Blue Sensation

SHERYL MEYER’S YARD might give you the blues, but like an elephant, you’ll never forget it.

Meyer’s front yard, side yard and front porch on Old County Line Road are filled with all manner of projects and decorations – the results of her decision, years ago, to spruce up the space that was just plain grass.

“I call it my playground,” she says.

It centers on three themes: blue-andwhite patterns, cobalt blue glass and elephants.

The themes are tough to miss when looking at Meyer’s house from the street – whether it’s the blue-and-white lanterns, the blue elephant mirrors, the collections of blue bottles suspended on rods like glass peacock plumage, the huge upright elephant wearing a dress or the blue woodpecker slyly suspended from a tree in the front yard.

For the last 31 years, Meyer, an engineer by trade, has owned Meyer Machine Tool Co., an aerospace machine shop at Port Columbus International Airport. She keeps a busy schedule, but her workspace allows her the opportunity to tinker with new projects for her yard when she has the time.

“I welded a four-foot-high, free-standing fireplace (for) out in the yard,” she says. “I could fit a two-foot-diameter stump in there.”

Her decorative theme began with a piece of her great-grandmother’s Blue Willow China. The china pattern dates back to the 1500s, and the colors – as well as the prints, which often feature elements like birds, water and willow trees – inspired Meyer to seek out more.

The elephants are a little harder to explain; Meyer has collected elephant memorabilia since she was a teenager, but does not remember why. She had a few hundred pounds of concrete elephants in the house, and her yard project just gave her a reason to relocate them.

She always has an eye out for potential additions. Yard sales, flea markets and even the closets of friends and family have provided her with opportunities. Recently, the deep blue bottles of Budweiser’s new Bud Light Platinum beer have caught her eye, and thanks to some generous donations of empties, she has about 100 bottles waiting to be used.

“I’ve had people just drop bottles off,” Meyer says. “A school bus driver left me a note: ‘Can I take some pictures? I’ll bring you some blue bottles.’”

The impetus to work on the yard came to Meyer in 1999, seven years after she