air.

The walls will be painted white and be textured like stone.
Similar to our front door entrance here.

The barbeque pit with the BigGreen Egg and all.
Same stone used here as our interior stone wall.

In the meantime, our outdoor dining area is getting a lot of use. And surprise, surprise, my favorite Panton chairs have made an appearance outdoors. I'm probably the only one who uses them (or likes them), but hey, it's my house too.

The dock has been stained and is just awaiting the final coat. We've used some of the left over wood from the pavilion ceiling to build storage benches for boating supplies. It will get completed and stained soon.


My grandfather had the best idea for these large walls...allow colorful bouganvilla vines to grow down them. I'm looking forward to starting that and getting a few large pots on the dock. I'm turning into a green fiend!

The rest of the garden is really starting to fill in nicely. It's amazing to see how far the side yard has come in the last seven months since it was planted.

No question that we live in the Caribbean.
The palms are coming in nicely.

The side yard now has more green that brown. A triumph!

Love this full covering used by the landscapers.
Apparently so does Jordan...we regularly find two eyes peaking out at us under this coconut palm.

The back of the garage taking hold.

The landscaping over our unattractive gas tank.

And finally, Mr. Big recently fell in love with this outdoor set. After a fair bit of negotiation, it found it's way home onto our deck. We have been spending lots of time in these chairs lately.


It's nice to end the day enjoying a drink out here. But I must admit, I've had to back off the drinks lately. I don't think Mr. Big's vision of the house included a wife with a beer belly....

Hope you all enjoyed the update!

Hammock time

We spent our holiday in Puerto Vallarta with my parents, brother, sister-in-law, and her parents. We had a lovely time full of sailing, whale watching, golfing, shopping, tequila tasting, and pretty much everything else that you can get up to in Mexico.

One morning, Mr. Big and I ventured into town with my parents via water taxi. Just to get you in the mood for this post, I thought you might want a little taste of the ride.

Yes, it really was that pretty....

Once we reached town, I peered over into the garden of one of the hotels and immediately fell in love with their hammocks...of all things.


Aren't these beautiful? The lacy sides are unique and slightly romantic set off against the green lawn. (Although the front one doesn't seem like it would be all that comfortable once you got in...with your bum on the ground and all).

Well, I'm sure that you can imagine what happened next...Mr. Big had to put up with my hunt for the perfect "lacy" hammock through the markets. At the end of the day, we ended up with a beauty for around $88. I cannot wait to get it up.


But don't fret, Mr. Big didn't miss his special find of the day. Although his was a bit less expensive ($2), equally as authentic (also purchased from a street vendor), it was easier to manuever with (gone instantly).


Yes, you can purchase marlin and shrimp on a stick for $2 (check out the size of the fillets he uses for each one...unbelievable). Mr. Big and my parents swore by it. I may be able to recreate the hammock, but odds are stacked against me on the fish-on-a-stick find. :)

Not so traditional house plants

Anyone else looking for houseplants, but not really the traditional house plants? Something a bit different, fresh?

Very simple and crisp against a neutral background via Another Shade of Grey

A modern planter by Great Nordic Design

Photo styled by Louisa Grey (reminds me how much I love paperwhites)

Aluminum pots from Chiasso

And while this is for outdoors, Apartment Therapy has a great DIY bench that could easily bring some green onto patios that need more color.


Any other other ideas or inspirations out there would be much appreciated.

Garden shots...side yard

My mom is probably out there swearing at her Iphone. "She promised that she would post pictures of the garden!" I've been working off the wrong computer, so they're only coming now (someday I will learn how to set up these mac networks...).

Some of you might remember that we had a wee storm the day after our garden went in...


...but fortunately, we've recovered pretty well. Excuse the ugly chain link fence (the oleanders should cover it by next year), but we've actually got some green in the side yard. If you were to look closely, you might see that there are more weeds that proper tufts of grass. But hey, they're green and why split hairs. :)

View from the side street

There is a fair bit of growing to be done yet, but I'm loving the Queen Palms around our outdoor cabana. (And yes, those are unpainted walls that you are seeing. But of course, they can't be painted done we receive the doors, and ...well... we don't want to go all dark in this post. We've got unfinished walls.)

This is the view looking from the side of the cabana back to the house. We were fortunate to get two beautiful pale lavender bougainvillea for either side of the kitchen window (check out all the blossoms on those puppies). The long term objective is to install a lattice system and grow them up the wall.


This is the area behind the garage. Ironically, it's developing really beautifully. Bummer that we can't see it all that well from the house. And yes, the painter will finish those faux windows when he comes back for the bare walls. (Deep breaths in).


