Hi! Happy Father’s Day everyone. I hope you all had a great weekend. Our weekend was pretty low key. On Juneteenth, I read a book (So You Want to Talk about Race… highly recommended), yesterday we had a friend over for an outdoor (socially distant) dinner, and today, we did some gardening. All in all, a fantastic weekend, in large part because our backyard is such an oasis. It is truly an extension of our home; however, until recently, there was one eyesore that really bothered me… our water cistern. I was all about getting a water cistern to be eco friendly. It’s such a great program, but the cistern itself is HUGE! See the photo before for evidence.
Eek… so I hated it and wanted to fix it. I had researched privacy screens, and nothing really caught my eye until I was scrolling through Ikea’s website and saw the ÄPPLARÖ wall panel and bench. It’s basically everything I dreamed of. Unfortunately it has to be attached to a wall. And that wasn’t an option for us. So I ordered two sets online (because COVID, duh), and while I waited a full month for them to arrive, I came up with a hack. The main issue is that the wall panel is two pieces. There isn’t a brace to hold them together since they are supposed to mount to a wall. So we decided to just add thick wood strips to the back as a brace to hold the wall panel together. You don’t see the back, so it’s entirely invisible and it works great so far. Because it’s right up next to our house, I’m not very worried about the wind, but I will report back if there is an issue.
And now our backyard looks a million times better. I added some vintage rackets and plants because I’m an antique and plant junkie.
An added benefit is that we also have another seating area, which will come in handy when we have a massive party post COVID.
Also, not to brag, but 80% of this blog post’s photos were from my Google Pixel phone. Usually I use my Canon 6D, but I was lazy, and I’m actually not that sad about the results. I used the Studio McGee Lightroom Mobile Presents, which are meant for indoors, but worked fairly well outside as well.
The presets were a little pricey, but such a time saver, so totally worth it! Anyways, have a FANTASTIC weekend… oh and if you are white and want to be a better person, read So You Want to Talk about Race. I try not to get too political, but come on… BLACK LIVES MATTER!