I decided when doing our patio to widen the walkway to the main part of patio around one side of my deck and I’m very glad I did that too. It gets sun at a time of day the rest of the patio is in shade, so on days when it’s a bit chilly, but sunny, I can have my lounge chair and side table on the path.
I get not wanting a fair pit out in front yard.
My fire pit came with a cover which we keep on most of the time - especially now that we aren’t doing any entertaining.
Can we revive this thread? Maybe post some pictures?
We have a sunroom that we love - use it a ton. It needs to be redone - the carpet has faded, the windows need to be replaced etc. Have a guy coming to do this, but given his current schedule, this is not going to happen this year.
We also have a deck (access is from the sunroom) - don’t use it a whole lot. We’ve been thinking (make that I’ve been thinking!) of adding a patio below the deck. With a spot for a fire pit. Being in New England, we used our backyard and our portable fire pit a lot last year when friends came by. That was our only social activity - all socially distant.
I’d love to see pictures of decks leading to patios. We have a fairly narrow set of steps leading down from the deck - am thinking we’d want to change that and make it more open - walk down from anywhere on the deck to the patio below.
H is wondering when we would actually use all these spaces - sunroom, deck, patio, firepit 
Oh - and if anyone has good ideas to keep the mosquitos away, please share. That’s one of the main reasons we don’t spend the evenings outside. H doesn’t care, but he doesn’t get bitten like I do!
We have a patio off our deck - and use them both! Like you mentioned , deck has grill, table chairs, chaise longe, glider, etc and plants. Patio has fire pit, Adirondack chairs, another glider, and is surrounded by flower beds.
We use them both a lot! We are very much be outside people. My fav thing to do is to have breakfast/brunch outside on the deck weekend mornings. It’s shady and cool and I love the mid morning sounds.
For mosquitos, make sure you don’t have any noncirculating water near the house, like water in old pots or buckets. Citronella candles and torches work while you are outside. An overhead fan helps on a porch. You can fog your yard and it will help for a single evening or afternoon. Good if you are having a party or people over, but not a long term solution. I’ve never found that bug zappers help much with mosquitos.
We are in our most unpleasant outdoor season down south, but we did make some upgrades to allow us to spend more time outside even in the heat. Last summer, we installed two new ceiling fans on the porch to replace long dead ones. We bought some nice new outdoor couches and lighting. But the main thing was three large shades from Lowes that we installed along the west side of the porch, that block the afternoon sun. It feels like a whole self contained new room when all 3 shades are down.
I am looking forward to seeing people’s pictures also! We just had 8 pallets of stones delivered this morning, to redo our patio down from our deck. It had been a mish-mash of blue stones, cement pavers, ceramic tiles! and more and very uneven. Building a new (level!) patio with fire pit. Will figure out furniture afterwards, there will still be a good amount of level area besides the patio which will have grass and plantings.
We have a sunporch and a patio. We definitely use both. We tend to eat dinner in the sunporch but entertain on the patio and will often eat breakfast and lunch out there. That said, it’s been rainier than usual this summer so we’ve been on the sunporch more than expected.
We need to update our sunporch as well. We need new windows and would like to turn it into a 4 season room. Waiting for material prices to stabilize and our contractor to be less busy!
We have a deck and patio. The deck is L-shaped and the patio is nestled in the crook, if that makes sense. The deck is only two steps higher than the patio, and we have wide stairs on two ends leading down to it. We then have pots of plants along the edge where there aren’t steps to created a little wall.
The deck wraps around much of the back of the house and is covered in one area (breezeway between detached garage and house. In the covered area we have a sofa, chairs and a tv mounted to the wall. That area gets the most use, by far. My kids are out there all of the time with their friends, especially since it was a rain or shine place to gather during the worst of the pandemic. I will often pop out there for a nap on the sofa, since it is nice and shaded (and gets the best breeze). The other side of the deck has a sectional and chairs, a pergola and string lights. To be honest, we only uncover the furniture and use that when we are entertaining large groups and only in the evening (it is super sunny and often too hot at midday).
We have a dining set and a firepit on the patio.
Because I love to talk outdoor living space, bumping up this thread if allowed to see what anyone has done this season 2022 to add to or change around or make new outdoor living space??
We have a long deck and then down the steps from it, a nice sized shaded patio where our fire pit is. While H still needs to level out some of the pavers from our very old and very large tree roots, I feel like it’s a little more cleaned up. Still room for some improvements but we hope to NOT stay at this house, so this change makes me happy.
