I love our outdoor living space for summer.  Summers in New England are beautiful but fleeting, so I like to extend the season and long as possible and make the most of it!

I promised an update when my deck got set up, so here is the extended version…

I take my own design advice 😁 and always set up our 12ish x 29ish foot deck, where we spend a good deal of our time in the summer, in zones.  One end has our fire pit, a water fountain, and our grilling zone, the other end has a comfy seating area.

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Creating the atmosphere

All the little extras are what make our outdoor space so inviting. Lush greenery and flowers, bird bath and feeders, a water feature, and patio string lights that come on at dusk line the perimeter to set the scene.

I keep the birdbath and bird feeders set up all winter (and use this heater to keep the birdbath from freezing) which my feathered friends appreciate.

But come summer, I go wild.  I plant all my pots with flowers and herbs every year.  Last year I added this tiered vertical planter to try to grow tomatoes in the sunniest corner of the deck (and perhaps keep the squirrels from playing soccer with ALL the proceeds!).

That was a kind of wild experiment in that I DID get some tomatoes, but not nearly enough compared to the tangle of vines and leaves that resembled the little shop of horrors set by the end of the season…

So this year, I planted mostly flowers and ivy in it with a couple of cherry tomato plants, some basil, and of course mint for summer drinks!

My big herb pot is in a slightly shadier area and that one has two kinds of thyme, sage, rosemary, and chives.  Hopefully the chives will come back next year…after several failed years of trying to get some to take, they seem to be fairly healthy.

Our resident raccoons insist on tromping over the plant pots in the evenings ISO the bird feeders so I have some decorative garden stakes with metal bluebirds in one and a metal trellis in the other to offer some protection to my plants.  I have to bring in ALL 5 bird feeders every night so they don’t serve as an all-you-can-eat buffet for Max (the raccoon ringleader) and co.  It turns out they can eat quite-a-lot 🙄.  I’m trying to train them that the restaurant is CLOSED!

My squirrels, on the other hand, can’t get into the squirrel proof feeders , but do insist on chugging the sugar water out of the hummingbird feeder pretty much daily.

And our pair of crows (Allistair and Maura) visit daily and complain loudly if I haven’t offered up some stale carbohydrates in their silver dish! They seem to have a penchant for BBQ flavored potato chips.

We have intrepid wildlife, but they are entertaining!

Patio string lights are plugged into a timer and come on at dusk every night to bathe the deck in a soft glow of light.

And speaking of dusk, mosquitoes can be an issue at times, so we are trying out this little unscented mosquito repellent canister recommended by a client friend. She lives on a little pond and the mosquitoes are rampant and this little device works like a charm for her patio and deck space.

During the quarantine years, we added Percy, the patio heater, and Calcifer, the gas fire pit (Yes, we name everything) to extend the season and we’ve been enjoying them ever since!

The fountain saga

I have forever wanted a water feature for the deck to add the sound of trickling water to the symphony.  My kids bought me this one (which I picked out LOL) from BJ’s and I just love it.  The 3 tiers are cast concrete with fiberglass and are shaped like a stack of wicker baskets.  The top basket is a planter and the middle one has a spout that spills water into the lower one where a pump recirculated the water back up to the middle level.

I wanted the fountain for the end of the deck that abuts the house and has an outlet.  It would go under the antique French iron transom window I have hanging on the wall.

While I adore the look of this fountain, it has been a trial since the day we got it. 🙄

The first year I set it up, the water just dribbled down the face of the second tier instead of spilling out and making “the noise” I was after.  I tried a different pump to no avail and ended up jury-rigging a spout out of a plastic cup to direct the water.  Not ideal since the spout often dislodged, but intermittently it did the job.

The second year, I realized belatedly after assembling and filling the thing, that if I tipped it back a bit, the water poured properly out of the spout.

After several trial-and-error attempts, holding up the hefty top two tiers with one hand and working underwater with the other, I wedged some cork shims and an old metal lid under the front edge of the support that holds the second tier and coincidentally houses the pump.  This worked well. Finally.

This year, I knew what it needed BEFORE I started assembling and so in just 10 minutes, I had the right size cork shims and everything assembled and filled.  Perfection!

