When my hubby and I moved to Santa Barbara and bought a house six years ago, we knew we wanted to embrace the California outdoor lifestyle. This meant adding things like a hot tub, an outdoor shower, and a place to gather…a fire pit. While my husband has incredible faith in my ability to design gardens (as I did in Connecticut), I knew that with irrigation, electric, gas lines, and poured concrete hardscaping, I was in way over my head!…
I’m going to be honest here. Before moving to Santa Barbara six years ago, I had never hiked a day in my life. Oh, I had taken long walks in my neighborhood or along the beach, but never an actual HIKE. In my mind, hiking was something healthy, young, outdoorsy people did… the kind of people who like to go camping or backpacking. It was not for a 40-something year old whose idea of camping requires a bed and a bathroom…and…
One of the pleasures of living in Santa Barbara is being able to take an outdoor shower all year round. When we were in the design phase of our backyard landscaping project, my husband’s priority was a hot tub. We both agreed we wanted a fire pit, but what I wanted most was an outdoor shower. I fondly remember my first outdoor shower at the Jersey Shore when I was just a kid. There was something so invigorating after a long sandy day…
As the drought wears on, lawns are going from green to brown and water bills are rising. I decided that we definitely didn’t need a lawn in our front and side yards. Being from the East Coast where lawns are a homeowners pride and glory, it took a bit of convincing for my husband to trade gravel for grass. Having the yard torn up for weeks wasn’t a picnic, but the end result was certainly worth it. Neither of us miss the lawn one bit. And…