As you can see, our back patio has been severely ignored this year. We have a wonderful new deck and potential place to hang out, but nothing has been done with it. So for the next 2 weeks, the boys and I are going to do severe cleaning and I am going to work on making this an outdoor sanctuary. In the picture above, you see the result of dogs that refuse to remember that they are not supposed to use the old rock stairs to get in and out of the yard. The new deck has a much safer landing and solid stairs, but they continue to knock my potted plants down in their attempts to scale the rock steps. So, Wednesday I am going to look for fencing to block their attempts. JoAnn's Crafts store has several really pretty options.
More junk that is slated to be removed. I'll paint pots and put some decorative plants in there. Not sure what else I'll do to the landing, possibly paint a "carpet" on it. What do you think?
More mess. However, there you see the perfect components of a small seating area.
Again, seating and eating area waiting to be unearthed and decorated. Definitely a place for more painted pots and all kinds of goodies waiting to be staged.
This area is a major problem area for us. When it rains, the dirt washes out from between the rocks and end up on our patio, clogging the drains and flooding the whole patio. After it subsides, we end up with a couple inches of sludge on the patio. This is getting old quickly! Any suggestions? I am avoiding filling in the rocks since numerous really cute toads make their home there. We might end up having to make a cement shelf over the top rocks. I'll have to think about this.
