Our Backyard Makeover Completed! (for now)

From rags…

…to riches!

It’s been a few months since my first post about giv­ing our back­yard a lit­tle mini makeover. We finally fin­ished most of it. It was help­ful that our yard had good bones to begin with. Although there was a lot of work to do, it wasn’t a huge diy under­tak­ing. Our new per­gola and paver floors were the only real big projects. We have a few more cos­metic things to do, (hang lights, find our bbq a bet­ter loca­tion, plant veg­gies in our new bed, etc…) but does any­one really ever com­pletely fin­ish a remodel? We are really enjoy­ing the fruits of our labor. Speak­ing of that, a spe­cial thanks to our amaz­ing crew, a.k.a. fam­ily & friends!

Check out great pho­tographs of our back­yard here.

Tips:

• Make chaise lounge bol­ster cush­ions using hip dish tow­els. (I bought mine at Tar­get, they’re by Dwell)
• Dress your faded out­door cush­ions with cov­ers made from sim­ple white tow­els. Easy (if you can sew, or like me knows some­one who sews…thanks Con!) to make and easy to clean. I don’t rec­om­mend pat­terned or color tow­els due to sun fading.
• Mix vintage/garage sale fur­ni­ture pieces with new ones. You not only save money this way, but it adds char­ac­ter reflec­tive of you.
• Shop at your local dis­count stores and on-line. We pur­chased our din­ing table on-line at Pier One and bought our din­ing chairs at Homegoods.
• Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Try to be rea­son­able and flex­i­ble when plan­ning your mini remodel. (espe­cially if this is a diy project)  Pick two things that are really impor­tant to you. In our case it was the per­gola and hav­ing a din­ing room table out­side to eat on. After that every­thing is a bonus!