Indoor Garden

January 10, 2014March 19, 2016 by nance In Writing 3 Comments

I recently discovered an area in our house that was in need of an overhaul. We have this multi-level window seat that is on the half-way landing of the stairs from our main floor to the top floor. When we put in our offer on the house I remember being so excited about the prospect of a window seat. Before we even closed escrow I was imagining myself curled up with my morning coffee and a book.

But now that we’ve been in the house for a couple of years, I’m finally willing to admit that it’s not actually all that functional as a seat. I propped it with pillows and some candles but it’s sort of out of the way, being on the stairs and the incredible view is on the other side of the house. I have honestly only used it as a seat about a handful of times in two years.

Here’s what it has looked like for the past few years…

I tried various configurations of pillows and changed the covers from time to time but these were the mainstays.

To discourage the boys from climbing onto the higher of the two levels, especially when we first moved in and Isaiah was not yet 2, I put the candles on the higher side.

Since we were not using the space and the pillows had started looking a little blah after being bleached by the sun, it no longer met the criteria that we had set out for our home earlier this year. If you remember from the playroom post, we decided to use this quote by William Morris, a 19th century English textile designer/artist/writer, to guide us.

Do not have anything in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.

We no longer found the space to be beautiful and it certainly wasn’t useful but I had the hardest time figuring out what to do with it. I tried adding more pillows, with different fabrics, I added blankets and even a bean bag once, I thought about trying to line it with books or starting some kind of collection but nothing seemed quite right.

I finally decided to consult Jason, even though I am usually loathe to do so when it comes to home decor. I mean, I don’t need his ideas getting in the way of all my grand plans for the house. It’s just asking for trouble and extra work. But I was stuck and needed some inspiration. I needed his lofty ideas and opulent proposals. So against my better judgment I oh-so-casually mentioned one night last month that I was finally thinking of re-doing the space and did he, you know, have any ideas?

Did he ever!

“A garden. An indoor garden. Maybe a vertical garden! Like the one we saw in Portland! Maybe with some fish?” I think if he had a Pinterest board for this, here’s what he would have pinned…

Truth be told, I thought the idea of an indoor garden would be perfect. So I let him dream and scheme and plot big for an hour until his enthusiasm predictably waned… and then I set to work!

I brought it down a couple notches and skipped the vertical aspect of the garden since it requires special lighting and its own hand-crafted watering system. I replanted some of our existing plants, brought the terrariums up from downstairs, relocated the air plants, bought a few new items and here are some shots of the space today…

Jason didn’t get his dream for fish but I did make use of an old fish bowl. I added rocks from our front walk and filled it with small air plants.

Our jade plant was languishing in our bathroom and after a week in its new location, it’s got new buds!

If you are looking for some low maintenance house plants, air plants are the way to go. You run them under water once a week, shake it off and put it back. That’s it. No dirt, no fuss. And you can order them off of Amazon.

And just so you know that I’m not a total scrooge, I did find some small terrariums that you can mount on the wall so we might be able to pull off Jason’s dream for a vertical garden some day after all!