And then, because *life happens* 3 hours later while I was bringing the bird feeders in, I noticed it had stopped trickling and was making a groaning noise.  WHAT NOW??

It turns out there was now a tiny crack in the lowest reservoir and the water had slowly drained to dangerously low levels for the pump. Good LORD.

I hunted the house down for a solution and came upon an old plastic bin that happened to JUST fit inside the bottom reservoir.  I tucked it in and reassembled everything and tada…so far so good.  It doesn’t look as pretty on close inspection and I’ve ordered a black plastic bin which I think will disappear more, but yay for ingenuity and I still have my precious water feature.

I notice they no longer carry this fountain and the reviews are pretty bad LOL.  Pity that.  It really is pretty!

The furniture

I’ve been wanting to replace my all-weather plastic wicker seating for quite some time.  It’s super comfortable and was relatively inexpensive.  I got it at Pier 1 over the space of a couple of years and the colors of the loveseat purchased one year and the chairs purchased the next don’t quite match, which drives me nuts.

BUT the biggest reason for replacing it is this: the aforementioned wildlife has picked at it and unraveled a lot of the wicker from the legs and broken a fair amount of the wicker from the edges of the arms and backs so it looks a mess.

I needed to replace it with something more ‘wildlife-proof’!   

I happened upon this Polywood furniture via a friends backyard makeover blog post, and I liked the look of it.  The furniture looks like painted wood but is made of recycled plastic so it is super durable and weather resistant  (think Trex decking material).

I loved the black finish and the options available.  They have a  lot of different colors and styles but I wanted something a bit more classic, so I chose the Braxton which has a pretty X back.  The backs of some of the pieces will be visible so I wanted them to be decorative.

I ordered a loveseat, a chair, and a chair with rockers (that last one is my happy place!)

It arrived in relatively short order - under 3 weeks before the 7 boxes showed up in my driveway!

It ships free which is good news/bad news.  Good cost-wise, bad because that means it is flat-packed and requires assembly.

As it turns out, assembly was relatively simple.  It came with a fancy handled version of the required allen wrench and pictorial instructions.

The backs and seat deck sections and arms/sides are pre-assembled, and the legs are integral to the sides so minimal pieces to put together - really only four sections per piece (plus the rockers).

It took me under 30 minutes. The predrilled holes all lined up perfectly.  Only one last blind screw on the loveseat gave me any trouble at all. And I eventually got it lined up right.

The deep seating pieces I selected came with cushions in a choice of colors.  I (maybe foolishly!) chose white because I like it with the black and it gives me flexibility to choose any accent colors to pair it with if I shift my color scheme.  My current accent color is a kiwi green.

It is very comfortable and I LIVE in that rocker and have already had a nap on the loveseat!

The cushion fabric is a Revolution performance fabric that cleans up easily.  My wildlife has ALREADY tested this. When I’d had it less than 24 hrs, I cleaned up the telltale raccoon paw prints on the back of the chair cushion easily with a little soap and water on a clean rag the next morning.

The rug and umbrellas

I anchored the seating group with an 8’ x 10’ outdoor rug in a sisal look polypropylene with an ironwork scroll pattern in black. I LOVE the look and feel of this rug and it is perfect with the furniture.

We seem to go through umbrellas on average of one every two seasons.  They take flight and get broken, or fade and develop holes, or just get chewed up and dingy in winter storage.

In any case, now that we have nice grown up furniture, I’ve ordered some grown up patio umbrellas that are REALLY cute in black and white stripes with scalloped edges. They come in a variety of colors, but the black and white is perfect for the same flexibility as the black and white furniture as I’m hoping to not have to replace these for a long time.

I ADORE anything with scallops, so… *Heart eyes*!  I can’t wait for them to show up and I’ll update the photos when they finally do….they are somewhere between 2 and 6 weeks out for delivery depending on who you ask so they might arrive as early as next week!

Today we hosted our very first guest, a friend of Jamie’s, for some grilling.  Tomorrow, I have the girls coming for wine and charcuterie on the deck to officially christen the new furniture!

Happy Summer, Y’all!

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