Don’t you hate it when a blogger is like “This space was SO BAD before” but really it just wasn’t styled? Well, don’t you worry. I’m here to tell you that this patio was legitimately awful before. And we lived with it for two years! Why? Because we had no idea how easily we could update it. And how little it would cost us (less than $400!) facepalm

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Here’s the BEFORE …

I am really not exaggerating. Our patio has always been a hot mess. The wood was cracking and had been painted a very strange golden hue.

In addition to the sad state of the wooden deck, our entire backyard was in pretty bad shape. Here’s a shot of the back of our property. It was overgrown with weeds and pretty unusable as it was.

This backyard, in fact, is the major reason we purchased this home back in 2017. I loved the idea of backing up to a wooded area in this pretty suburban neighborhood. See those houses back there? Yep. We’re close but then we also have this strip of forest that makes our backyard feel a lot more detached and private.

I’m also pretty embarrassed to admit that the backyard was just a plain mess! Toys were everywhere. Tools were strewn about. The flower beds were overgrown with weeds and an old patio set was slowly disintegrating under our deck.

BACKYARD + PATIO MAKEOVER INSPIRATION

I really loved the idea of bringing out the forest vibes at the back of the yard. To really put emphasis on that space, I needed to neutralize the deck and furniture. Our home has a lot of black accents, so I needed to tie in the black with nature.

I decided to mimic the look of an aluminum railing by painting the rail posts black and tying into nature with a brown base.

Sources:
BEHR Deck Over Wood Coating in Padre BrownBEHR Marquee Exterior Paint in Totally Black

Then I cleaned up the back portion of the yard by removing the weeds and added a think layer of pine straw for that forest floor look.

Since the back area stays pretty shady, we’ve added shade-loving ferns and hostas around the trunks of trees.

A quick coat of black spray paint updated the old Adirondack chairs and provided a cohesive and modern look.

Sources:
Plastic Adirondack ChairsBlack Spray Paint for Chairs

I added two ferns at the bottom the the patio stairs and surrounded the deck with fresh pine bark mini nugget mulch.

Sources:
Pine Straw MulchPine Bark Mini Nuggets

I also gave our daughter’s picnic table a fresh coat of paint and brown stain to match the look.

Sources:
Kid’s Wood Picnic Table
Kid’s Wood Adirondack Chair

Looking at the full picture, the entire house now feels more modern.

Even from inside, its looking so much fresher! It really feels cohesive with the front of the house too.

Out front, we updated the lights on the porch and added hanging baskets and fresh plantings around the front yard.

Sources:
Hanging Flower BasketsMailbox Address Plaque

Here’s the backyard again –

Feels like a hike in the woods, right?

For comparison, here’s the Before + After of our backyard and patio makeover, side by side.

CLICK THE IMAGES TO GET THE LOOK

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xoxo
Teri