The on again/off again rain this week has made me think more about our focus on indoor life. In Calgary, we can’t count on a long hot summer to spend outdoors on patio or deck. Our climate has us scurrying for cover most of the year.

Because of this, I feel anxious if I’m not outside enjoying a beautiful day. It’s like I’m not grateful enough to the gods for it, and they might deprive me of future fine days as punishment for my ingratitude. I have observed this in others as well. I think it's a defining characteristic of being Calgarian.

So I say to you, if you have beautiful flowers in your garden, don’t think twice about lopping them off in their prime and bringing them inside for rainy-day pleasure. Or sunny-day pleasure, if you are bold enough to defy the weather gods.

At the Library, we have more than 150 titles about flower arrangement and they are an inspiring lot. However, I have specifically selected a few more titles that show you how to make clever arrangements work with the décor of a room.

Easy flowers: ideas for every room in your home (2003) “is a book about how not to arrange flowers”. There are no strict rules of arrangement. The focus is on making a match between the flowers and the container and fitting the result into an appropriate setting. For example, in a room dominated by dark heavy furnishings, a stunning array of parrot tulips fills a large black ceramic vase. A mass of grape hyacinths pack a tall glass vase and decorate a kitchen counter.

In Flowers by Design (2003), author and designer Jeff Leatham brings a sculptor’s approach to his chosen media. He begins by analysing a room, assessing, for example, its mood and light sources and looks for bold, dramatic shapes to accentuate the spaces. This book will impress those seeking both beauty and drama.

Living Art: Style Your Home with Flowers (2010) features stunning creations by a floral designer who revels in the total sensual experience offered by flower arrangements. This a house tour book where the focus is on the flowers and both the homes and flowers are fabulous.

Next week: French Country

Early morning finds me, coffee cup in hand, surveying my little balcony garden. This week, the zucchini plants have exploded with blooms; this bodes well for a good crop if I can keep the powdery mildew at bay. Staff at Sunnyside gave me a formula to spray on infected leaves: one teaspoon of baking soda to one liter of water. I’m giving it a try.

Besides loving zucchini and all the wonderful things you can do with it, I just love the plant. The foliage is gorgeous and so are the flowers – though short lived. I think of it as the day lily of the vegetable world.

Flower gardens throughout the city are at their peak. At this time of year, one of my favourite forms of entertainment is a stroll to check out what’s growing my neighbourhood. When your neighbourhood includes Lougheed House and the Reader Rock Garden, you have some very good places to check.

Inside our homes, flowers bring life and beauty to any room. My favourite potted plants indoors are budget-friendly, readily available, stalwarts that stay in bloom for 6 to 12 weeks: African violets, orchids and cyclamen.

“Not orchids!” you say. The charmer in the picture was purchased at the North Hill Home Depot, on sale for $12.00, and has been blooming happily for several months.

At Home with Flowers(2011) by Jane Packer demonstrates the enormous decorative impact of clever floral arrangements. Single, lime yellow dahlias, cut to different heights, fill a cluster of exotic brass vases grouped on a brass and glass coffee table.

On an antique sideboard revived with white paint, sprigs of veronica and astilbe fill a large collection of vintage milk bottles. Flowers fill mugs and seashells. Arrangements decorate bathroom ledges, kitchen counters and stairways.

It’s all very inventive and often dramatic. It makes me want to try harder and stretch beyond my stalwarts.

Perhaps next year I will try to grow some cutting flowers to bring indoors.

Fountains create focal spots for balcony, garden or deck. The symphony of sound is relaxing and softens the edges of neighbourhood noise.

When searching the catalogue for information on building a smaller fountain in a pot, subject keywords “tabletop fountains” are most helpful. Here are the books that caught my eye.

Tabletop fountains: 40 Easy and Great-Looking Projects to Make (1999) by Dawn Cusick offers clear information about the mechanics of the fountain along with design tips and examples.

She builds a patio fountain from plain clay flower pots (p. 64). Three pots and saucers of different sizes are arranged inside a very large saucer so that water cascades from the largest to the smallest. The arrangement is capped by a spider plant and saucers are lined with polished stones. Very effective.

I also liked the face mask fountain (p.76) and stacked squares fountain (p.89).

In Tranquility Fountains: Projects for a Serene Lifestyle(2002), the Global Meditation Table (p. 52) is an arrangement of two stone-filled trays with water spurting through the holes of a salt shaker located in the middle of the smallest tray.

Copper & Wind chimes fountain (p. 84) uses copper tubing to channel the water in a serpentine design with wind chimes made from the same tubing to stir in the breeze. Another clever arrangement is the Waterfall fountain (p36) built with slabs of slate.

In Creative Tabletop Fountains(2002) by Marthe Le Van, projects include a Peaceful Pagoda (p. 45) made from ceramic bonsai containers and the Seashore Memory Fountain (p.69) where the water is channeled through a large sea shell.

