Blue and White Chinese Garden Stools

Palm Beach Home of Danielle Rollins and Tom D'Agostino

Blue and white Chinese garden stools are such a classic. I love using them indoors and in the garden. I also love a pair flanking the front door as shown here. 

Blue and White Chinese Porcelain Outdoors

via The Potted Boxwood

 

I love the gigantic blue and white Chinese porcelain planters in front of this lovely Dallas home. Blue and white Chinese porcelain is so pretty outdoors. I have lots of blue and white Chinese garden stools and fishbowls in my garden at CCC. Of course, with hurricanes in Florida, I use portable pieces that I can put in my garden wagon and have safe and secure in my garage when a hurricane blows through. 

Red, White, and Blue

Red, White, and Blue Outdoors

 

With Memorial Day this coming weekend, red, white and blue is the color palette. This is a board I did years ago using red, white, and blue outdoors in a sophisticated way with lots of chinoiserie including blue and white Chinese porcelain and Chinese Chippendale.

Creating a Chinoiserie Entrance

via The Scout Guide

 With its blue door, Chinese Chippendale railing, and pair of blue and white Neirmann Weeks Leone urns, this is an elegant front entrance with chinoiserie style.

Here is more fabulous inspiration. Adding some chinoiserie elements to your front entrance is a wonderful way to bring personality to your home before you even enter.

Risking Chinoiserie Outdoors

Mark Sikes

 

Mark Sikes took this photo and posted it on Instagram of this beautiful home in Southampton. Look at the the size of those blue and white Chinese vases/urns!!!! What a stunning home.

I know I am on the risk averse side, but I would be so nervous about them being stolen or accidentally knocked over or blown over in a summer storm. 

Here is another view I found. They certainly make a statement!

Pinterest

I read a fascinating article that in Great Britain garden theft is about a $500 million a year industry. People use exterior alarm systems, barbed wire, and all sorts of anti-theft devices to protect their garden statues, pots, tools, and such. Fortunately, that has not become a problem in the U.S. where I feel like weather is more of an issue. They must have a better class of criminals in the UK.

I previously posted this photo below of a Palm Beach home with blue and white ginger jars in front. 

Charleston Chinoiserie in the Garden

via Alessandra Branca

 

Alessandra Branca posted this lovely view of a Charleston garden with lots of blue and white fishbowls filled with topiaries and ferns. I love this and it is the look I am going for in my Florida garden - sort of British Colonial - a cross between an English garden with the formal structure and topiaries and tropical with all the palms. Quite lovely.

Chinoiserie in the Garden

Carolyne Roehm

I absolutely adore blue and white Chinese porcelain in the garden. I currently have in my garden seven blue and white Chinese porcelain garden stools and four blue and white Chinese fishbowls. 

Not much by Carolyne Roehm's standards, but the family is growing - I have ordered several more fishbowls that arrive on Tuesday pictured below.

BTW, I have had Chinese porcelain in my garden for decades through hot summers and cold winters with zero deterioration. They will be safely sheltered in my garage however for Florida hurricanes. We don't want them flying through the air! And I have started rotating my palms in fishbowls from the garden to the house to the lanai and back and they all love it. Happy palms, happy life - LOL.

Carolyne Roehm

CCC

CCC

Chinoiserie Outdoors

Veranda

 This wonderful outdoor space features trelliage in a beautiful blue for al fresco dining styled with lots of chinoiserie. Note the pagoda on the console, bamboo flatware, and chinoiserie china. I always get questions on choosing bamboo flatware. There are lots of choices out there. For a great look at a great price, I love Cambridge Silversmiths that comes in natural and in black. It is available everywhere (Amazon, Walmart, Bed, Bath & Beyond, etc. for about $27.00 for a set of 20. I've had mine for years. 

I also really like the chargers - I have a collection of wicker and raffia chargers and I love them for a summer, beachy, casual, tropical vibe. Here they have layered it with a pretty linen placemat - another great idea.

Chinoiserie Outdoors

Barclay Buttera 

 Spring is here and this is wonderful inspiration for bringing chinoiserie outdoors. Blue and white ginger jars dress up the table along with blue china and glassware. The coral cushions and coral and white striped pagoda umbrella are perfect choices.

Outdoor Living

From House to Home

 I was researching outdoor curtains and came across a tutorial on this blog. Check out this amazing deck gazebo. Wow. I also love the flamingo topiary and the pink rattan bar cart. I have a rattan bar cart I am planning on spray painting navy blue for the lanai, but this pink is so fun.

