Patio Progress

I have been busy working on fixing up our patio this summer and today I wanted to share some of the progress I have made to it so far.  So first, let me show you a before picture:

 Other than the fact that our hot tub is up here, we hardly ever used this patio.  I realized one day that this wall here was probably the reason for that.  This wall is actually a built-in bench but because it acted as a wall, it really closed the patio area off from the rest of the back yard.

The bench stuck out, was uninviting and unused and so I decided that it needed to go!

 So board by board, screw by screw, nail by nail, bolt by bolt I removed it.  This thing was built so well that it took a lot of labor to remove it. And as you can see from this next picture, it had been a  home to many spiders and their nests.  Yuck.

I was so happy to get rid of this thing.

Once it was removed, you almost couldn't tell that there was once a bench there except for a missing deck board.

I went to Lowes to get a new deck board but I couldn't find a match and the deck boards that they did carry were around 30 dollars each.  I had no idea they were so pricey, so being the frugal handy girl that I am, I had a regular board sized and cut and then I found this amazing spray paint that was in the same color and texture that I was needing.

It was really fun to spray too! It went on nice and covered well. 

 So after the board was painted I added it to the deck and now you can hardly tell that it's a patch job. 

This area is now a wonderful spot to hangout in in our backyard. I shared more of it and my new hammock in my last post HERE.

It's so nice to be up here now and be able to see out into the backyard without the big wall blocking the view.

As you may have seen already in this post, I also painted our hot tub.

And now my current project is staining the railing and fence, so stay tuned!

 I can't wait to compare the before and after once it's all finished.

Thanks for stopping by today,

Emily