Simple fountains for indoors & outdoors(1999) offers instructions for working with bamboo and wood to create spouts and dippers. One of the loveliest fountains is featured on the cover: a pottery jar that spills water into an antiqued copper basin filled with polished rocks.

I also found inspiration on the web.

Don Vandervort’s Hometips shows a classic Japanese design with bamboo and water plant. Garden Gate magazine offers a clever arrangement for a small patch of garden.

Sunset features a very pretty fountain made from a tall ceramic garden pot. This one would work for either garden or balcony.

Among my favourite sounds of summer are the gurgle and splash of water. I love fountains and discovered a few years ago how easy it is to make your own. I would say "as easy as child’s play", except we are talking water and electricity, folks; it’s not a good project for the young ones. Think of it as the adult equivalent of wading pool and bucket and enjoy puddling (safely) around.

The goal is to take a pot of water and pump a bit of it through a plastic tube so that it falls and tumbles back into the pot in an eye and ear-pleasing way. You could create a fountain for the cost of the pump and tubing, using garden and kitchen equipment on hand.

Equipment Basics

• Water pump. For a small fountain, a small pump (costing $15.00 or less) will do.
• Plastic tubing to fit the size of the pump outlet. You can find this in the plumbing section of stores like Rona and Home Depot. It will cost about $5.00. Take careful measurements and remember that it is the outside dimension of the outlet that fits the inside dimension of the tubing. Better yet, take the pump with you when you shop and ask for help from the staff.
• Clamp to secure the tubing to the pump (less than 50 cents).
• Waterproof pot or container.
• Decorative object/spout to channel the water.
• Stones, pots or dishes to bounce the water around.

My water fountain is made from a Chinese egg pot which I bought from a grocery store. (I love the dragon.) The cast-iron fish came from Canadian Tire (or maybe Zellers) and was designed to hold a tea light. The slatted wood ledge where the fish sits came with the pot. Originally, it covered the whole top and was used to stack the pots one on top of another. I cut it in half with a hand saw.

Inside the pot, a saucer sits on top of a liter-sized plastic yogurt container filled with water (could be stones) to keep it from floating. A cream jug, turned on its side, rests on the saucer. Plastic tubing from the pump is fed up through the slatted wood ledge, through the back of the fish and out the mouth. The water pumped through it falls into the cream jug, bounces onto the saucer and splashes back into the water in the bottom of the pot. The slatted ledge conveniently organizes the electrical cord from the pump as well as the tubing.

The fun with making a fountain comes in arranging the bits and pieces to bounce the water around. You can use rocks and plants to hide the working parts of the pump. The flash of the camera has revealed the tubing at the back of my fountain and you can see how it works. Without the camera’s power assist, the working parts are not that obvious. Kind of like red eye.

FRIDAY: More on fountains - books and blogs.

Stampede is winding down. Time to pack up the cowhides and lanterns - or not. For many seasons, cowhide rugs have been popular accents for both contemporary country and modern interiors.

There are so many other lovely ways to bring summer into your home. If you enjoy making seasonal changes, here are a couple of new titles for inspiration.

Summer House, by Terry John Woods, features cottage-style, summer decorating, the way you might do it for your summer house in Maine which is exactly what Woods has. Seashells and polished beach rocks line the shelves; surfaces are weathered; accessories are nautical. Vintage collectibles, such as old alarm clocks and jadite tableware, punctuate decor. There is no edgy twist to vintage here; just full-blown nostalgia.

The book is laced with sepia-toned photos evocative of summers past: cricket games on the lawn, family gatherings, floating on inner tubes. You get the drift.

Cottage style is budget-friendly, embracing finds from flea market and Mom and Dad's basement. Old pieces are rehabbed with a lick of paint or just dusted off. Best of all, it offers relaxed comfort year round.

Get crafty and take advantage of all the good things in your garden with Everyday Eden: 100+ Fun, Green Garden Project for the Whole Family to Enjoy by Christina Symons & John Gillespie.

Herbs flavour salts and butter. Bread is baked in flower pot and bucket. Succulents are shaped into dramatic sculptures, wall art and wreaths. From old glass containers, they fashion garden cloches to protect seedlings. Mismatched glasses create “candle opera” with tea lights.

As you might expect, Symons and Gillespie, who live in Roberts Creek, B.C., have a wonderful garden. See it on their blog and get an ongoing crafty fix.

NEXT WEEK: I'm playing in the water. The topic is home-made water fountains.

Last November, if you were lucky enough (and I was) to catch the Wordfest program with Ian Tyson, you learned that our favourite cowboy was an art school graduate. That was before he broke his leg and picked up the guitar.

