I need some joyful thinking at the very least in my world today.
This could or could not be related to COVID - the idea or need to spend more time in our outdoor living spaces - for quiet time for yourself or for eventually gradual socialization with other family or friends with social distancing.
I have always coveted our outdoor spaces. In in Ohio so outdoor time for lounging (not bundled up!) is loosely now through October (if we are lucky!).
I’ve been looking at our space - our wide front porch, our deck across the back of the house, our patio with chairs and firepit - even our side yard which still has the awesome wood tree house, slide and swings my husband build from scratch (he was a park ranger and it looks like a mini park!).
So one thing I’ve been doing here and there during SIP is making plans for better outdoor space.
I’m chuckling today because while I can’t get a can of spray paint delivered on Amazon I do have two large Adirondack chairs I ordered from Costco on Monday arriving today, 3 days later! They are a beautiful bright navy and will go on our front porch making a sitting spot out there we haven’t had before.
I sanded and re-sprayed our deck furniture and ordered a new umbrella for our dining table. Still have plans to repaint the deck but the weather hasn’t cooperated yet!
Bought new outdoor bench pads for our teak furniture on the patio. Still have to power wash and re-oil the furniture.
Thinking of hanging patio lights over the dining area of our deck.
Plants of course. I am also in the process of washing many pots I have that are stratigically placed in our spaces and refilling window boxes. Hoping I’ll be able to manuver plant buying in the next few weeks…
Do you have outdoor space that you love and enjoy? Or spots that you could enhance to enjoy with more time staying in home? How do you refresh your outdoor space? What gives you joy in your outdoor space???
We are lucky to live in the Maine woods, next to the Royal River. We can walk 300 yards on a path through the woods and hang out on the river bank. That’s where DD has been doing school work. It works well for her because internet reception is poor and she can’t get distracted.
We also have a hot tub we use a lot. Our view is the woods. As the outside temperature rises, we decrease the water temperature and it feels great.
We have a large space enclosed by an invisible fence, so we can run around with our two Australian Shepherds.
DH is planning on starting a large garden soon.
Even our two younger kids, who are disappointed they can’t be with their friends, have both said they know how fortunate they are to have such a great place in which to isolate.
@abasket , I’m envious of your front porch, we had a large covered one at our house in Colorado years ago and used it more than the back.
As for your dining area, we got these from Costco a few years ago and like them. They are heavy, you can’t hang them from the umbrella, but they are dimable and my husband got a remote control dimming gizmo so we don’t have to go outside to plug them in.
Between gnats, black flies, and ticks, my definition of “Livable Outdoor Space” covers from October to now rather than the other way around! I’ll be following along for screenhouse, etc., suggestions. It would be wonderful to enjoy the air without getting eaten alive.
I ADORE our outside space. Much more so than I expected! We have an old fashioned covered front porch where we have a porch swing, two comfy outside chairs with a padded ottoman and a small coffee table. I have a yellow and white outdoor rug anchoring the seating areas and I used an old plywood table and painted it the same blue as our front door and blue and yellow throw pillows for the chairs. We did that all last year. Looking forward to be able to add my hanging baskets when it’s warm enough.
We also have a sunporch in the back of the house that we use from March- November. We have a nice rug and our old mosaic kitchen table out there, a little chest of drawers and a nice mud room set up. We eat almost all our dinners out there and when warm enough, open up all the windows (all screened).
In the back yard, we have an ugly concrete patio that needs to be redone (it’s on the list). For the time being though, we got a big outdoor rug to hide the ugly and we have a a outdoor love seat and four chairs around a fire pit table. The grill is out there too along with a pretty bistro table.
In the far back of the yard we have two blue Adirondack chairs and an old metal table that I spray painted robin eggs blue last year.
Stuff is positioned so that there are both sunny and shaded spaces to choose throughout the day.
@dragonmom, thank you for the lighting link. The remote control option is handy.
Our front porch is actually open, not closed. We just replaced the large concrete front porch end of last summer so it’s is screaming for some landscaping and decor. It’s a 2 story New England style home so I and I have a bright navy dutch door in front so I think the bright navy chairs against our white home will pop nicely!
Bugs are no fun. Maybe someone has a suggestion for effective devices or methods to keep them away.
We have a small, suburban townhouse backyard. It slopes down from the back door to the fence. There are some redbuds along the fence, and random flowers in a flowerbed, but golly are there ever mosquitoes as soon as the weather gets much warmer than it is now. We barely use that yard at all. I’m not sure where those bugs come from. The grass?
