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With warmer days and balmy evenings ahead, your balcony beckons! Size doesn't matter! Even the coziest outdoor space can be transformed into your own private paradise, perfect for morning coffee breaks, relaxing with a good book, or enjoying cocktails and dinner at sunset. The key is to treat your outdoor space as you would an indoor room. Pick a theme – such as classic contemporary, beachy, exotic, or tiki-cool – then decide on a color scheme. Consider an outdoor rug or accent pillows for a cohesive, pulled together look. Add lush greenery with a micro kitchen garden – herbs, edible flowers, mini vegetables, and even small potted fruits will add color, and grace your table with healthy home-grown produce!
Many home improvement stores and local nurseries are offering home delivery and curbside pickup. Here are some ideas to get you inspired!
Create a Balcony Kitchen Garden
Transform your outdoor space into a kitchen garden – and reward yourself with a harvest of aromatic herbs, fresh and organic vegetables, and juicy plump fruits with great flavor that you can never get from store bought edibles! You’ll need to dedicate some time to look after the plants you’ve chosen to grow – 15 minutes a day should be enough for the most basic tasks like watering, pinching, and pruning. Balcony Garden Web has some great tips on how to get started and how to maximize your space with vertical gardening.
If you’re new to edible gardening, start with herbs! They are the easiest plants to grow and you can put them anywhere as long as they receive a few hours of sunlight a day. You can start from seeds or buy the plants from your nearby nursery. Chive, mint, thyme, basil, oregano, parsley, cilantro are great choices to add a burst of flavor to your favorite recipes. Balcony Garden Web has some creative ideas on how to maximize your herb growing space on a small balcony, and add interest to your garden with hanging baskets, weathered cans, vertical pouch planters, and re-purposed wooden pallets.
The Home Depot 5600 Sunset Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90028
The Home Depot has some great ideas on how to bring your balcony or patio to life with container gardening. Fill planters with flowering plants of your choice, set up flower boxes to adorn your railing, or create a simple shelf to hold smaller potted greenery. Go the extra mile by installing a plant trellis made from wood or plastic. Place the trellis against a wall and let the plants grow vertically. This takes up less space and is an efficient way to add a garden on smaller balconies. Your balcony trellis can also be positioned as a protective screen to offer additional privacy. The Home Depot offers curbside pick up and delivery. Just place your order online.
Add comfort and style to your balcony oasis with throw pillows. Available from Home Depot in a variety of colors, sizes and shapes, they also provide visual intrigue to your outdoor space and can help convey your decor theme. Spruce up the whole space with an outdoor area rug. They add both color and texture to the area with very little effort.
Lowe's 4550 West Pico Blvd Unit D-101 Los Angeles, CA 90019
Located in Mid-City Los Angeles, your local Lowe’s has everything you need to create dream balcony. They offer a wide variety of healthy plants and flowers, as well as outdoor furniture and accessories. Curbside pickup is available.
Crate and Barrel Outdoor Lighting
String lights add a warm glow to any outdoor space. Recreate the night-time romance of a Parisian bistro by hanging string lights in a crisscross pattern under your balcony roof or add illuminated wall art by arranging them in a geometric pattern on a solid outdoor wall. Use string lights with smaller bulbs (similar to the holiday variety) all year round to dress up balcony railings, large plants or trellises. For subtle glow and sparkle, look for tiny bulbs strung along a delicate wire wrap. Crate and Barrel also offers small space outdoor furniture and accessories. Order online for home delivery.
Sunset Nursery 4368 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90039
Sunset Nursery has been family owned and operated since 1959. Add pizzazz to your balcony with an array of colorful cacti and succulents, California native and drought tolerant plants. They also offers flower pots imported from all over the world and an extensive line of organic fertilizers and eco-friendly plant products to keep your plants happy and healthy. Located in the heart of Silver Lake, at this time, Sunset Nursery is doing drive-thru pickup orders only. To make a purchase, review the inventory online, then call 323-661-1642 to place your order and arrange pick up.
Mickey Hargitay Plants 1255 N Sycamore Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90038
Plant yourself in one of Los Angeles' premiere nurseries, whose clients include Sony Design Center, Whole Foods Market, Calvin Klein Studio, Tommy Hilfiger, and an astonishing list of celebrities. The 1,500-square-foot greenhouse is home to a wide selection of indoor and outdoor tropical plants of all sizes. They also stock decorative containers in Italian Terra Cotta, Malaysian and Chinese Ceramics, Mexican Red Clay and Rattan baskets. At this time, the store is limiting access to one shopper at a time and are accepting credit card payment only. To place a curbside pickup order or delivery, please call 323-467-8044 the day you plan on heading over.
