Creating an Outdoor Room

This project that I am about to share, turned out to take sooo much more time that I thought it would.  We have a deck on the back of the house (which I shared on this post last year), underneath the deck is concrete patio.  It seemed like such a good spot that I did not want to waste it. Yet it’s one of those “odd spaces” and sometimes finding a purpose for spaces like that can be difficult.

I decided to take advantage of the shade provided by the deck and build a little “outdoor living room.”   I will tell you that this project has been completed in stages over the course of 3 summers. I’ve been slowly collecting the “pieces” of it.  Last summer I was able to purchase some patio furniture for the space, which really started to make it feel like a room. This year I got the rug, drapes and accessories, and started to get all the pieces pulled together.

Okay, I’m getting a little ahead of myself… before I could get the patio to this point, a few things needed to happen:

Before, I think my husband is thinking “what are we going to do with this?”

1- A thorough deep cleaning. We pressure washed the concrete and scrubbed it down well.

2- Staining the deck above- There was no point in putting this together if it was just going to get stained later.

3- Staining the concrete on the patio.  I don’t know if you can tell from the photo but we stained the aggregate concrete patio a blue gray, then sealed it.  I just used the translucent concrete stain from Lowe’s.  (if you do this know, it takes 2 coats, and a few days to finish). After we stained it, we sealed it with a glossy sealer. I really like the sealer because it gives it a nice finished look without being slippery. I’m glad we decided to stain the concrete, I feel it gives it a bit more finished look.

4- Installing the Drapery- info in this post, (otherwise this post would be way to  long) but I will tell you, I was very excited with the creative (and cheap) solution I found for this! (even though I spent an hour arguing with my husband at Lowe’s about how to do it!)

The reason this all took so long, is that we (along with a lot of the country) have had an abnormally wet Spring… It rained for 2 months straight (at least it felt like it! Okay, now I promise to stop complaining about the rain!)

Today, I’m going to share some photos of the finished project, and next week I’ll have some fun follow up posts! (like the decor I made for the brick wall,  outdoor pillows & how to hang those drapes).

This gives you a good view of the whole patio.  I added one drape to each post… the pots still need flowers…

The view when I’m laying on the couch reading a book.

A view of the drapery rod

Curtains tied back

Curtains open to block the sun coming in the side of the patio.

Some of the finishing touches… — snail is a Yard Bird… it’s a local company and they are waay cool, I got to tour their warehouse last summer and loved it! I’ve got a couple more items on my “wish list” for this summer.

That’s all for today! I hope you guys have a great Memorial Day Weekend!!   See you next week! I’ll have some fun projects to share!

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