Wow, abasket, you have a lot of energy! I decided long ago that I didn’t want any outdoor furniture that needs oiling, or even any glass that would need cleaning. We have two chairs with cushions and I moved them under a deep overhang because they don’t do well in the rain, even with sunbrella fabric.
My favorite thing is a little metal glider we have. It’s in the shade and I sit there a lot. I recently washed our umbrella fabric for our patio table, so that’s it, I’m done!
Actually, our back patio is completely covered with irregular pieces of slate. There is an enormous magnolia tree in the back corner and its shallow roots are causing many of the slates to heave up. When the world returns to normal, I need to find someone who can rel-evel everything. It’s going to be a big and nasty job, but walking around out there now is a bit hazardous.
One thing that gives me great joy is the shade we have. If you walk from the sunny front into the side yard, the temperature drops and it gets noticeably quieter. There are old pieces of granite and marble that are covered with various shades of green lichen and I find them so very soothing to look at.
Another source of joy we have is a bell from Arcosanti. It’s a community in northern AZ founded by Italian architect Paolo Soleri to live in harmony with nature. They make bells to help fund their community.
Our bell has quite a deep sound, and doesn’t ring very often. You have to have a good bit of wind, unlike for chimes (which we have too). Love hearing that bell! It also reminds me of the comical experience it was for H and to hang it up, high in a tree.
I love, love, love my outdoor space! I’ve got a deck and a blue stone patio off that. Two dining areas (one on deck and one on patio.) I have the teeny lights along the back of the house where deck is. I have lovely gardens surrounding the whole area and I do many pots, window boxes, and have trees in pots also.
Last summer I bought a huge cantilevered umbrella that covers almost the whole deck. It gets brutality hot on it - especially late in the afternoon.
I also have several bird houses on hanging on the big trees in yard. I love to watch for the babies to leave their nests.
When I sit out and look around (lots of trees around, but not forest like) I feel like I’m sitting in a beautiful park because I can see the canopy of trees, but also all my neighbors beautiful gardens.
I have a smallish front entrance but large enough for a few chairs if I wanted. I usually just sit on the steps though. I have a lot of pots with all sorts of flowers on it.
But, I’m not going to go out and get flowers for my pots, window boxes this summer. Not worth it, imo, to risk getting the virus.
I probably will bring more of my house plants and house trees out, though.
I am waiting for the plant boxes to arrive from Costco! We already have a couple that I ordered previously. I pressure-washed and stained the useless small deck off the garage; that’s where the boxes will go to create a garden not accessible to rabbits and slugs! We are so lucky to have two big decks that we have outfitted with sturdy furniture from Costco and one of our favorite local stores, Summer House (they sell all things for outdoor living, and visiting their showroom makes me happy). A propane firepit and a firetable keep us from freezing on chilly nights.
Thank you for starting this thread! My outdoor spaces are a great source of joy for me right now! I’m in Ohio too. My front porch (traditional home) is why we bought this house. I have a porch swing and then a set of furniture with cushions that we leave out for the summer and put away in the winter. I have found that having a plant out there (a fern) and the sturdy, large faux wicker furniture with deep cushions, along with large rug, makes it seem a little more like a living area. D and I were out there a few nights ago and some people walking by complemented us on the porch…D was like “Mom! That was so great! You always have loved this porch and you’ve made it so nice” so it was nice to have it so obviously in my face to appreciate it more!
We do enjoy our windchimes out front and back. For bugs, we have citronella candles on both front porch and back patio; I don’t think they do much though, and we keep bug spray by the back door. Sometimes we wonder if a ceiling fan on the front porch would help keep mosquitoes away.
A few years ago my DH strung some “party lights” around our back patio (on which we have a table and chairs) and it really adds a festive look; we get lots of complements on these too (we are on a corner so they are visible to passers by). He put them on a remote so we can turn them on and off from inside the house which seemed easy (just something you plug into the outlet outdoors) and helps us to use them more.
One early quarantine project I did was to spray paint the fire pit grille with rustoleum high heat paint. It helped, but not 100%. Up close you can still see some rust coming through, even though it wasn’t deep rust and I cleaned and used a wire brush as the instructions said. But it still looks better than it did!
I REALLY want to plant, grass seed in bare patches and my front porch planters, but we had frost just two nights ago, so still waiting.
