The time has come to say goodbye to our cute little random atrium:

When we originally purchased the place we had grand ideas of turning it into an office, changing it into a little greenhouse for plants and herbs, etc. Finally we came upon a picture that would forever change our mind about this little random, ill-placed atrium:

the garoa store / una arquitetos © leonardo finotti byarchdaily.com

Think NYC loft apt (without the high ceilings) with an indoor zen garden. We plan to close in the open roof with a piece of plastic that's used for a skylight-type things (its called polycabronate multiwall panel in case you care). It looks like this:

48 in. x 72 in. multiwall hurricane panel - gemw72 at the home depot by homedepot.com

Then we'll do slate walls, river rock on the bottom with some good lighting and a ficus tree in the center! The idea is to really open the space by making it indoor but still embrace the outdoor peaceful feeling the space brings. So the plastic piece is on its way to the house and this weekend the guys are tearing out the atrium walls, reinforcing the roof in the area and enclosing the space. Its incredibly hard to explain so there were will lots of pics of the process to come this weekend. But in the meantime there are a few other pics of what 'we're going for: