Hi everyone.
We bought our house 2 years ago and have been trying to upgrade our patio a little at a time. We started out with just a round iron table and regular patio furniture set. Last year I bought 2 chaise lounge chairs with a table/ice chest and I bought two rocking Adirondack chairs with matching side table. (I wanted more places to sit out there, plus it was all on sale at the end of the season).
Ever since we moved into the house, the wife wanted to pull the bushes up. I also did not love them, but I did not want to pull them up until I knew what we wanted to put there. As you can tell one of the bushes has died and another tried to die, but rebounded but is now much smaller. My wife is done and wants them pulled up this spring. I agreed, but wanted us to think about what to put. (side note: the dog will not be very happy as he likes to water them a couple of times a day). She plans to plant a flower bed there. While nice, I would prefer something more (outdoor kitchen, pavers, pergola... I am not sure. The problem is, we don't have a huge budget for this right now, and an outdoor kitchen etc is probably not in the budget. (Also I want to keep the sego palm where it is). She is concerned taking up too much of our yard with more concrete/pavers/non-grass area since we want room for the dog and we want room for future swingsets etc.
Does anyone have any ideas or does anyone have a similar arrangement with examples of what they did? Just looking for a little TFP help since it has always helped before.
(note: the rocking Adirondack chairs are not currently on the patio because I am currently re-finishing them. They were an antique white but were not sealed and got real bad over the winter.)
I have included pictures to help see everything. Please excuse the grunginess of a few areas. I will need to break out the pressure washer soon (especially for diving board).
In the next picture, we have a potted tree/plant that I just put there to get some sun/rain. That is usually where we have the two Adirondack chairs and side table:
We bought our house 2 years ago and have been trying to upgrade our patio a little at a time. We started out with just a round iron table and regular patio furniture set. Last year I bought 2 chaise lounge chairs with a table/ice chest and I bought two rocking Adirondack chairs with matching side table. (I wanted more places to sit out there, plus it was all on sale at the end of the season).
Ever since we moved into the house, the wife wanted to pull the bushes up. I also did not love them, but I did not want to pull them up until I knew what we wanted to put there. As you can tell one of the bushes has died and another tried to die, but rebounded but is now much smaller. My wife is done and wants them pulled up this spring. I agreed, but wanted us to think about what to put. (side note: the dog will not be very happy as he likes to water them a couple of times a day). She plans to plant a flower bed there. While nice, I would prefer something more (outdoor kitchen, pavers, pergola... I am not sure. The problem is, we don't have a huge budget for this right now, and an outdoor kitchen etc is probably not in the budget. (Also I want to keep the sego palm where it is). She is concerned taking up too much of our yard with more concrete/pavers/non-grass area since we want room for the dog and we want room for future swingsets etc.
Does anyone have any ideas or does anyone have a similar arrangement with examples of what they did? Just looking for a little TFP help since it has always helped before.
(note: the rocking Adirondack chairs are not currently on the patio because I am currently re-finishing them. They were an antique white but were not sealed and got real bad over the winter.)
I have included pictures to help see everything. Please excuse the grunginess of a few areas. I will need to break out the pressure washer soon (especially for diving board).
In the next picture, we have a potted tree/plant that I just put there to get some sun/rain. That is usually where we have the two Adirondack chairs and side table: