I am so excited to share our recently finished summer patio update with you all! We had so much rain in the month of May that I was really wondering if it was ever going to get done. It feels so good to have a space finished, I often think our house is stuck in decorating limbo! I know we are going to get some great use from this space this summer and fall, so let’s jump right in and I’ll show you the changes I made!
Here is what the patio looked like last summer. We purchased the patio furniture and that was about it. We had so much rain all summer long last year that we hardly even got to use it, but we remedied that problem this year by purchasing a storage container from Home Depot. As long as we remember to put the cushions away before it rains, we at least don’t have to wait days and days for them to dry out.
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And here is what the patio looks like now!
I really wanted to have a black and white striped rug for this space. I thought it would be a great neutral (but not boring) option that would be easy to switch out colors from season to season without needing to purchase a new rug. It was a challenge to find the size that I needed in my price range, I certainly didn’t want to drop big bucks on something that would potentially spend a lot of time under water. Then I stumbled upon a really affordable rug from Wayfair, but it was completely the wrong size. The biggest size they had was a 4’x6′, which was half the size I needed. But it got me thinking…why not just buy 2 of them and put them side by side? The price of 2 rugs was still only a fraction of the cost of other rugs that I’d seen. I was worried about the quality of the rugs because they were so cheap, but they are a really great quality in my opinion. And if they do get trashed and need replaced next year, I won’t cry about it because they weren’t a big investment. Love the stripes, love the rug, love the price.
Ok let’s talk about the lights. I have been wanting string lights in the back yard for ages. I think that they are so magical and add so much atmosphere to an outdoor space. My dilemma was how to hang them. We obviously don’t have a roof or pergola over our patio, so I started brainstorming some ideas on how to hang the lights above a cement patio space without mounting them to the house. I was driving through my neighborhood one day and saw that someone had two potted shrubs with hanging flower baskets suspended from shepherds hooks above them. I decided to try it with my lights and it works like a charm.
I love how the patio looks with pillows and throws, and I definitely bring the throw outside with me on a regular basis, but I decided against purchasing outdoor pillows this year. There were 2 reasons for this, the biggest one being that my children think that pillows are for throwing on the floor. Hmm, not what I have in mind. Second, the chairs and sofa aren’t really deep enough that a pillow is comfortable to have in the seat. So if the pillow is not going to be functional and it would spend a lot of time on the ground, I decided it just wasn’t worth spending money on them, no matter how pretty they are. So these pillows come back inside with me to live on my cane back chair.
Can I just pause a minute and tell you how challenging it was to get this photo shoot? I spent a good chunk of time one Saturday hosing down and scrubbing the patio, only for it to POUR rain a few days later and everything to be covered in mud again. While I was cleaning it a second time, I turn around to see my youngest grabbing handfuls of ash from the fire pit and spreading it all over the cement behind me. After planting these gorgeous hibiscus plants, I discovered the next morning that not only do the blooms close up at night, they also only last for 1 day, so the beautiful blooms were on the ground or closed on photoshoot day. Something I maybe should have researched if it had occurred to me to google “do hibiscus blooms close at night and then completely fall off the next day?” Here’s a shot of one partially opened. 
So you are only seeing a small taste of how gorgeous these plants are and the impact that they make on the finished product. I was told that if I bring them inside once it gets cold out, I could potentially enjoy blooms all year long. Which would make me very happy, so fingers crossed. Here’s a shot of the same bloom once it finished opening.
Here’s the breakdown of what I purchased for this patio update and where you can find it all:
- Rug
- String Lights
- Shepherds Hook
- 12 ” Pot
- 14″ Pot
- Hibiscus (Home Depot)
- Dappled Willow (Home Depot)
- Tin Planter (thrifted)
- Mini pots (thrifted)
- Red Flowers (local nursery)
I’m so excited to host some summer parties back here and just enjoy time together as a family. I’m sure you noticed that we also have a deck, so stay tuned for updates on that space soon!