The program featured a relaxed conversation between Tyson and Corb Lund – his protégé. They discussed wide-ranging influences like Western legends, Will James and Charlie Russell, as well as the song-writing process.

Along with his renowned musical career, Tyson is an expert at training cutting horses and an environmentalist, determined to preserve the integrity of Alberta ranchlands.

Tyson’s biography is an engaging read that explores the trails of personal, musical and ranch life. He’s happy to kiss and tell and speaks fondly of the women in his life.

As you would expect, the library has a generous collection of Tyson CDs, from his early folkie days with Sylvia to his classic Cowboyography.

Tyson and Lund are among the many performers featured on the new release 35 years of Stony Plain: Canada's roots, rock, folk, country and blues label. It’s on order for the collection and I have my name on the list.

Shooting Cowboys is the clever title by Brock V. Silversides that tracks the changing image of the Canadian cowboy over 90 years. He takes a look at working cowboys, rodeo cowboys, cowboy entertainers and cowboy poseurs. Think we might see a few of those this week.

Dale Auger was a renowned artist from the Bigstone Cree Nation in northern Alberta. “Dale produced visually stunning, provocative paintings that captured the attention and imagination or art collectors around the world”. That’s a quote from the jacket and I couldn’t think of better words. A few hours spent with the work shown in Medicine Paint are hours very well spent.

Dale’s daughter, Neepin Auger, is also a painter who had a recent show at the Bluerock Gallery (formerly Terra Cotta Gallery) in Black Diamond. This gallery that shows the work of more than 100 Alberta artists is a great excuse to hit the Cowboy Trail this summer.

Cowboy biographies, music and photography - and art infused with the spirit of native culture - my happy trails are meandering.

My favourite decorating books always include both lively, intriguing rooms and good stories about the people who live inside them. I’ve just added a new one to my list: Undecorate: The No-Rules Approach to Interior Design (Clarkson Potter, 2011) by Christiane Lemieux.

Lemieux is a founder and creative director of a home décor and children’s furniture company who also contributes to design blogs Apartment Therapy and Design*Sponge. She is inspired by the vibrant design of talented amateurs that is burgeoning on the internet.

“The most stylish people these days understand this fundamental of good living: it’s always evolving,” she writes. “Great style isn’t necessarily a finished product so much as an ongoing process.” Just so, good design is not static, but must adapt to changing circumstances.

Rather than gorgeous perfection, Lemieux champions relaxed design that facilitates happy living. All the homes in the book ooze pizzazz and the rumpled comfort of real life within. I love to learn how creative people design their homes to suit quirky tastes and personalities.

“I wanted to work with what we have rather than fight against it,” says Erica Tanov, a fashion designer whose funky Berkeley home is among the 20 places profiled. Here, second-hand furniture mixes with worn rugs, art, books, pets and projects. It’s one of those places that wears imperfection like a badge of honour and is all the more beguiling as a result.

Check it out. Enjoy the rooms and the stories. Embrace the process.

This week I'm taking a look at two new books from popular bloggers. They are getting rave reviews in (other) blogs and shelter magazines.

DECORATE comes from Holly Becker, the founder of the popular Decor8 blog and is co-authored by veteran design writer Joanna Copestick. It reveals what the pros have to offer, namely, a passion for design and some heavy-duty thinking about every little aspect of it.

This is not a book for minimalists. For the most part, what you find here are design professionals like Jonathan Adler who embrace colour and eclecticism with exuberant abandon. Every now and again there is restraint. But when a designer loves white, it is endorsed with poetic enthusiasm.

I like the way the book is structured, moving from the general to the specific, from the philosophy to the practice.

The first section deals with space in general: using space, flexible spaces, linking spaces. This is followed by chapters on style. Next come room-by-room analysis and, finally, all the details.

The focus of the book is the ideas behind the design and the sources of inspiration whether a painting, a piece of vintage furniture or a favourite colour. They demonstrate the use of mood boards – tools that help you to see the links between your favourite ideas and things to develop a coherent approach. You know how you rip a pic from a magazine (please, not a library magazine!) and tuck it in your pocket because you want a paint colour exactly like the one on this purse/ car/ dresser? Mood boards are collages of such sources. Very Martha-Stewart organized.

Throughout the book, floor plans allow you to see how the room views relate to each other and how the room functions.

If you enjoy this book, check out some of the other titles in the collection by Joanna Copestick. In Vital Color:Color themes for Every Room (with an ironically drab cover) you will find fab rooms and - yes - mood boards that develop an idea.

Another older favourite is The Family Home: Relaxed, informal living for all ages. We are down to one, well-travelled copy in the Village Square branch. Though published in 1998, it still has a lot to offer anyone wanting to spruce up an active family home.

Trends are fun and good; so are ideas that endure.

Come back Friday for UNDECORATE.