Window boxes are one of our favorite ways to make a little outdoor extension of our small apartment. But what to do with the shallow planters come winter? On a recent walk around the neighborhood, we spotted two wonderful winter window boxes employing one great idea: branches...
The first box uses aspen branches with their beautiful natural white bark and a touch of painted silver and gold. It makes for a subtle decorative touch for the holidays.
The second box is a chic bundle of slender branches set into a bed of river rocks. The branches are long and act as a sort of screen at the window. We love the minimal look of this box. It gives the appearance that each straight branch was carefully selected, cleaned, and cut to a precise length. This meeting of nature and precision is quite appealing!
Both boxes will look equally stunning under a blanket of snow later this winter.
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Both looks are great. I especially love the silver and gold, but feel they might look better in an actual window . . . the box in the picture seems to be sitting on a stand in a tiny courtyard? Beautiful though!
view Griffin's profile
They just look like sticks to me. I don't get it. A way of storing kindling?
view Palmetto's profile
Don't they have this in that new restaurant, at Lincoln and Clark, can't remember the name.
view dn's profile
Cool. There's a place in my neighborhood that has a nice display of squash and pumpkins in their windo boxes.
view jooly's profile
If this were a hot or not, I would go, as I sometimes do, to the unoffered middle choice. This isn't really a subtle look, because hey, what the hell, it's sticks. Who does this? Is it interesting? It's not boring. It is a definite eye-catching oddball thing to think up. People do sticks in a vase or whatever, they're usually interesting sticks, the wavy very ends of thin branches. People stack sticks horizontally or tie them up in small bundles of kindling, in an appropriate manner as accessory to fire.
Even given the metallic paint, there is just something unsettlingly unfinished about them to look really, really festive or cute or rustic or original. Sawed too neatly and gathered too tightly, something is off on the proportion, the height, the reason, or I am looking for the missing finishing touch. Is it just because it's Canadian? I look and I want to like, but for the life o' me, I just want to figure it out. Freakin' sticks. Show us again when it snows, that might just be it.
view K T G's profile