DIY – Simple patio makeover – Extend the life of your outdoor space

Hello friends! How is summer treating you so far? We’re gearing up for a long weekend around here, yahoo for Canada Day celebrations! I can think of no better way to celebrate Canada Day than to go on tour with some kick ass Canadian bloggy friends! Haha okay, so it’s a virtual tour and we’re not a rock band or anything (but maybe one day),  regardless it’s still awesome! We are on a Canadian blogger, summer patio tour! My part of the tour is a simple DIY patio/deck makeover, basically how to extend the life of your outdoor space! Check out the other “band members” at the end of this post. 😉

I should explain what “gearing up” for Canada Day means for  Mr. Mans and I. Basically it means we’ve decided that we won’t be doing any projects this weekend! Not a one, we are doing nothing this loooong weekend, ziltch, zero, nada, nut-n-honey! You get the picture, some of  you may even be thinking so, what’s the big deal? Well the deal-o is we’ve been so super busy working away on our rural property, refinishing our master bedroom (I promise to reveal that soon) and doing project after project that it feels like we’ve been on this hamster wheel, spinning outta control. Every weekend seems so full, visiting, projecting, laundry, house work… okay that’s a lie, what house work? HA! And then the work week strikes, you know, you probably do the same thing, lather, rinse and repeat. Sooooo,  we decided that this weekend not one project would be worked on… Hahahaha! That sounded ridiculous! Let me rephrase that, the concept is for us to not work on any projects this weekend, I’ll let you know how that pans out after this weekend is done! So you’ve read it here, we are not going to work on any projects or make any plans! Shocking!!! So why the drama? A bit of a back story for you,  since moving in 3 years ago our work shop has flooded every spring, ugh! That’s not a good thing at all when that’s kind of your bread and butter! Long story short, we had to completely redo our property’s drainage, that meant dredging out the pond on our property, the pond is a huge focal point here, it’s beautiful but it’s main function is drainage. During this process we learned that zero maintenance has been done on the pond or on the drainage of the property for over 15 years. Whomp, whomp and that equals flooding!

Everything at one point was dug up around here and to be honest I never thought it would go back together!

We’ve been working hard on improving the drainage and I’m so happy to say it’s finally done, well almost. Just the spreading of the top soil and grass seed then this phase of property improvement is done. So how does this matter to this post? Well not only is this part of the busy, as you can imagine doing such a big project doesn’t leave much room in the budget to rebuild decks and such and that is our ultimate goal for our porch and back deck, eventually. This year though we are doing a simple patio/deck makeover and hopefully that will extend the life of our outdoor space for a couple more years, I thought I’d share some of our tips with you. We finished getting our front porch, summer ready and we decided to keep that simple too. Hmmmm, I’m seeing a theme here.

Here are some before pictures, nothing too shocking, because I’m a horrible blogger that takes horrible before pictures. But if you’re really curious about things around here you should follow me on Snapchat… that’s where I overshare. 😉 @vinyetetc

Not a horrible space, but not a cozy place to spend a nice summer day, or a nice Canada day relaxing! 😉

The simple steps I took to refresh this space:

I emptied the deck and power washed the entire thing, I cleaned the whole floor area and let it completely dry, we get direct sun back there so we used a waterproofing sealant to extent the life of our deck, we used Olympic Maxium from Lowe’s (clear). I let that dry 24 hours and put the furniture back, as simple and as basic as that sounds… it took me all last weekend! I did do a couple of other things…

I replaced the screens with some billowy white curtains (from Ikea), I can add the screens back if the bugs become an issue, to date though it’s been fine. We added an outdoor carpet from Ikea, this really tied the whole space together for a very reasonable cost! This made the space feel so much bigger and cozy! Need I say more?

A few weeks ago we also covered the glass table top with a wooden top, a new patio set wasn’t in the cards this year either… I hated that glass table, this I don’t mind at all. We refurbished an old room heater and made a swag light for over the table with an Ikea light kit, I adore the way that turned out it’s just perfect for the back deck!

I created a planting/drying area for peonies, herbs and such using the side of an antique crib by leaning it up against the house… I made a garden gate with the headboard of the same crib, you can see how we did that here. I also made a very simple wind chime with some spare drift wood and a vintage clamp pant hanger, it’s kind of adorable. 🙂

This space is now the perfect area to chill, catch up on some serious magazine reading and drink that lemon water down on a hot day!

I posted this on Instagram this past week… I’m going a little flower crazy over there, if you like flowers, I’d love it if you joined me! 🙂

And now for the rest of the “band” haha, but seriously make sure to check out all of the awesome from my bloggy friends, some patio inspiration to create your own summer time vibes!

View Becki’s summer deck – The Uncommon Law

Come for a drink on Ariel’s patio – PMQ for two

View Meredith’s balcony patio – Coral & Mint

Check out Laurie’s simple patio upgrades – Vin’yet Etc.

Tour Dannyelle’s patio updates – Life is a Party

Andrea shows us how to love our suburban backyards – Personally Andrea

Get a peek into Tara’s backyard – Suburble

Relax on Joann’s funky chairs – Woman in Real Life

Thank you so much for stopping in, peace and blue skies! xo

Happy Canada Day, cheers!

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