Our finished project.

Several weeks ago, I had photographed a beautiful Spanish home and came home sooo inspired.  I showed my husband the images and our wheels started turning with projects for our own house.  We decided to tackle removing the last two remaining planters in the front courtyard.  Long story short, our smaller project turned into a bigger project as we discovered the structural insufficiencies of the pillars that held up that part of the roof.  No strangers to remodeling, we completely understand that demolition of any part of a house most often results in a bigger job than originally intended!  So being that we had to redo the footings, we decided to tackle the front walkway as well.  We'd always wanted to replace the red cement tile trying to be saltillo with flagstone.  (We'd done this at our old house and loved the look.)  We dived in.

It's been many weeks, but we've finally finished!  We pushed hard over this past weekend to put the finishing touches on the courtyard which included repotting and reorganizing most of my succulent collection.  Succulents are fantastic--mostly slow growing, lovers of packed containers and low water, but just as with any plants, they need a clean up now and again.  A new glazed pot and red blooming aloe for the entry and "I just couldn't resist the tillandsia" from Plant Depot (I attached them to a piece of driftwood we found last year at Doheny and they now  grace my sofa table.) completed the project.

Zoe (always willing to have her photograph taken) seems to like the new walkway and Michael and I, while not ready to quit our day jobs, think we did a pretty good job!

Before

After!  I can't wait for the plants to grow in!

The welcoming committee

After

My experimental planting!

Tillandsia project