Good evening, kibitzers. Greetings from my balcony! (Yes, it’s a little chilly out here...) I’ve been a busy boy this weekend. As the title of this diary suggests, I’ve been making over my balcony.
When I first moved into this apartment about seven years ago, there were three major selling points as far as I was concerned: the fireplace, the vaulted ceiling, and the balcony. I had grand designs for my balcony, in particular. I had visions of sitting out on my balcony in the evening sipping tea (or, back then, I guess it would have been wine) and relaxing. But, of course, I had to furnish the inside of the apartment, and I was pretty poor, so the balcony had to wait. And wait. And wait some more. Years went by. The balcony became a storage spot—I put my large cases of bottled hurricane water out there, among other things. Eventually, I thought I might like to start actually sitting on the balcony, so I bought...wait for it...a folding lawn chair. Needless to say, I never sat out on the balcony—somehow, sitting on a folding lawn chair in the midst of random junk was never very appealing.
So that’s how the balcony has looked for the past year or so: a folding lawn chair in the middle, a few cases of bottled water, a bag of potting soil and gardening tools (from when I used to try to grow things out there...years ago), and assorted junk. Not the best look. Now that I actually have a little disposable income, redoing the balcony has been near the top of my list of priorities, and I’ve been kicking the idea around for the past few months.
Yesterday, I finally did it! And man, I am happy with the result. It’s nothing too elaborate—just a few pieces of furniture and decor—but the difference is night and day. I went shopping for furniture yesterday and ended up deciding to go with wicker chairs and a matching table. I tested out all of the chairs and got a couple that I found the most comfortable (chairs that I could actually imagine sitting and reading in). As for the table, I wanted something small enough to fit on my rather cramped balcony, but I also wanted to be able to eat out there if I so desired—eating breakfast or brunch and sipping coffee were also in my balcony vision. I also got a flickering lantern for the table (for the evening) and...wait for it...a faux olive tree. Yes, a faux olive tree. I wanted some Mediterranean flair, okay? (I actually feel kind of guilty about the tree...it cost almost as much as both of the chairs combined. But I love it LOL.)
I wish I had a before pic (actually, I don’t, because it was embarrassing). But this is what the balcony looks like now:
And here’s the evening view with the lantern:
It’s nothing that great, but compared to what the balcony looked like for the past seven years, I couldn’t be happier with it. I’m also happy to report that I’m actually using my balcony now! It’s chilly in Texas, but I’ll probably be typing comments tonight from my wicker chair, under my faux olives.
What do you want to kibitz about tonight?