I got rid of a teak glider that was on it’s last leg and incorporated a 4 seater patio table in a corner to hide the firewood for the fire pit. I’ll probably get rid of the quirky blue/green bench when we move but for now this set up works fine (the back of the bench was an old metal bed frame that I rescued and had someone make into a bench for me - it’s several years old and almost time to lay it to rest!!!) It’s casual and fun. 
We have a Boothbay Bell from LLBean in a side garden. Same thing. It really needs to be very windy for it to ring…but it does with a nice deep tone.
How about hummingbird feeders someplace? They are nice to have…unless you have bears.
I re-did my outdoor space a few years ago and I absolutely love it. It’s a covered porch/patio.
what I did was:
It’s so perfect - Sometimes I actually go out back and work at the couch/table during the days. We watch movies out there often at night.
We just got a new grill, so I’ll be swapping out the grill and replacing it with a new one for this season. I also want to get some kind of storage solution for the non covered part of the patio as well.
I love outdoor space. In our current house we have two screened in porches. One is room sized and off the kitchen with a big fan and light. We often entertain there. We have Martha Stewart furniture from Home Depot out there. Was very low cost and can be washed. Had it maybe 6 years and looks like new. I buy new cushions every other year. We put an indoor/outdoor rug down too.
We also have a screen in porch on the second floor off the master bedroom with an excellent view of a farm and the sunset. I bought a small sectional. We had an electrician put an outlet and hanging farmers lantern so it’s a great place to hang out especially at night.
We used to have a big deep front porch. My favorite thing was the swing. So comfortable and good for napping. We painted the roof of the porch light blue with clouds. Made it really seem bigger.
I’m an outdoorsy type with a passion for bird and wildlife photography. I’m also into DIY projects, so I decided to combine all of these interests by building a pergola in the yard deck. This pergola features a retractable shade cover, side wind blocker, a Tiki bar, flower planters, remote controlled dimmable lights and outdoor carpet. The yard in front of it is designed with raised beds for vegetables and wildflowers and DIY hummingbird feeders to attract my favorite bird photography subject, hummingbirds. The rest of the garden has about a dozen fruit trees, several DIY birdhouses, a couple of DIY solar water fountains, DIY firepit, etc. During these past Covid years, this outdoor space has been my sanctuary, my oasis.
The ceiling fans and sun screens we installed on our porch summer of 2020 are really paying dividends now. Even with 99 degree heat over the weekend, we were able to sit comfortably on the porch throughout the day. We also recently inherited some really nice wicker porch chairs and gliders from my down-sizing in-laws, and sanded and stained a table and large two-seated rocker to match. Next up: a mister fan, cleaning mildew off the ceiling and walls, some deck repairs and newly painted floors.
Here’s a fieldstone and pea stone firepit I just finished building for our Airbnb.
We are finally getting the sunroom redone right now and I am looking for new furniture. So, bumping up this thread. Any suggestions on good conversation sets for the sunroom? I was thinking of an L-shaped set with a table and maybe another chair or two across.
Would also like to hear what color to paint this room. The room has one complete wall (shared with the house), two walls each with two huge windows and the fourth side is a set of sliding glass doors. We used to have a hinged patio door, so the move to the sliding glass door will definitely make it look much bigger and lighter. I was thinking of a light white/blue color for the walls - but then was wondering if the one full wall should be painted a darker blue as an accent wall? Thoughts?
Any pictures you have will also be wonderful!
I think you should decide on the furniture first, then the paint color. Not that you’re going to paint any wild colors but maybe the wood tone or cushion color or whatever of the furniture will help with paint color choice. And paint is lots cheaper than furniture!
Will the furniture be exposed to the outside elements at all? Sun, rain, extreme temps??
What is your furniture style? Traditional, modern, streamlined vs. chunky? Will it be in the room 365 days of the year or seasonally?
We have Polywood chairs on our patio and love them. Come in many many styles, several colors, made from recycled milk jugs and are beautiful and indestructible. You can just hose them down and we leave ours out all winter in the snow with no ill effects. They are not cheap, however.
As for color, I am a fan of anything but gray. Please, no more! Accent walls are fun, and if the others are neutral, it can be the accent wall that gets the update when you a tired of it. Try standing in the house, looking at the sunroom, and see what colors will link it all together, or link to the outside view.
What is your budget for the furniture? I’m a huge fan of Hanamint, but those pieces are $$$.