Chinoiserie Outdoors

Ballard Designs

 This porch has great inspiration for bringing chinoiserie touches into your outdoor living spaces - blue and white Chinese porcelain, a Chinese garden stool, and Greek key pillows. Wicker trunks serve as a coffee table and are great for storage. I really like the striped outdoor curtains. That floor lamp looks really out of place and dated IMO.

Blue and White Outdoors

Serena & Lily

 I am still designing my lanai and love this inspiration from Serena & Lily. We all know about outdoor wicker furniture made of resin, but these fabulous rattan pendants are made for outdoors out of resin. I also love the idea of outdoor curtains and a wicker sectional. 

The blue and white palette and the blue and white Chinese ginger jar filled with peonies are perfect. I think I would pass on the coffee table though - I have never liked those tree trunks. I have a fabulous Miles Redd outdoor coffee table that will be great.

Enjoy your weekend - the weather is of course picture perfect here in paradise.

Outdoor Christmas Decorating Florida Style

Disney World

 It is garden week here at CCC. Home Depot just showed up with a palette of black mulch 5 minutes ago, so this week I will be cleaning out all the beds and mulching. Myself. I love being in the garden and the weather here is so nice now. Then everything will be ready for Christmas decorating outside right after Thanksgiving. Outdoor plants for the holidays in Florida is a brand new deal for me. The garden centers are filled with cyclamen and poinsettias for planting in the garden. So beautiful.

I'd love any ideas or advice on outdoor plants you southern/tropical gardeners have used for holiday decorating.

The Chinoiserie Outdoor Dining Space

Bunny Williams and John Rosselli - Architectural Digest

 We have looked many times at the wonderful living room in the Punta Cana Dominican Republic home of Bunny Williams and John Rosselli. This is the outdoor dining area. In many homes in tropical locations, there is no formal dining room and meals and entertaining take place in the outdoor dining space.

I love the limestone dining table, wicker chairs, and antique wrought iron chandelier. I also love the tall leggy palms in blue and white Chinese fishbowls. They are elegant and beautiful and do not take up a lot of visual or actual space. I might borrow this idea for my lanai. All the blue and white Chinese porcelain looks great with the natural and organic elements. Note the elegant lettuce ware centerpiece. Do any of you collect lettuce ware? 

Chinoiserie Outdoors

Luxe Report Designs

I have always loved using blue and white Chinese porcelain outdoors and I love banana leaf, but the combination together for a lanai or outdoor area is really fabulous. Combining green with blue and white is a natural, but outdoors it really pops.

I discovered this quite accidentally when I happened upon a set of banana leaf outdoor cushions for my lanai dining set at HomeGoods. Here is a lovely example above combining banana leaf with blue and white Chinese porcelain, garden stools, and orchids. 

It occurred to me that my lanai would be a great location for an orchid collection. I might be on the lookout for another bar cart! And I am dying to try tying orchids to my trees. One follower sent me an article on how to do this. A neighbor of mine has many palms with orchids growing on them and it is quite a sight.

Here are shots of my new bromeliad bed. Several neighbors stopped by to admire it. 

Pink Bromeliads

Today another fun day in store in paradise - HomeGoods, Sushi Day at Publix, and stops at a garden center or two. I was disappointed that the Master Gardener program is on hiatus here because of the pandemic, but I am learning SO much just visiting garden centers, reading, and taking walks with the pups and seeing all the plants in neighbors' gardens. BTW, it took me minutes to plant the bromeliad bed. You can literally dig the holes with your hands - the soil is a wonderful sandy loam. In NOVA you could make pottery out of the clay soil.

The Chinoiserie Garden

Carolyne Roehm's Charleston Garden

I have made so much progress with my plans for the garden. Yesterday I did lots of reading and research. As you know, the color palette in my home is blue and white with pink and green. These are the same colors I love in the garden. I am personally not a fan of using a mix of every color in the garden - I do not care for orange or yellow, for example. I also like the color palette to flow together, inside and out. And I like an anchor of green with pops of pink, white, and blue.

I was so fortunate that in this lovely garden I inherited, there are stunning Royal Palms (the most beautiful of all the palms,), coral pink Ixora, deep pink Bougainvellia, red Hibiscus, a huge hedge of Viburnum, and many other beautiful plants. One tip - when I moved in, the previous owners had been having the gardener tightly prune everything in little balls, cutting off all the blooms in the process. The entire garden was green balls. It was difficult to even know what things were.

Ixora

I told the gardener, who I kept, that I would take over pruning, and I now have gorgeous flowering shrubs. Live with your new garden a while until you figure out what you have - one ugly big ball turned out to be the most stunning Bougainvellia.

