Creating an Oasis with a Water Fountain

We’ve had this water fountain for several years, and even a few different places, but this place is my favorite.

Here’s how I went about creating an oasis with a water fountain…

I actually bought this water fountain online over 10 years ago. Back when I was renovating the garage into a dining room of our former house, I wanted to capture an outdoor courtyard feel, and had this water fountain set up in that room.

I had it in a few different spots as the years and furniture changed a bit in there, but here’s where it was one time:

It did for sure add to the courtyard feel… with plants surrounding it.

When we moved to our new 100 year old house, at first I wasn’t sure where it was going to go. I had contemplated putting it up in the 2nd story porch, but decided that because it does splatter a bit when running, it wouldn’t be ideal for it up there on the wooden floor.

But now that it’s in the courtyard we created between the breakfast room and outdoor sauna turned garden shed, it seems like the perfect spot!

The water fountain looks like it concrete, but actually it is made from some sort of fiberglass material.

I’ll have to explain in a different post a little more detail about this outdoor courtyard we created from what the previous owners were literally using as a dump for random trash… But for now we’ll just enjoy this little oasis area.

I used a special paint on the concrete garden house to dress up the cement blocks with. It’s a thick textured type paint, and worked great.

The 6 heavy iron grates were a Pottery Barn clearance snag! I was thrilled to have found them one day while I was just perusing their clearance online. Perfect for the courtyard feel of the former dining room, and as you can see, they transferred perfectly into the real courtyard of this house, camouflaging a plain cinder block wall by giving it a focal point, and causing the concrete block to just be a backdrop.

The way the courtyard is surrounded with walls, and the fountain faces the house, the gurgling water sounds echo beautifully into our breakfast room through the patio door we installed there.

And the water sounds camouflage the sounds of the neighborhood, creating a peaceful oasis right there in a totally ‘found’ space.

The little goldfish are hiding, but we do put them in and keep them in all summer. I just get the cheap feeder fish that usually do pretty well, growing over the summer on mosquito larvae. But since they are inexpensive, I don’t feel bad if some die or get eaten by a bird…

The pair of topiaries give a nice sense of symmetry and growing things, even though they’re fake! I set the pots they were attached to inside my own larger pots and filled them with trap rock to weigh them and keep them from tipping. Works great.

The basic design of the fountain is very symmetrical, with the topiaries flanking it. That design placement says “ta-da, look what we’re flanking, it’s important” In this case it’s the water fountain that is the main feature. I love this type of symmetrical placement, but it can be over done, or boring. To keep this space from seeming too contrived, the other pieces around the fountain are visually balanced, but not perfectly matching or exact. That helps to soften the strong traditional symmetrical layout.

There are a few other vintage and beautiful items flanking the water fountain… but I just think you can’t be too serious, so I do have a silly little green frog peeking out between the fountain and mercury glass gazing globe. 😉

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