Our Backyard Makeover Completed! (for now)

Oct 032011
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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!


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To Shade or Not to Shade?

Aug 072011
 

back­yard remodel continued.…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are com­ing to the end of our mini back­yard remodel just in time to enjoy it a lit­tle before fall arrives. We still have some details to fin­ish such as our per­gola shade. We’ve installed half of the per­gola with shad­ing mate­r­ial. The other half is still uncov­ered. This actu­ally wasn’t done on pur­pose (just ran out of time one day) but now we see how the beau­ti­ful sky is being hid­den by the shad­ing mate­r­ial. We’re try­ing to decide do we fin­ish it and pro­vide more shade which is more prac­ti­cal? (that totally goes against my nature, haha)  Would it be bet­ter to keep it be exposed and enjoy natures beauty and poten­tially sac­ri­fice some com­fort? Keep in mind we do get par­tial shade just from the per­gola alone.  (you can get the shade fab­ric at Home Depot in the gar­den sec­tion in a vari­ety of colors)

We’re tak­ing a poll and let­ting you decide the fate of the per­gola shade!

PLEASE VOTE!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Our $13 Outdoor Rug (more backyard progress)

Jul 252011
 

…back­yard remodel continued.

 

 

The best time to get deals on out­door fur­ni­ture and acces­sories is now! (most stores are hav­ing their end of sea­son sales) We wanted an out­door rug to make the din­ing room under the per­gola a lit­tle more cozy feel­ing. I found some fab­u­lous rugs with bold col­ors and pat­terns. How­ever when I was at Tar­get recently shop­ping for sun­dries, I stum­bled across their sum­mer clear­ance sale. Of course I had to browse and see what they had. I saw this neural gray tone rug made for out­side. Although it was noth­ing like I had orig­i­nally envi­sioned, it called out to me. Then I looked at the price tag and it was only $12.99! I knew instantly we were meant to be…

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The Table Has Arrived!

Jul 082011
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For those of you who have been fol­low­ing our back­yard remodel, you know we were eagerly wait­ing our table deliv­ery. It finally arrived! The down­side is it came in box that said, “assem­bly required”. Sigh…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although I am an accom­plished Ikea fur­ni­ture assem­bler, I didn’t feel up to the task this time. But then I sud­denly had a light bulb moment. Last time I checked I had a 16 year old capa­ble son! Hur­ray! I put him to work at assem­bling the table. (no I didn’t pay him to do it, he’s just super! ya, I’m one of those moms…) He was able to whip it out in 10 min­utes with­out bub­bly! (see above Ikea link to under­stand that com­ment) We are very happy with our pur­chase even though the color was totally off. If you’ve seen my inspi­ra­tion page you prob­a­bly agree it’s a pretty good find. It’s also prac­ti­cal since it’s actu­ally made to be outdoors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More to come…

We’re hop­ing to work on Ryan’s gar­den beds this week­end. My “not so typ­i­cal” herb gar­den is done, so stay tuned for my post­ing on that real soon! Oh and I’m so excited to share Ryan’s lat­est recy­cling idea. What do you do with an old mat­tress? He’s work­ing on that now too. It’s bril­liant! Well, it would have to be con­sid­er­ing he is one smart guy! (after all, he did marry me) ;)

Happy Fri­day!

 

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The Rat Diaries

Jul 022011
 

Part I

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a tale of two rats…or should I say more like twelve rats! If you read my blog reg­u­larly, you know were fix­ing up the back­yard. What good is a cool place to hang out if you have unwanted com­pany? No, I’m not talk­ing about Roy... haha Imag­ine sit­ting under our per­gola eat­ing Mahi Mahi fish tacos when sud­denly one of our guests lets out a “screeeeech”! Not because the tacos were so mind blow­ing either. (although they are) It’s because of the unwanted guest that just brushed up against their feet. Not good, not good at all…hence the begin­ning of my “rat diaries”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After shop­ping the pest con­trol aisle at Home Depot, we were more con­fused on which method to use to erad­i­cate our prob­lem. We decided to have our own “rat trap off”. We bought two sys­tems. First, the good old fash­ion $2 spring loaded mouse­trap that was invented in 1894. Sec­ondly, we bought the $40 elec­tronic Vic­tor Rat trap. This sys­tem deliv­ers humane, high-voltage shocks to kill the rat or mouse in sec­onds. We are using peanut but­ter as the bait on both traps.

Impor­tant Tip:

For the first few nights we put the peanut but­ter on the traps with­out set­ting them. This way the crit­ters feel safe com­ing and snack­ing. I know it’s so mean, huh? I feel bad just typ­ing this. But obvi­ously not bad enough because we pro­ceeded to set the traps on the third night.

Drum roll please…

First night with traps set:

3 rats were caught on the $2 spring loaded mousetraps

1 rat caught in the $40 elec­tronic rat trap

Warn­ing:

Graphic result pho­tos here. May not be appro­pri­ate for chil­dren or peo­ple who are squea­mish. View at your own risk.

 

FINAL RESULTS HERE


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The Backyard Remodel…It’s moving along!

Jun 232011
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fast for­ward and now our per­gola is done! We planted grape vines, one in each cor­ner. They’re really thriv­ing due to our good Cal­i­for­nia weather. We even have our first clus­ter of tiny, baby grapes. (see below photo) Our own “Napa” din­ing room in the back­yard is not too far off…I can’t wait!

phase one photo here

phase two photo here

 

 

 

 

 

 

Try not to look at our junk and mess. We’re not really very neat DIY peo­ple. It’s like, heh, I’ll deal with the mess when it’s all done. Not to men­tion it’s been sooooo hot lately!

 

 

 

Our first grapes! Maybe own­ing a win­ery is in my future…a girl can and should dream!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found these white patio chairs at Home­goods. (my absolute favorite store) They’re so chic, comfy, weath­er­proof and the price was right. They’re not exactly like the ones from my inspi­ra­tion page, but I can see they’re going to work in the end. Okay, so I don’t need the gaz­ing balls but I think they’ll be like the jew­els at the end…I had to have them! Table hunt­ing is over too. Hur­ray! We looked everywhere…it’s really a chal­lenge to find a table for out­side that seats 8 and doesn’t break the bank while still hav­ing the “cool fac­tor”. I think we did it though. It’s being shipped, so it’ll be a surprise…stay tuned!

Com­ing Soon:

–our out­door din­ing table reveal

–my “not so typ­i­cal” herb garden

–Ryan’s gar­den bed (made from scratch)

–new win­dow awnings to match our pergola

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Backyard Makeover…first phase.

Jun 102011
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Beast a.k.a. Our Backyard

This is the begin­ning stage of our back­yard remodel. I’m not going to blog on how to build an out­door patio per­gola since I really don’t know how too. I will blog on the DIY projects that are smaller and doable for almost every­one. The end goal is an amaz­ing out­door din­ing room/patio. I’m so excited on what we’ve done so far I hope you will stay tuned for my updates. I promise you won’t be dis­ap­pointed, only inspired to work on your own out­door space.

If you’d like to see my col­lec­tion of photo inspi­ra­tions for our yard click here.

 

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