Bougainvellia

I've decided to have large swaths of blue Agapanthus lining the approach to the front door with my pair of vintage blue and white Chinese garden stools and my blue reclaimed lobster door mat. The foliage is beautiful year round and the flowers are stunning.

Agapanthus

My Front Entrance

I have a large vintage urn and am looking for an Agave Americana for it today.

Agave

Here is a view from my living room.

And look up the oak tree and see who was watching me. My new friend.

I love Carolyne Roehm's Charleston garden with its palms and blue and white Chinese porcelain. My community is very strict though - you can only have three decorative objects in front of the house and they can be no further than 6 feet from the structure. My neighbor had an urn with flowers and they made her move it because it was 10 feet from the house. Luckily the garden stools flanking the front door do not count.

Chinoiserie Outdoors

Les Ensembliers

I posted about this Palm Beach home back in February and interestingly, my new home reminds me of it a bit. Both are one level, stucco, palm trees in front, oversized coach lanterns, more formal Palm Beach than Tuscan.

My Home

You may recall that we chatted about the two pairs of ginger jars in front of the Palm Beach home and decided it was risky in terms of the ginger jars being stolen or toppling over.

I have an idea I love for adding more blue and white Chinese porcelain to the front of my home. I already have added a pair of vintage blue and white Chinese garden stools that have been outdoors in my garden for over thirty years!

Here they are with my gorgeous reclaimed lobster rope door mat from 30 Fathom that I adore if it is possible to adore a door mat. I do!

My new idea is that outside the covered area I will use my pair of blue and white Chinese porcelain fishbowls with a pair of topiaries - either lemon or lime trees or Eugenia. I rescued the fishbowls from Sandbagger where they were in the lanai with a pair of palms. Using palms here would be silly because I already have massive royal palms in the front yard and they would get lost in the shuffle.

Here are lemon topiaries in fishbowls via Mary McDonald.

Mary McDonald

BTW, Venice is very low crime, my gated community is very safe, and I feel that they would be fine outside here. I might buzz over to Home Depot and see what they have. Any experience growing lemon or lime trees? I think it would be very chic and very Old Florida.

BTW, I had five guys working on my garden yesterday and it looks wonderful. My gardener is extremely knowledgeable about Florida plants and things went absolutely great. Now I can start having fun in the garden since all the "heavy lifting" is done.

Blue & White Outdoors

Michelle Nussbaumer - Southern Living

Some great ideas to borrow here -- paint your deck with stripes, hang a chandelier that uses candles from a tree branch, bring a collection of blue and white Chinese porcelain outdoors. And I love painting outdoor metal furniture black - it makes it disappear and is a modern look. I also love combining stripes with blue and white Chinoiserie and I think this painted deck is very clever.

Speaking of outdoors, on a personal note, do you know about love bugs? I had heard about them but had not experienced them before. Well, "someone" left the upstairs slider open a bit and hundreds and hundreds got in the house yesterday. Hours capturing bugs all over walls, ceilings, and furniture. Really bad day. But I have some exciting news to share soon.

My Front Door

My Front Door

This is the front door of the Florida house - I had my painter repaint the front doors in a glossy black, added this Pottery Barn lighting fixture I have wanted for years, and hung this very chic lion door bell.  I bought him twenty year ago for my house in Alexandria, Virginia and it did not work there. I love it here.

I love my door bell!

And look who was trying to come in last night -

I was just asked to serve on the Landscape Committee in my community and my first meeting is Monday - by Zoom of course. I personally nixed meeting in person. I am really enjoying gardening in Florida - here is my home.

Chinoiserie Entertaining

Amanda Lindroth

I never mentioned this, but we had a cocktail party/open house scheduled for two weeks ago for local friends and everyone in the community where we live which was obviously canceled. I had been working like crazy getting the house all done for it. I wonder when if ever it will be rescheduled. Check out this wonderful party setup. That blue and white Chinese porcelain vase/ginger jar is absolutely enormous! Boy is that dramatic!

The tablecloth is a bit sketchy, I'm afraid. It is too short and too wrinkled, but I love the centerpiece so much it is worth posting! A pet peeve of mine is tablecloths that do not reach to the floor. I also always use a liner - old blankets work great, so the tablecloth hangs well. The liner need not be as long as the tablecloth - it just needs to overhang the top by a foot or more to drape nicely. Who knows the correct term for a tablecloth liner?

(The answer is a silence cloth)

At any rate, I love the idea of a setup like this in the lanai for entertaining and will be searching for a large blue and white tablecloth for when life returns to normal.