Patio & Yard Update

If you’ve been following along since we moved into our house, you know that our yard has been somewhat of a headache!  When we came down to Charlotte to see the house, it had beautiful green sod and we fell in love with the yard.

But when we arrived in December, we found a wet mud pit for a yard.  The combination of no one taking care of the sod while it sat on the market, lack of gutters, and drainage problems from the slope of the ground ruined the grass:(

The patio was concrete (and very dirty).  That, along with sectional cushions that were left uncovered in Texas sun didn’t make for a very inviting outdoor space. We’ve slowly been working on improvements over the past six months.

We started by taking the tree down because a french drain system had to be installed near the roots.

And we upgraded our patio cushions to Sunbrella fabric in hopes that they would last longer than our first set (they were not Sunbrella and we had them for four years). Our sectional is the Pottery Barn Chatham sectional that we got 40% off in Texas.  The wood is pretty worn in the back, so I probably wouldn’t recommend it for an uncovered space. The new cushions made a huge difference!!!

We added gutters back in the winter and then had the french drain system installed in the spring. The gutter downspouts were tied into the drain that runs out to the driveway, and the flooding is fixed!  We extended the patio to include the uncovered area off to the side and then had blue stone put down over the whole area.

I’ve kinda been waiting to write this post in hopes that the blue stone would look better after it was pressure washed.  We are a bit disappointed in the look of the final product and the landscaper assured us that the grout had gotten on the stone and just needed to be cleaned. But, after the cleaning, it looks exactly the same:(  Anyone know much about blue stone and if the white splotches are typical? It’s still a major improvement from the dirty concrete and some new furniture has helped finish the space.

Throw pillows from Target.

Side table from Home Depot. Bucket chairs from World Market (super comfy).

We snagged this table from Target for only $181 and these chairs from CB2 for $54/each.  The chairs are comfortable and the metal and faux wicker are zero maintenence. We’ve enjoyed having dinners outside when it’s not too hot.

The last step was seeding our yard with new grass. Sadly, the landscaping company didn’t get around to this until May, and by then, the weather was just too hot for nice grass.  We’ve been pleased that at least something is growing and it looks soo much better than the mud pit.  We have a lot of weed (this was mowed 5 days before the picture was taken and they are already this tall), but we’ll work on that along with the patches when we seed again in the fall. We’re just thrilled that most of the work is done and we have a cozy place to hangout!