Green City Garden Girl: Yard Art

Reader Contribution by Kylynn Hull
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KyLynn Hull is a stay-at-home mom and dabbles in many things including writing, urban farming and raising backyard chickens. She writes regularly for garden and food blog, Green City Garden Girl – Bound by the Seasons.

I try not to buy anything brand new. Sometimes I just can’t help myself, but for the most part, I limit my consumption. I think it stems from my childhood when we lived on an island in Alaska. My folks recycled before their time and were not wasteful people by any means. They still aren’t–although they are able to splurge a little more now–which is always nice to see.

When I had my son, I filled his room with secondhand gear I received from my brother, sister and friends who got started on the kid-tip a lot sooner than I did. I found an old dresser in the basement of a new house we bought, was given a changing table by some friends who had outgrown it and inherited the bunk bed set my Dad and his brothers used when he was a kid. It’s amazing what you can do with a gallon of black paint!

So, when it was time to add a little flavor to the yard, the only thing I could come up with was put as much stuff on the fence as I could find; old mirrors, frames, window panes and even copies of oil paintings. My favorite includes an 1800s lady hiking up her dress while sitting on the toilet. The cool thing is, I didn’t buy any of this stuff; I found it. I get a sense of satisfaction with creating a new place for old things. I’ll scour an old garage and find a little spark under some cobwebs. For some reason, I’m always drawn to old chairs, lamps and baskets. These items always fit nicely into the landscape of a yard and makes it easy to decorate with a little twist.

Trinkets and frames adorn my backyard fence. Photo By KyLynn Hull.


I love relaxing in my backyard and sharing stories of how I discovered all of my different pieces of yard art. Photo By KyLynn Hull.

  • Published on Aug 20, 2010
Tagged with: Reader Contributions
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