Who doesn't want a gorgeous backyard that looks like your own personal Garden of Eden? Crazy people, that's who! But it also sounded pretty crazy to spend thousands of dollars on professional landscaping and decorations, so the minute I could smell spring I started digging in the shed and basement for things I could repurpose into outdoor decorations.
Clearing the Way for Beauty
Tilling is surprisingly therapeutic and incredibly good exercise. After tilling out all the flower beds I pulled two old bicycles out of the shed and used them for decor. Our poor, poor deck hadn't been washed or stained in at least ten years and was starting to look really rough. Instead of renting or buying a power washer from Home Depot which would have cost us hundreds of dollars, we rented one from a co-worker for a case of beer and stained it with whoops! stain. If you've never taken advantage of the whoops! counter at the hardware store you are missing out! It's the counter of misfit paint that has been mixed and left behind so they sell it on the cheap. We got the first can for only 9$. I've also purchased whoops! paint for larger projects and last week I found some concrete paint (normally pretty expensive) for 9$ as well to touch up the base blocks around the house.
Build your Own Fire Pit
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| Beginnings |
Last year for my partner's 15 year anniversary working with Beaumont Hospital she received a fire pit. A black, metal one with legs and a basket. It was functional but not very aesthetically pleasing. So this year we decided to repurpose the pit.
You can find a huge amount of DIY fire pit tutorials online. I went onto Pinterest and found a diagram of how to prepare the soil for bricking. We didn't want anything industrial so I didn't have to get too involved with the strength of the structure. These are the steps I followed:
1) Dig out a circle to lay your bricks
2) Fill with about an inch of pea gravel and fill in with paver sand
3) Lay your bricks
4) Pack with paver sand
5) Layer top bricks
I used regular bricks instead of fire bricks because we already had the pre- existing fire pit which cut the cost drastically. If you are building from scratch you should go to a specialty store and get fire bricks or a metal circle. It's been about a two months now of weathering and it still looks just as beautiful as the first day.
Garden Walk
Most of the "grass" that surrounds our home is actually just weeds like "Creeping Charlie" that make the appearance of grass. So in spots where there's valuable equipment, or hard to reach with the mower, we've been replacing the grass with gravel. Thus came the idea for the garden walk.
At craft stores like Micheals you can buy special patio paint to paint things like garden tiles and pots. The larger stones we harvested from a friends backyard to kill weeds and the pebbles can be bought for 2-3 dollars a bag at the hardware store. Easy to spread and provide good coverage.
Other Decorations
I've seen different versions of this being sold at art fairs for upwards of 100$. This one was made with old plastic pots from our shed that I cleaned and spray painted and a metal dowel bought from home depot for under 5$. It doesn't look as beautiful as if we bought new clay pots but it meant not having to throw away ones we already had.
Apparently bird cages are in right now. Found this beauty at a flea market in TN for 30$ and it was already painted this beautiful blue color. Punched some holes in the bottom and boom! planter. (That ice plant is actually flowering right now, beautiful red blooms)
Metal railing free garage sale find and some 2$ mini tea pots from the Christmas Tree Store has been a nice hanger for my cacti.
Outdoor lighting fix. Inside I replaced the bulb with a strong solar light. If you're going to try this out put a little more money into the light to make sure you'll be able to see with the shade. Spent 7$ at Lowes.
And horse shoe pits! Horse shoes is a super fun backyard game thats easy to set up. We dug out pits and laid down some sand but really all you have to do is tap the stakes into the ground and away you go. Made some backboards from scrap wood. Handmade stencil with card stock and an xacto knife.
And we're ready to party!
