Patio Reveal!

Yes, yes I'm still here.  It occurred to me that I never posted an update on our patio when we finally finished it late last fall.  To say that we love it and it makes our back yard 100% more functional is an understatement.  We have so much more seating when we have a lot of family and friends over, which is at least once a month during the warm months.  The shade is a necessity as are the fans to get a break from the afternoon/evening sun.

We had concrete poured, stamped and colored for those wondering.  I love the curves and all the play space it provides the kiddos.

Here is what it looked like last June.  We had the deck rebuilt early spring of 2013.  You can read more about that here

The finished product!

We can't gush over our patio enough!  We are love having people over even more than ever before.

Installing A New Flower Bed

If you follow me on IG you probably saw this picture a few months ago.  A trunk load of free plants from my aunt!  I used some of them in our new flower bed I blogged about here.

Here is where we started:

I made a plan for laying out all the plants making sure that the colors coordinated throughout

The first step was to layout all the plants where I want them.  I did it a few days ahead so the grass was nice and tromped down where each plant was to go.  Next we arranged the garden hose the way we wanted the bed to go.  I knew I wanted curves so it was helpful to play around with the hose to get it just perfect!  

We then spread flour outside of where the hose was lying to mark where we should dig.

Jacob did a lion's share of the digging, which looked like this when it was finished.  We worked hard on creating a straight edge of the soil so we could mound the mulch up and away from the grass.  I found a lot of information about it here

Next we dug the holes for the plants, having the grass tromped down was helpful for knowing exactly where to dig.

We decided to use landscape fabric because we don't have easy access to a garden tiller.  I used the plan to put the plants back into place and fill in the holes.

Mulching wasn't fun but then it never is.  

All finished!

And here it is over 2 months later!

I love it!

Because we were given several plants and had several already in place all in all it cost less than $150 and around 4 hours of work.  It was definitely a well worth it project, one that we get a lot of compliments on!

New Flower Bed

Back in April Jacob and I installed a long flower garden along the left side of our backyard.  Our yard was basically a blank slate when we moved in.  We added the fence (a must with dogs and being pregnant at the time) and things stayed that way for awhile.  

Last spring we moved 3 peony plants from the front to the back when we had the front landscaped.  You can see them in the picture below, the 4th plant is a tree without leaves and then an azalea....that is where we started.

Two full months later here is what it looks like today!  I wish peonies bloomed all summer!

This is the view off the deck, just to the right of the photo is the swing set.  It was important that it didn't block our view of the pond behind our property that we worked so hard to make visible!

 

All in all it took less than $150 and makes a nice statement !  I will be back with details on how we installed it shortly.

Deck Before and After

When Jacob and I bought our house 2.5 years ago we didn't realize what bad shape the deck was in.  Our house is only 6 years old but because the previous owners didn't properly stain it and it was built with nails the deck was a mess and was getting worse quickly.  

Here is the before....sorry the pictures are over exposed

And the after:



Let's go back to the lovely before.  The posts were all 4x4's, and had no post caps meaning it looked wimpy and plain.  When you stepped out onto the deck it wobbled and didn't feel safe even though it was structurally sound per several contractors.

This is the awful stain job we were dealing with.  Our neighbors told us the former owner painted it and his wife didn't like it so she tried to power wash it off......  It explained the spotty runny stain.  Awesome.

Let's get right to the afters!  We left the basic structure of the deck to save money and upgraded the posts to 6x6's with post caps for a little bling.  We also added detailed boards (not sure what those are called) and reinforced all the posts into the ground with concrete.  

You can see we added a metal roof under the deck to create another seating area.  The goal is to add pavers hopefully in the near future.  Because the back of our house is west facing it is impossible to be on the deck in the afternoon/evening.  The shade of the deck is invaluable to this Mama who needs to cool off after chasing her toddler around in the heat of the afternoon!

Ceiling fans keep the bugs away and are seriously necessary with the heat in the summer.  The roof is pitched and we are having a gutter installed and tied into our French drain.

The rock pile in the corner needs to go as soon as I get the motivation to put them around my flower bed. ;)  I have to brag on my mom because she sewed the red cushion covers and saved us a bundle.  All the furniture is hand-me-downs and I purchased the flower pillows for some color!

You can see the reinforced 4x4's with 6x6's.  We might eventually do rock around the 4 larger posts.

You can see my toy storage behind the sofa!  I am looking for a console but it works in the meantime.

You can see Miss M's play area.  Her Granny and Papa got her a swing set for her birthday!

This galvanized bucket is from my late grandpa's farm.  He used it to milk cows and I love that I now have it!

Our previous deck didn't have any lighting except the light beside the door you can see in the below pic.  We added stair lighting and post lighting.  We also plan to do do string lights under the deck eventually!

The stain we chose was Behr Tugboat and this picture is pretty accurate.  It is darker than we anticipated but I think it looks nice with the house and let's be honest....we aren't going to have it redone. ;)

We also chose to add a gate, which was a great idea.  We can lock kids in without worrying about them falling down the stairs.   I think we should have added one at the bottom too....which we may eventually do too.  See how the to-do list is still long.  Jacob loves it. :)

This is the area I don't know what do do with.  I kinda think we should have done bench seating.  Thoughts?

One more before and after??  Yes, please!

You can see our grass isn't that great hence the pavers and mulch around the play set in the future!