Patio Makeover

The patio makeover is finally complete which is a great feeling considering the summer of 2020 did not exactly go as planned. We had originally booked a trip to Europe to celebrate a very special milestone. We had been looking forward to it for so long but we knew right at the start of quarantine that it had to be canceled and surprisingly I was okay with it considering everything that was going on in the world. So instead we booked a camping trip along with some weekend getaways to the mountains. That camping trip was also our very first RV experience which turned out to be one of my all time favourite family vacations.

During that trip we realized just how much we loved sitting by the fire, enjoying the outdoors. We hadn’t thought much about redoing the backyard since we had budgeted for the big Europe trip but since that wasn’t happening we finally decided to redo the entire patio, all by ourselves of course! Mission s’mores was about to happen but there was one small thing holding us back. Our daughter’s trampoline! She had outgrown it but it still took a little convincing to get rid of it. Once it was gone, my vision was set and the diy’s were on!

To get a true idea of what the yard looked like, check out the before below. Removing the grass was an epic job but we rented a sod cutter and thank goodness because it made it so much easier! Once that was done it was time to move on to the gravel. My vision from the very beginning was to replace the grass with gravel. I love the clean look and the easy maintenance of it. We actually did the same with our yard at a previous home and I knew that was what I was going for. Finding the right gravel wasn’t easy though. Kind of like a goldilocks situation, either too big or too small. We ended up with rounded 10 mm p gravel (3/8 inch) in a neutral combination.

Once the landscape fabric was in we were ready for the gravel. I should mention we used industrial fabric which is heavy duty and best for this type of project. We laid all the gravel ourselves, approximately 8000 pounds of it!! I was so happy to see the grass go and the gravel in, that I would’ve left it as is! And now to the fun part!!

We wanted to keep this project budget friendly and quick to do before summer was over so I came up with some simple diy’s. I created a little cluster of pots by spray painting some large ones all black and filling them with a variety of ferns. Have a look at the blog post Garden Pot Cluster for all the details. We already had some flowers on the deck along with a vegetable garden so I just wanted greens for the patio and I plan on adding more next year.

Next to do was the furniture. We searched around and shopped for patio furniture and aside from the ridiculous prices I knew we’d just end up making it ourselves we could completely customize it that way. I truly wanted one large sectional to seat lots of people and fill in as much of the space as possible. In order to save on getting custom cushions done, I purchased all the cushions, covers and throw pillows ahead of time at IKEA and we based the dimensions of the sectional off of the cushions. They were so reasonable that I decided to buy both the cream and the charcoal gray. I couldn’t decide and also, I liked the idea of changing up the look without having to buy all new cushions. Plus there’s always a chance they won’t carry the same ones next year. So with all the cushions ready to go, we just had to build the actual sectional. One of the design elements I wanted to include was to have a side table attached on each end for drinks. We weren’t going to be buying a coffee table as we went with a large fireplace in the middle instead. And we also did a concrete side table DIY (full details to come on a separate blog post)!

The entire sectional was made out of pressure treated wood. The frame itself was made with 2×4 and 2×6 lumber and the seating was made out of 5/4 deck boards. It was all assembled using pocket holes on the inside of the frame. The cut end of each board was sanded and sealed.