The days are longer, the weather is warmer, and the back yard is calling! I finally got around to sprucing up our patio post renovation. The renovation cut our patio space in half since we enclosed the covered side. I went digging through my computer files to find this picture I took on our first visit before we bought the house over seven years ago. The first summer here we took down the lattice, got rid of the bushes, and put up a privacy fence on that side of the yard. We also hung a ceiling fan and planted grape vines that grew wildly up the posts.
Here is the horrible before picture taken a couple of months ago. The covered patio acted as a catch-all for anything and everything. Birds kept trying to nest in the grape vines and ceiling fan and left little presents all over the furniture. Yuck. This space was such an eye sore that we barely used it.
Then came the renovation this spring. We enclosed the covered patio to make a room for our parrots. At first I was very worried about how everything would work out. I didn't like the idea of more cheap vinyl siding taking over the back of our house. However, siding plans changed when we discovered extensive termite damage. All of the old dirty siding came down in order to make repairs and we replaced it with composite Hardie Boards. This picture was taken in the middle of the chaos. Yes, that is a large parrot cage on the patio.
And now, drum roll please.....
We have a functional and visually appealing place to hang out! I moved most of the furniture off of the patio since space is very limited. Usually the kids sit at their picnic table in the grass so this is adequate seating for our normal day to day life. And the patio gets plenty of shade during the day so I can hang out and watch the kids play without scorching in the sun!
The chairs needed to be redone so I took a deep breath and painted them fun colors (I hinted about it here). The green color inspiration came from an unlikely source- the kids' legos! We went with Sassy Green (Valspar Ultra Exterior Paint + Primer). The purple is Royal Plum, left over from our new shutters. I was nervous about going so bright but it totally works!
Our water "bubbler" needs a little TLC still. The horse tails are spreading and growing like crazy. Unfortunately, one of the dogs ran through them last week and broke a bunch.
Ryan made a new cooler for the porch with old barn wood we had laying around. I'll post the details separately.
We finally hung our old bottle opener and bottle-top catcher. Ryan has had the opener since his bachelor days and he bought the catcher in St. Louis after taking an Anheuser-Busch Brewery tour a few days before our wedding. It only took seven years to hang it!
The harsh Oklahoma heat hasn't killed our flowers yet!
And my lime tree has six baby limes growing!
We have one more porch project on the radar. We'd love to cover and extend the concrete slab with bricks or pavers. We found a ton of these old red bricks and are trying to negotiate a purchase. Making a patio out of these will be a huge undertaking, so we aren't in any rush! These things are HEAVY!
The weather is so gorgeous here today that I think I'll have lunch on the patio! Happy Monday!
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