Patio Makeover: Back to Square One

If you’re a long time reader of this blog, you might recall how excited I was last year to post about my patio makeover.

Well… the rest of that story goes: In early fall, a sudden rain shower descended while I was out shopping and I returned home to a completely imploded gazebo. The End.

I remember being in total shock when I pulled in the driveway at the same time as the UPS man… I even looked at him suspiciously, to see if he had any part of this fiasco. He saw me standing open-jawed next to my smooshed gazebo and said to me, “Did that just happen?”

Yeah. That’s what I’m saying!!

Well it did happen and that left us picking up the pieces and putting them away for winter. Time to regroup.

With such a cold spring, we’re just finalizing our outdoor cleanup and garden setting, and have finally finished sprucing up the patio for summer! Thanks to the folks at Raymour and Flanigan, I had a boost in getting our patio back in order for summer entertaining!

I’ll share the “after” photos in a few days, but for now, just take a look at what I’m dealing with: 

A patio right next to a driveway. Need me some pretty there!

A backyard that plunges suddenly downwards right at the end of the patio/driveway (see? see what I’m dealing with!?). This means our space is pre-defined for us!

Living on a hill means we stare right into ALL our neighbors backyards all the time. And they can stare right up at us from most angles… It doesn’t matter that there are trees around the edges of our property, we’re so high up we still get a bird’s eye view. We want more privacy when we’re having dinner outside.

And of course… apparently, we’re also a mini children’s playground, since this is the only flat space away from the road to ride bikes and play with certain toys. We’ll make some adjustments here, but the reality is we have kids so… the toys will still be around, I’m sure!

Fortunately, our patio paint job from last year came through the winter mostly intact – hubby just had to do some patch jobs here and there.

I can show you Step 1 in the process of our patio makeover: getting a new gazebo. It’s a must for us, because the afternoon sun hits that side of the house fiercely, so we have to have some cover if we’re going to be out of doors for extended time periods. 

But that’s all for today – stay tuned. Patio Makeover Part Two is coming up!

What would you change about your patio or backyard? 

Thanks to Raymour & Flanigan Furniture for sponsoring this post. All opinions are my own.