Category: Outside

You know how I said that I wanted a little garden around the patio? But that I was too exhausted to do it, and that it could wait? Yeah. I changed my mind.

My neighbor offered some of her phlox, so I happily took some. I thought she was going to give me just a couple of stems (which would have been very sweet), but she offered a whole big bunch of it! It’s looking a bit wilted right now, but hopefully it will spring back up. I picked up some more coneflowers and coreopsis too. I have no idea if it’s too late to be planting all of these things, so hopefully the garden will be all right.

Here’s the furniture we used for our new patio.

The white planters I have were from CB2, but I bought them last year and they’re not available anymore. The Retro Bullet Planters at Velocity are similar (and I actually like them better than the ones I have). The garden stool from Lowe’s isn’t on their website, but I just bought it so they’re probably still readily available. The Suzani Pillow is probably a bit too big for the Orbit Lounge Chairs, but I don’t care. I like the colors too much to not use it!

The table and chairs are gone for the year from IKEA, but I’m sure they’ll be back next spring (and they’re super inexpensive!). Brandon likes the wood as-is, but I’d like to paint it. Maybe red for the chairs, and hot pink for the table? Or mustard yellow? White?

It took a whole lot of tamping, and adding gravel, and leveling sand, and the laying of pavers… but it’s finally done.

We have a patio!

I did buy the garden stool from Lowe’s that nikkirose mentioned. I think it’s cute with the Orbit chairs – they needed something solid and sturdy to contrast against their spindley legs.

We spread grass seed around the perimeter – hopefully it will take. I want to create a garden out there too, but that can wait. Right now, we’re just thrilled to have a level, hard surface to put our patio furniture on.

Oh, and we’re exhausted.

The plants in my garden may be small, but they seem happy!

‘Sweet Dreams’ Coreopsis

Pixie Meadowbrite Coneflower

I’ll be picking up two of these Orbit Lounge Chairs tonight from the Crate & Barrel outlet.

[via Twenty Twenty-One]

I may or may not change the color. I don’t want the little table that’s shown with the chairs though. I thought a ceramic garden stool might be nice, but I can’t bring myself to pay full price for one. Where are all the garden stools that people are sick of? After such a big trend, wouldn’t you think Craigslist and eBay would be flooded with them a year or two later?

We spent the weekend digging up the backyard in preparation for a patio. Fun. (A big ‘thank you’ to my mom for helping us yesterday though!)

Related: What does one do with a huge pile of dirt?

We’re not even finished with the digging (we need to get down to 8″). Which means there will be even more dirt. Boo.