across a crowded warehouse...

the truth is, i should have spent my weekend unpacking. the "dining" room (which will contain a bookcase, a chair and my vintage singer sewing machine) is still stacked high with boxes and most of the apartments surfaces are covered in an odd assortment of homeless items longing for a little shelf, drawer or cupboard space to call their own. but when a friend asked for a second opinion on pavers for a new patio, i just couldn't refuse. especially since it meant visiting two places i have been dying to check out: building REsources and lyngso garden materials.

building REsources is one of those cool yards that carries all sorts of reclaimed building materials, fixtures, findings and fun. among my favorites were a green and pink marble counter top that could've been transformed into a really interesting coffee table, a brand new bay window for a fraction of it's original price, the head of a queen-sized brass bed which would have made the coolest trellis ever if it hadn't already been sold and, of course, their specialty: buckets and buckets of tumbled glass, tile, terra cotta and even mirrors in a variety of sizes and colors. i bought small bags of several types to use as decorative accents in my indoor plant pots, but some day would love to create a whole river of tumbled tempered glass flowing through my flower garden beds.

lyngso carries all kinds of fantastic landscaping materials from crushed granite to five foot high basalt towers and all kinds of other nifty things (soils, mulches, rocks, decorative garden ornaments...). i could've stayed there all day, especially when i found, tucked back in a corner, a wire cage full of black lava rocks about the size of bowling balls. these will be perfect decorative accents for my tropical garden (assuming they have any left by the time i get back next weekend).

of course it was at home depot, the most mundane of the many stores and yards i visited where my eyes drifted across the crowded warehouse to meet the perfect green ceramic planter to someday house my black bamboo. i of course snapped it right up. and later, at the next home depot, i made my very first plant purchase for the new garden. but that introduction will have to wait until tomorrow...