Park-Inspired Patio and Backyard Makeover On The Cheap

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 bed