Our Outside Inside Space

So our house was build by legit French people. Weird way to start a post, but it’s relevant I think promise. They designed it to have a space off the master bath similar to courtyards you see in Europe. (I know you all watch House Hunters International.) The lady was apparently really into gardening – a trait the previous owners and I do not share. Hence the downfall of this weird unique outside inside space.

I will start with the outside. This is the view of our outside nook from the street. We have had these awful, vicious vine growing on everything. They just took over. You can also see the lovely black mildew that’s grown. For the record I’m insanely embarrassed to show this, but this is home ownership at it’s finest.

I pulled that horrid vine off the brick and wood beams. It was extremely difficult. I have no idea what type of vine it is, but it attaches itself to a surface every quarter inch with 6 suction cup like feet. It was the worst. It’s also thorny which makes it all the more fun. Nick pressure washed the outside to get the mildew off. (Sidenote: How cute is it that he pressure washes in swim trunks and a button down? The answer is very cute.)

Ta-da! The outside was cleaned up in a couple of hours. Ignore the rest of the landscaping out there. We will get to that later…(seems to be a motto).

Now to the inside…well the inside outside off the bathroom. This is what we looked at every morning when we woke up.

Well actually it was worse because at this point I had already cleaned the outside up. You can see that some of the vines were already shriveling up and dying (insert maniacal laugh here).

I took down the rest of the vines. It was amazing how much more sunlight we got in the bathroom which it is only reason why I tolerate this space to begin with. You can see there is some mildew on the brick. Nothing like the outside, but it’s still there.

I couldn’t really drag the pressure washer through the house even if that’s what I really wanted to do. I decided I would use a scrub brush and some Clorox outdoor bleach. Technically you are supposed to hook the Clorox to a hose, but I didn’t want to snake a house through the top of the nook area. Well that lasted all of 30 minutes. Scrubbing was completely disgusting and the tub of water got black fast. I brought the hose in and sprayed it down.

I bought 6 begonias and 2 bags of garden soil. I figured might as well use this space like it is intended to be used. I don’t see any major renovations in the near future for our bathroom space, so it can’t hurt to pretty what’s there now.

While I was at prettying it up, I added a chair, rug, and pepper plant. I had 2 bags of mulch on hand to throw on my newly planted bed.

Ramona is already enjoying the space. She actually helped me plant the flowers, so it took  exponentially longer than normal to complete. Here’s the budget breakdown.

Plants & Soil; $52 (Home Depot)
Chair: $14 (Target)
Rug: $19 (Target)

Total $85

Worth every penny.

Not a life changing transformation, but it was necessary to rid the jungle from our daily view.