Adding me to the list of loving their outdoor space. Last year we replaced our old wooden deck with the composite material deck. We also built a brand new stone patio below the deck. I love the sitting wall half wrapping around the fire place, and the stone patio wraps around the entire deck, gives us a perfect setting for summer BBQ. On the left hand side of the house is badminton/volley ball court, next to it is soccer area with a normal size soccer net my son and her friends always hang out. On the other side of the house is the shed and below that is my 30 x 20 garden with stone walls around it.
We had a BBQ last summer with over 100 people hanging outside in the deck and patio and it didn’t feel crowded at all. Funny thing is we rushed the project and made it JUST on time for D19 to take graduation pictures and various parties.
Our new house has a front porch, SIP, as well as a patio. The front yard is teeeny tiny! Nice porch, but it’s so close to the street, a few hanging baskets or large planters is probably all I’ll do. Especially since the movers utterly destroyed half my adirondack set.
The backyard is decent size for our area, but since it’s new construction it is completely bare! I doubt I’ll be able to do much to it this year, but will have a reputable landscaper on speed dial as soon as I get the go ahead from Dh next spring. I need color! I need shade! I need flowers!!! If my yard isn’t a bumblebee’s heaven, I’m not doing it right.
Both the SIP and patio are bare concrete floors, so I want to pretty those up. I haven’t decided how fancy I’m going to get with it yet though. Do I want a pretty patterned epoxy, or just go w/ a simple neutral shade and get an outdoor rug for the SIP? I think the SIP will get more use so that’s my first project. I want to get a ceiling fan installed ASAP. I’m sure my teak patio set (2 chairs, love seat, and 3 tables) will need treating and I may have to buy new cushions. It’s been shoved to a corner of the garage, so hopefully it’s in decent condition still. I also want to get one of those tilting laptop desk/tables for anyone who would like to work outdoors. There’s also a nice ceiling feature w/ faux beams… but they painted the whole thing white! I’d like to paint the ceiling so you can actually notice the beams.
No idea how long all of this is going to take me as there’s ALOT we want to do both inside and outside the house. New build definitely doesn’t mean no work!! LOL
Ahh!!! I have found my fellow outdoor living peeps!
SIP as mentioned above = screened in porch, right? (not “stay in place”!)
We have lots of shade too in the back of the house. Corner double lot so lots of living space but also a fair amount of grass to cut.
@greenwitch my H has to every couple of years level off our patio too due to tree roots. Very large maple, pine and a beautiful beech tree all border it so roots do interfere. He usually only does an area at a time as needed. Its the one outside thing (besides trimming trees) that he seems willing to do!
Wish we could post pictures on this site - like every other message board known to man!
I forgot all about our propane fire pit. It’s on the patio. It can also be used as a table when the cover is on over the glass stones.
I also put in solar lights in the beds surrounding the patio and last year got three metal tiki torches I put in the garden between one part of the deck and patio. My H hates the bamboo ones, but when I found the metal ones he gave the ok. He normally lets me do whatever I want - but for some reason, really hates those. So I didn’t press it.
I LOVE my outdoor space. I don’t have a front porch, but I do have a large, by city standards, front lawn which I am slowly remaking into a park like area where I will put in a park bench & some chairs underneath a giant chestnut tree.
My deck behind the house is wonderful. (Built by previous owners.) Getting it ready for summer is one of my favorite spring time activities. I throw very colorful Mexican blankets on the floor, put out chairs & a lounger, and put out all my indoor house plants. They live outside for the entire summer. We have lights on the pergola over the sitting area, all kinds of lanterns with candles, and large pots I fill with colorful annuals.
An outdoor space for me is among the most important factors in choosing a house. It doesn’t have to be big – I could live in a townhome/condo with a balcony – but it has to be lush, colorful and a place I can spend hours in. It’s what summer is all about.
I wish I could put a front porch on current house, but the setback rules wouldn’t allow it even if our roofs didn’t intersect in weird ways. We do have a little patio out there with a cafe table and two chairs.
Five years ago I put an addition on the back of the house with a small screened porch. Best decision I ever made. I am a mosquito magnet and had pretty much given up eating on the patio that used to be there. We live out there as soon as it gets warm enough. Our yard is quite small, the lot is 50 ft wide in the front, but it’s pie shaped and ends up at 14 ft wide in the back. It also drops down eight feet behind the garage which makes the rear portion not terribly useful. It would be a good place for a cutting garden if there weren’t so many trees. (All of which are actually on the property of neighbors.)
In our apartment in Germany we were on the top floor and had two terraces with 30 linear feet of window boxes and designed so they were completely private from neighbors. It was just about the perfect amount of yard for pre-kids.
I’m not sure where those bugs come from. The grass?