Thrill of the Week: Let’s Add Some Cushion

I’m going to cut right to the chase: we found seating cushions for our patio chairs! They were a bit of a splurge for us, but in the end, we love them and are looking forward to enjoying them for the next few years. But let’s rewind… here are those chairs we got (from this post):

Comfy on their own, but could use even more cushion and pizzazz when it comes to color. Remember when I passed up on teal chairs? Not to worry- we more than made up for it with… TEAL CUSHIONS!I know, I know, lot’s of teal in this picture- we went for the middle one with the circular print. You can find them at Target for $14.99. Here, they have a dark tone to them, but once they’re all set up on the patio, they look more like this:

And you guessed it… we LOVE them! Here’s a close-up:

And for those of you in the back, an even closer shot of that print:

There’s so much I could say about these, but everyone loves pictures more than words so I’ll just flood this post with teal-goodness.

We really like how they compliment the black and white, but bring a bit of color to the patio. I think we now have a bit of teal in every.single.room.of.the.house. At least we’re consistent.

So yeah, come on over for a picnic sometime- we’ve got teal for days. Happy Summer!

-Leslie

Musical Patio Chairs

It took more than one try to nail down our final seating arrangement for the back patio. We knew we wanted something that could be adjustable. By that I mean, pieces that could come together to gather around the table for meals, but also be moved to other areas of the patio for lounging and entertaining. At first we were just going to save our pennies and buy the chairs that matched our Applaro bench and drop leaf table. However, during an Ikea trip, I stumbled into these four black chairs in the “As Is” clearance room:They were comfy, there was a full set of four with no damages (they were just floor models), and the price was right (at $29 a pop I was tempted).

However, there was one draw back… they were too tall to fit under the table!

Luckily, Ikea had our drop leaf table already set up in a display near by, so I dragged two of the chairs over to test them out. Thank goodness for that, because the arms didn’t fit underneath! This might not stop everyone in their purchasing tracks, but part of our mantra with house stuff is that furniture has to be 100% functional (and able to do more than one thing, if possible) in order to be allowed through the door. Besides not being ideal for eating (it would get annoying to not be able to scoot all of the way in), we needed our chairs to be able to slide all of the way under when they’re not in use to free up valuable patio space. So long story short, these were not the answer to our chair dilemma. Hopefully they found a great home elsewhere because they really were nice chairs!

Anyway, it was back to the hunt for us. After some time of not aggressively looking, but just keeping my eyes peeled for something that might fit the bill (comfortable, interesting details, not a million dollars, etc.), I finally found these in Target.Yes, yes, they’re teal in this picture (which I was so tempted by), but in the store, I had the choice between the dark teal and black.

As much as my heart raced for those teal ones (not pictured), I knew that in the grand scheme of things I’d want something a bit more timeless, that could be used with any future combination of patio furniture and decor. So, if I was going to get any, I decided it would be the black. I ended up taking one home for a test run to see if it would fit under our table, if we liked the look, etc. And guess what? Perfect fit! And the look was awesome.

So I went back for three more. If you clicked on that Target link above, you’ll see that the online price is $55- don’t pay that for these if you’r planning on buying them. There was an in-store sale for $38.50, so we snagged ours from the store. Not the cheapest price for a chair, but we really liked the look and even more so, wanted to get some chairs earlier in the season (as opposed to waiting until everything went on super sale toward the end of summer) so we could 1. Use them for the season! and 2. there would still be a selection.

We’ve had these chairs for a few weeks now and so far, so good. So great, actually! We love them! Let me just step aside and let the pictures do the rest of the talking…Each chair is rather large and comfortable to sit on (the plan is to get some pillows and cushions to up the ante even more) and we really like the look of them. Although I didn’t realize this when purchasing, the slats on the seat coordinate nicely with the slats on the table:

Here’s another win for Team Function: they stack nice and tightly together, so when we bring them in for the winter, they shouldn’t be a bear to store (we have a small storage unit and that’s where they’ll live for the cold months).

And for one more happy coincidence? The black (a color that we were concerned about playing nicely with our bright white table) ties in with the black “lining” of our small patio table. Hooray for unexpected coordination!

As for how the chairs go with the table, well let me just show you:

Yep, we love them! All that’s left is to figure out some sort of pillow/cushion deal and our four patio chairs are good to go! Any new seating happening at your place? Which brands have caught your eye this season?

-Leslie

Taking the Edge Off

Actually, we put the edge on. Our garden, that is. Welcome to another week of backyard/patio updates! This week, we’re planning on covering:

• Edging the garden (today)
• Our seating progress
• A bit of decor for said seating
• Some yard-saling adventures that ended with both indoor and outdoor ramifications

Sound like a big week? It totally is and we’re psyched to fill you in on all of the juicy details. Back to that garden- when you first saw it in this video, it looked something like this:

Looks a little messy, huh? We thought so too. The goal with this project was two-fold: to clean up the garden a bit and to actually define the garden bed and set it apart from the grass. As you can see in the shot above, there’s no specific point in which the grass ends and the garden begins. So, the first thing I did was create an edge to the garden bed.

Once I had the outline of where the garden would begin, I began “tilling” the garden soil and picking some of the weeds out to create a better environment for planting new things. This also helped to get dirt out of the way for what would become my edging.

My first instinct was to just dig out a little path and wait until our next Home Depot visit to get some rectangular rocks to line it with. And then I remembered that we have this in our backyard:River rocks galore! After multiple trips (which was quite the workout, might I add?) with armfuls of stones, I had a nice pile to start arranging. This was the fun part. I liked making different combinations of rocks and figuring out what would fit where in the line up.Before setting them in their final places, I made a mock version on the grass, just outside of the actual garden. That way, I could arrange and rearrange without having to deal with digging them out of the dirt over and over again.

And once I had an arrangement I liked, I just moved them into the dirt! After placing each rock, I stepped on it to set it in place and added dirt underneath if it needed a little boost to be even with the others.

Before long, I had a finished (well, the edging part) garden bed! This was a funny project because I had originally come outside just to do some jump roping, not expecting to find myself knee deep in river rocks. I pulled a few weeds out of the garden, one thing led to another, and this was the final product:

Not bad for a whoops-I-didn’t-mean-to-go-this-far-but-I-guess-we’re-going-for-it project! And here’s the view from the other side:

It wraps around to meet the fence line and provide some “closure” to our side of the yard, as our neighbors’ property is to the left of the fence. In terms of the rocks, you can see how they play nicely with the colors in the brick work. Down by the river, there were some lighter/whiter colored ones that I was tempted to grab, but in the end, decided to stick with the reds and browns. I think it helps to highlight the garden, but compliment the patio at the same time. Hooray for accidental projects! And for creeks in the backyard. How about one last before and after shot comparison, just for fun? Here’s the before:And the happily ever after:

As you can tell, we still have some work to do with this garden. Weeding, planting some flowers (and veggies, hopefully!), and more weeding are next on the to-do list. More on those details when it happens! Any new features to your garden? Spill the beans!

-Leslie