It’s pretty much been summer here in LA since August 2013, and since then I have been harping too James about making our little patio a place we can hang out on hot summer nights. Since moving into our house, the patio has basically been a catch-all room for our junk and as our dogs’ filthy little bachelor pad. Not exactly the kind of place you want to spend a nice summer evening. See what I mean:
I finally decided (came to the realization?) that if I want this patio to be a nice little hang out I needed to 1) Do it myself and 2) Spend some monies. We didn’t really put a lot of money into the house when we first moved in, so that is my justification for spending ALL OF THE MONEY on getting our house in tip-top shape. So, first I needed a plan for how I wanted to use the space.
- Should have ample seating.
- Needs shade from the afternoon sun.
- CLutter free
- The dog crates must be banished! (but there should be space for them during rainy days)
- Spider-free
- Functional for everyday life
- Looks good (as in not ashamed to invite people over)
- Easy to upkeep/clean (most important of all!!)
Now that I had an idea of what I wanted, it was time to go shopping! I already purchased two Ikea chairs (ÄPPLARÖ) which cost me $45 each and a green HAMPEN rug which I think may have been $39.99. Now I needed to by some more seating, some sort of storage for dog and rabbit food, a side table, a shade, and maybe some plants and stuff to make the place feel homey. Last week I came across this pretty nice potting bench from Cost Plus
The price was right, and to top it off, Cost plus was having a lawn furniture sale, AND they also had a coupon for 15% off a purchase of $100 or more. SCORE! I also bought this little capiz table to use as my side table for drinks and candles.
With the sale and coupon, the bench came out to $101.99 and the table was $33.99. Man oh man do I love to save money. After my little shopping spree at Cost Plus, I went over to Target and pretty much gave them all of my money. I’ll talk more about that in my next post, but I will say this: the end of June is THE BEST time to shop for outdoor furniture. Apparently that’s when they start clearing everything out to make room for back to school crap.
Once I got home, I got started on cleaning up the patio and getting everything put together. I didn’t think to take step by step pictures, but I did get pictures of my helpers!
In progress and the finished product!
Overall, it took me about 2 hours to put the bench together. It wasn’t very hard, just lots of pieces and it probably is a 2 person project. I actually enjoyed putting this together over dealing with Ikea crap and it feels pretty sturdy and best of all, the holes were placed in the correct spots. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the little side table I bought. It came with the wrong pieces, so I have to take that back to the store. BOO. I really wanted to have someplace to put a drink. Oh well. At least the patio is looking a bit better.
Next week I’ll talk about what I got at Target and Home depot and I’ll show some more pretty progress pictures. I won’t be able to work on this space till at least next Thursday, so everything is going to be pretty slow going for now. Also, just to keep it real, all the junk that was in the patio is now just a few steps away. I didn’t have time to go through everything and put it away, so I just cropped it out of the photos. Photo cropping for the win!
-P
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