Visit our Patio Renovation!

Our patio is ever-evolving into a place for us to rest, relax, and watch the kids play.

Living in suburbia, we have a small backyard, so we have to make the most of our space. Each year, we’ve tried to do something to enhance the concrete slab right outside our kitchen door.

We started with this grisly space (circa 2011) (note how the stairs and patio don’t match!?):

Thanks to a backyard makeover, we upgraded with planters, refurbished furniture and a few pretty things in 2011 (but the stairs, patio and HUGE crack remain):

In 2012, due to the previous fall’s snow storm that wrecked our yard, we needed to do more work cleaning and beautifying.

We put up our gazebo (which I’ve discovered to be a life-saver, as our patio gets FULL SUN for a large portion of the day!). We added more lighting, fire pit, and chair cushions:

When more crazy storms in 2012 blew our gazebo over the fence… that called for replacement! So 2013 had us YET AGAIN looking to renovate the patio area. With TWO boys now playing outside (and loving it), I wanted to do more than just place furniture around and add fun accessories.

So, my amazing DIY hubby agreed to repair and paint the concrete (including the stairs into the kitchen! YAY! no more baby blue steps with tons of chips in the paint!). He used a concrete restoration product: “Restore” Concrete Resurfacer (affiliate link) to fix cracks and then “paint” the surface with this tinted, textured covering.

WOW. See how different? Clean and even looking. The crack was filled/fixed and the stairs and slab are the same color now! The surface is slightly textured although I feel it is more slippery than the original concrete when wet. I was disappointed by the tint added at the store – we had wanted more of a sand color, and instead got a brighter whitish-gray. It is really too bright for us but we figured we’d live with it this year and perhaps stain it darker next year.

We added a NEW gazebo, with screens and privacy curtains to block bugs and sun. I was SO excited to purchase a full patio conversation set (not the Ipé wood set I was drooling over however!) It’s more comfortable to sit on the couch and armchairs instead of in the folding picnic table chairs (although those are fine for eating at the table).

I put a much larger outdoor rug under the gazebo to cover nearly the whole 10×12 space, as this is where the baby mostly plays and he is still crawling – I didn’t want his little knees getting all roughed up. The former 5×8 rug I put in front of the stairs for additional patio coverage. So really, the brightness of the patio paint gets toned down by the rugs.

So here’s the new look, complete with fall hydrangeas and marigolds from our garden! Decorating tip – pick those huge hydrangeas now and put in a large vase with no water – they will dry in place and last you the entire fall season (perhaps more! I’ve kept dried hydrangeas for over a year!).

We’ve really enjoyed having this nicer area for entertaining (like birthday parties!), and letting the boys play.

We’ll still have another couple months to enjoy the patio before it gets really too cold. But I’ve already turned my attention to the indoors again. For the fall, I’m back at purging my house of clutter, and creating a larger playroom area for the boys in half of our spare bedroom! Can’t wait to share when I’m done!

What home decor projects are you working on right now?