Because we used gas water heaters, we needed a tank somewhere in our yard. The landscaper came up with this rock garden to cover the tank. It's unusual and I suppose that it will work. For the life of me, I can't recall why we decided to put the tank in the middle of the yard. I'm just hoping that we might be able to find something a bit more attractive than the yellow-spider-looking plants for the rock garden.


And to finish on a fun note, Mr. Big loves cooking with fresh herbs, which we've been growing in pots over the past few months. The herb garden's final home is now in tact. This little area outside the dining room doors should make for a fragrant little garden for us.


Well, that is if we can convince Jordan that we didn't build this as a special sleeping spot for him. He loves curling up in here. Hopefully he'll learn once it's planted, but we're being realistic...maybe it wouldn't be a bad sleeping spot for him after all.

Smells like school spirit

I know, I know...it's "teen spirit" in the song, but it fits this little story.

The first time Mr. Big and I watched a college football game together, he teased me that I was only watching to see the players run around in tight pants. (No doubt that my friends are either holding their breath or peeing themselves laughing at this point in the story). Boy was he ever in for a show. I scream at the television, call plays and fouls, follow practice reports, spend ridiculous amounts of hours on where high school kids decide to go to college. I'm nuts...and I can't do a single thing to deny it. Don't ask me why or how, but I was always big on the school spirit thing. Always.

At my high school graduation, I was planning to attend University of Washington and my sweet mom surprised me with a garden full of purple and gold flowers. A few months later when my plans changed and I enrolled at USC, my mom quickly had that garden teeming with cardinal and gold. Teeming. And yes, these are the types of things that I love.

When it came to our yard, we pretty much gave our landscaper full authority to do as he pleased. Image my utter amazement when the main planter bloomed....full of cardinal and gold!


When I first saw the blooms, I lost my breath...it was like my mom's garden all over. And in my favorite flower..have you ever seen a cardinal bouganvilla? Me neither! My mom and Mr. Big swear that it was purely chance. How ironic that this planter is just outside the pavilion, where we anticipate spending most Saturdays watching college football. LOVE IT!


Meanwhile, so does Jordan. Apparently these shady planters are a perfect way to cool down.


As long as his digging is truly behind us (or he doesn't doesn't touch my "Doheny" flower bed), we should be able to live in harmony. Probably not in his best interest to test how I respond to opponents... :)

We will survive...I think

We need to have Gloria Gaynor singing her famous anthem throughout the house at the moment.

We've patiently (or at least we believe patiently) been waiting for our construction zone to be taken over by landscaping since December. For the last month, we've been teetering on the edge of completion. We had such anticipation. The final steps! Each day we've eagerly run home...only to find various elements stacked against us...human, animal, and mother nature.

We've must run the gamut by now. I can't imagine anything else that can pop up, but then again, we don't really want to tempt fate. We will survive right?

1. First off, the back and side yard could not be completed until the final color was put on the house. The final color could not be put on until an overseas shipment arrived and the remaining stone tiles were laid. The stone tiles could not be laid until the contractor purchased thin set. And the thin set could not be purchased until funds came in from another job that the contractor is working on.

Wow. Does that make your head go in circles? All of this to get a few grass plugs in. Believe it or not, everything finally came to conclusion a week ago. Yeah...we were ready to start the yard!

2. The yard started on Monday and everything was progressing beautifully. Tuesday we notice that Jordan likes to lie in some of the plants (tolerable at this point). Wednesday morning Jordan dug through an entire pile of fill (should have expected it...he gets a stern reaction). Thursday Jordan pulled 1 of every 2 plants out of their beds (discipline now in full effect...Caesar style). Friday the landscapers voice their concern that the dog might undo a lot of their hard work (you think?)

The dog was back in his kennel and a plan on how to slowly (and responsibly) introduce him to the yard was developing. Things are looking up.

Yesterday morning the last tree and all grass plugs went in. The landscaping looked beautiful. We had gone from construction site to home site. I plan to take pretty photos for the blog first thing Sunday morning. Success!

3. Not quite. Last night at 2am Tropical Storm Dolly rolls through. Wait, this babe wasn't even a tropical depression yesterday! Daylight brings a rather bleak view of just how strong this storm was (and will continue to be).


We slowly turn to look out over our day-old yard. Ugh. What a bummer.


It's completely flooded. All the top soil that we purchased last week is running down the street into the canal. Fab. Talk about $ down the drain. As the rain lets up, we can gauge the impact a bit better.


The good news is that it can all be fixed. And we're not that far off from final completion...once again. The three strikes have hit so we must be done now. We will survive.

With that being said, entertaining comments on the humor of the situation are welcome. Ours are building over a bottle of wine. :)