Photo credits:
Photo #1: IKEA
Photo #2: Balcony Garden Web
Photo #3: Balcony Garden Web
Photo #4: The Home Depot
Photo #5: The Home Depot
Photo #6: Lowe's Home Improvement
Photo #7: Crate and Barrel
Photo #8: Sunset Nursery
Photo #9: Mickey Hargitay Plants
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Working from home has its perks! No more morning commutes. You can play your own music whenever you want, and sneak off for Netflix breaks in between conference calls. Professional wardrobe is optional and snacks are de rigueur. But we humans also long for structure, to give form and function to our days, and reward us when our work is done. Wired has some great tips to help you settle in to your work at home routine. All Zoomed out? HERE are some video chat alternatives to connect with colleagues. play games with friends, or stay in touch with family. Even if you're not working from home, you can boost your efficiency and have some fun with these digital productivity tools and tips.
Digital Office Sound Generator
Miss ambient office noise? This sound generator has you covered with the soothing tones of modern office life, to help you focus when working from home. This humorous project was concocted by The Kids, a creative agency with offices in Berlin and Zurich, dedicated to making organizations more agile and innovative by designing the right culture.
Keep in touch with the groups of people that matter the most, like your family or coworkers. With group chats, you can share messages, photos, and videos with up to 256 people at once. You can also name your group, mute or customize notifications, and more. WhatsApp uses your phone's Internet connection to send messages so you can avoid SMS fees. WhatsApp messages and calls are secured with end-to-end encryption, meaning that no third party including WhatsApp can read or listen to them. WhatsApp works on iPhone, Android, Mac or Windows PC.
Keep your business running securely while working from home. Quip is Salesforce’s productivity platform that combines collaborative documents, spreadsheets, and chat in one place so distributed teams can work together seamlessly. Quip replace email and information silos with real-time productivity tools that connect teams and accelerate the pace of business. Even if you aren’t in the same place, you can stay on the same page. Quip is secure out-of-the-box – all your data is encrypted, auditable, and controlled. Quip offers tutorials to get you started, and customizable templates to meet your specific needs. Quip is available online or as an app.
Slack brings the team together, wherever you are, by bringing all your communication together. Teamwork in Slack happens in channels — a single place for messaging, tools and files — helping everyone save time and collaborate together. With all of your communication and tools in one place, remote teams will stay productive no matter where you’re working from. You can hit deadlines, review documents, make comments and generate approvals. Slack is available for desktop and mobile. HERE is a great guide for anyone new to Slack. Slack also provides tips for working at home.
Microsoft To Do: Lists Tasks & Reminders
Got something on your mind? Get Microsoft To Do. Whether you want to increase your productivity, decrease your stress levels, or just free up some mental space, Microsoft To Do makes it easy to plan your day and manage your life. With Microsoft To Do, you can stay focused with My Day, a personalized daily planner with suggested tasks; get your lists anywhere, on any device; share lists and assign tasks with your friends, family, colleagues, and classmates; personalize your lists with bold and colorful backgrounds; and much more.
Houseparty is a face-to-face social network that enables you to connect with anyone you want, anywhere and anytime you like. In 2019, Houseparty teamed up with Epic Games, creator of Fortnite and Unreal Engine, to help even more people connect with their friends, family, and peers. Houseparty is secure and apparently there have been no data breaches and no exposure of customer data or third-party accounts.
Video conferencing is as simple and seamless as meeting in person. With the Webex mobile app, you can meet absolutely anywhere. Hosting is easy and joining is easier—simply click on your link to join. You can even learn about the people you’re meeting for the first time, with instant access to participants’ background and company. You can share your screen so everyone can view your document, spreadsheet, or application. Hosts can record the meeting so others can get up to speed later. Everyone you invite can join your online meeting, no matter how they’re connecting, even guests.
Trello is a simple, easy-to-use project management app for collaborative teams. The platform is based on the Kanban board philosophy, a visual layout that originates from Japan. Essentially, tasks are added and organized on “to-do,” “going” and “done” statuses, which helps teams keep track of progress. Tasks can be grouped into boards and cards, which can contain multiple tasks in themselves. Individual tasks can be assigned to groups or team members with deadlines and checklists.
Part spreadsheet, part database, and entirely flexible, Airtable allows teams to organize their work, their way. Airtable is built around the spreadsheet format and this is great news if your team is used to managing projects on tools like Excel. Airtable’s interface operates like a spreadsheet, but it’s far more intuitive and includes more functionality. Airtable Blocks give you a creative palette that you can mix and match to create the perfect workflow for your team. Airtable also provides templates to get you and your team started.
Don't let distractions hold you back! Serene is a macOS app that gives you productivity superpowers by layering three proven techniques to boost focus. When you enter a session, Serene shields you from distractions by blocking distracting apps & websites. Serene can also silence your phone, control Philips Hue lights, update your Slack status and more, to help you create your optimal deep work environment. Serene was created by Venture Harbour, one of the UK’s fastest-growing technology companies, achieving 22nd in the 2019 Deloitte Technology Fast 50.
Photo credits:
Photo #1: Venture Harbour
Photo #2: The Kids Creative Agency
Photo #3: WhatsApp
Photo #4: Quip
Photo #5: Slack
Photo #6: Microsoft To Do
Photo #7: Houseparty
Photo #8: Cisco Webex Meetings
Photo #9: Trello
Photo #10: Airtable
Photo #11: Venture Harbour
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