Well, I did it. I did something that might actually hold me accountable (a little) for my scattered home designs and keep me on task. I joined the One Room Challenge where we’ll be sharing the updates of our backyard update and I’m so excited. I am going to test this out and see if actually having deadlines for posting, keeps me on track and helps me fully finish a room since I’ve never really done anything from start to FINISH. I am usually needing to “get back to that.” This is the first time I’ve joined and I can’t wait.
If you aren’t familiar with the One Room Challenge, it’s a highly anticipated bi-annual event where participants are challenged to completely makeover an entire space (check out the blog here). While I’m not one of the featured designers, I’ve joined as a guest participant and I plan to redo our backyard patio over the next 8 weeks. I’ll be posting backyard updates here on the blog every Wednesday, but also on my IG I’ll be sharing updates via stories so make sure follow there as well to see the progress!
OLD HOUSE BACKYARD
First, if you are new here, Hi! I’m Abby. We recently moved to a new town in Indiana where make home with my husband and two daughters. I love to set a good table, create magical fun, and move furniture around like a boss — just ask the hubs, he loves it. HA! We are in the process of making our builder grade home into something a little more unique or at least that stands out from the rest. Fingers crossed! We haven’t done much around here, or at least it doesn’t feel like it, but we can’t wait to have an outdoor space to relax!
THE BEFORE
We love to hang outside with the family and neighbors and having an inviting space was top of mind. I’ve been dreaming up this little backyard space in my head for a while now, but I’m excited to take this blank slate from drab to fab. The home came with a small covered patio area but it’s not quite big enough to hold much of anything (as you can see). I’ve cleaned that space up before which you can see here, but it never holds because there just isn’t enough space!
We redid our patio area in our last home mostly DIY and it quickly became one of my favorite places to sit — even if it was FULL SUN. So I anticipate we’ll get a lot of use out of this space too.
THE INSPIRATION
I’ve been swooning over gorgeous backyards basically my entire life. I don’t know why, but I have. Then a couple years ago my mom and I made a DIY Harvest table and put lights around a tree in the backyard and it was magical. So here are a few photos I’ve saved to pinterest as inspiration. My budget is probably about 1/4th of what these gorgeous backyards spent, but hopefully in the end there’ll be something magical about ours too!
The goal is to stay neutral with blacks, tans, creams, and wood tones.
THE PLANS
We are planning to hire the concrete base out so we’ll have the patio poured in a week or so. We had contemplated doing this ourselves with pavers, but with the slope of our yard we decided to use professionals for this part. Outside of that we have plans for a lounge area, grill area, eating area, and firepit area. All in all it’ll be about 600sq ft of outdoor space we are adding.
BACKYARD INSPIRATION
For furniture it’ll be a mix of purchased, thrifted, and DIY. With the cost of furniture at the moment, if I can find something that works that’s thrifted or from marketplace, I will go that route for sure! I’m not afraid of a little TLC. But here’s that design plan….
As for the landscaping and garden aspect — that’ll be all me. I’m sure my husband is going to want to kill me after all is said and done. I’m going to try to do this within a small budget, but we both know it’ll need to be done and needs to look nice. Oh, and he’s excited to probably get some new tools out of it so that’s the trade off. hahah.
We’ll be tackling a few DIYs during the process and a lot of styling. I feel like in the end I am going to be exhausted but so glad this is a done and useable space.
Here’s a tentative schedule as to what you might see on any given week’s update:
Week 1 – Before & Design Plans
Week 2 – Patio Pour
Week 3 – Furniture Layout
Week 4 – Outdoor Accessories
Week 5 – Landscaping & Gardens
Week 6 – Landscaping & Gardens
Week 7 – Firepit
Week 8 – Final Reveal
SUMMER FUN BINDER
Anticipated DIYs during the process:
Outdoor Dining Table
Decorative Cement Orbs
Firepit (possibly)
Privacy Screens
Garden Boxes
Not currently included in the plans but putting into the universe because they would be DREAMY:
*Dutch Door for backdoor
*Grill Table Area (might be next year)
So there you have it…
Anyone else tackling something outside this year?!
I am so excited to get started and can’t wait to see this space come to life!
And make sure to hop over to the One Room Challenge (ORC) page to see all kinds of inspiration and the weekly link ups of all participants!