Our Garden Project – Phase 1

 

If you follow my home account on Instagram you’ll know we’re currently in the middle updating the back of our garden to create a little BBQ/ seating area and to catch the last of the summer sun in the evening.

We’ve lived in this house just over three years now and always knew the garden project was going to be a monumental task because when we moved in it was little more than a giant vegetable patch. Luckily the neighbours added a fence to the left of the garden prior to us moving in which made a huge improvement, but we still had fences along the rear and right hand side of the garden to add.

Over time we’ve gradually made improvements where we could afford them like laying turf and painting the garage wall, but we’ve never started a proper garden project until earlier this month when lockdown hit. Spending more time in the garden we decided that we couldn’t stand looking at the unsightly area of concrete at the back of the garden that we had put down with the intention to one day deck it and so the time had come to do something about it.

As I mentioned above, the original plan for this area was to deck it, with the long term goal of adding a little cabin down there so Stu could use it as his office. Unfortunately as time went on projects inside the house took up all of our money and we realised that new decking was probably going to be out of our budget for many years to come. Pricing up alternative options, we discovered that laying artificial grass on top the concrete was probably going to be the most cost effective solution and it would provide a nice area for the children to play on in the winter. We then decided to add a small patio area in the corner where we could enjoy a cool glass of chilled wine in the last of the sun.

When laying the patio we knew it was going to be important to find a local tradesman as this was something Stu wouldn’t be able to do himself. We’ve opted for light grey porcelain tiles which a darker grey border that we ordered from Walls and Floors and we’ve painted the fence in a colour match to Farrow and Balls Downpipe that we had mixed up and delivered by Tikkurilla.  The shed is painted in Cuprinol’s Silver Birch because I wanted a contrasting colour and I painted around the windows in pure white to give it more of a cabin like feel (eventually I’ll add some curtains to the inside there too).

We’ve made our raised flower beds from a couple of old railways sleepers that were given to us second hand and the plan is to eventually fill these meadow flowers in lots of pastel colours to add some colour to the area. Stu ordered some fake grass online together with some 18mm thick underlay which stop the kids hurting themselves if they were to fall over up there and finally our carpenter friend built us a pergola to cover the area which we couldn’t be happier with.

For decoration, we’re using our old patio furniture for the time being but I intend to update this with something more modern when funding allows. I ordered a hanging chair online under the guise that it would be something for the kids to play on (read more here), but it reality its the perfect set up for me to sit back and sip on a G&T in the sun and finally I want to add an outdoor rug and mirror to finish up the styling.

It’s all still work in progress and so I’ll write another update once the whole thing is finished, but we’re really happy with how its looking so far and can’t wait to get cracking with Garden Project Phase 2 which is building the BBQ.

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* This is a Collaborative Post