Pepper Design Blog

Curb Appeal: Outdoor Lighting Installation Complete

Remember how we started an outdoor landscape lighting project last week? Kevin and Rob (from Rob’s Electrical) finished up the installation and it looks so terrific! The house is a completely new house at night.

Let’s start at the beginning to get a better idea of where this yard began. Here’s our home five years ago just before we moved in, the only lighting outdoors included a lamp post (hidden there underneath that ivy bush in the front) and a front porch light in the alcove that leads up to the front door.

We eventually gave the yard a full makeover which included a retaining wall to get rid of a front yard slope, a flagstone walkway (right over the existing concrete path but with a few more curves), saltillo tile for the porch, and a curvy new lawn on each side of the path lined with LOTS of mediterranean-style plants (for low drought, San Diego-friendly landscaping).

I had always been itching to paint our Spanish home a more Spanish color, so last fall we painted the house!

Before:

After:  

A subtle change in the photos, but so drastic in person! That crazy weather doesn’t help the photos, does it?

Another phase of the yard transformation has been to install the 30 or so outdoor lights and transformer that we picked out from Lowe’s last summer (they’ve been waiting a while for installation day…). And now it’s so exciting that they are in! And working!  Connected to electricity and welcoming us home each night.

Thanks to our new outdoor electrician Rob whom we found through HomeAdvisor and who partnered up with Kevin (to save a little on the install costs) to finish the landscape lighting up!

A peek at the left side of the front yard during the day:

And at night (this angle shows how we added lights back through the deck area and side yard as well):

The right side of the yard during the day:

 And at night:

Kevin wrapped a few uplights around the right side of the house as well.

The majority of the lights we’ve added included these little incandescent mushroom path lights (for the actual paths and to line the lawn and sidewalk) as well as a few of these:

And our tree lights of choice included these low voltage halogen flood lights and several LED flood lights:

Most of the lights are also LED, which means they’ll shine on for a loooong time and will save us dollars in the long run.

Wow, such a huge difference! She looks so resort-y now – kind of like she belongs on a tropical island somewhere serving mai tais with the little umbrellas in them. No? Just me? I’m clearly ready for a vacation.

This project was sponsored in part by HomeAdvisor who helped to compensate for some of the electrician’s time in exchange for a review of their services. See part 1 here and part 2 here, we’ve been very happy and I will definitely be using the great online resource (with so many reviews of all kinds) in the future. You can check out the website for home repair/service recommendations right here.

PS all curb appeal projects for this casa are sorted right here.

Handmade Ombre Placemats (It’s Picnic Season!)

It’s perfect weather for an outdoor picnic, no? Hopefully you’re experiencing this beautiful sunshine wherever you are, too! Eating outdoors is the best (especially on a big grassy lawn at some fun park) and now that the Outdoor Eating season is approaching here in Southern California, I think more picnics need to happen in our house. Or, outside our house. Maybe on the new outdoor table.

Liv and I were experimenting with painting (her new very favorite-ist thing to do in the whole wide world), and while Liv took to the bright colors, I played around with updating simple rattan chargers from Ikea with white paint.

Turned out pretty cool! I really dig the look with that blend of the soft rattan and the stark white finish. Actually, this is just dawning on me – they kind of remind me of these.

The application process was more than basic. I actually tried spray paint first thinking that that might be fast and easy, but couldn’t achieve that gradiated effect I was picturing, so went over the work with acrylic and a paint brush.

Brush, brush, blot, blot…

Lots of blotting later…

And finished!

Navy and maroon might be a new favorite color combination – kind of perfect for July 4th, no?

These placemats were so simple to create and at a couple of bucks a pop, a great housewarming gift idea as a pack of four or six, or perhaps as something special for a special lady/friend/mother in your life? Or even better, package up in a picnic basket with a fun outdoor blanket and a bottle of wine as a wedding gift (it’s that season, too).

Sorry, enough photos. The lighting was perfect and I went a leeetle overboard.

More handmade gift ideas found right here.

Saving the Bath Toys

Man oh man this has been one of those weeks where as a 35-weeks-along-pregnant lady you just wish it were all over (pregnancy, that is). The belly feels huge, the disabling heartburn crawls up into your chest and takes over every evening, you’re constantly short on breath, dizzy spells are a regular, the sore lower back muscles feel no relief regardless of what you try. My feet become frozen with legs cramps that I didn’t know were possible but make you holler and jump on one leg – back and forth, back and forth.

Sometimes I can’t believe I have 5 – maybe 7! – more weeks to go. I hate to complain and I cannot wait to meet this baby girl, but there’s a reason that most women have short-term memory when it comes to pregnancy and delivery. I’m sure if we could recall every moment of the previous birth we would probably stop at one!

Allright, enough online griping, thank you for listening. I always know you’ll listen.

Here’s a little tip for you fellow baby/toddler mommas out there that I’ve heard about and have finally employed with our bin of bath toys that was getting a little mucky.

After running all bath toys through the dishwasher, I separated out the ‘squirters’ and used my nifty little glue gun to seal up those squirting holes. Ignore how dirty that glue gun is. It needs a trip through the dishwasher. (kidding)

Gone are the cavernous spaces that hold onto mold and mildew! Wish I would have done this from day one .

Happy almost-weekend!