The Bungalow Garden

One area we have done a ton of work on is our garden. Having an outside space to entertain in was super important to us. Luckily we bought a house that had a lot of space for the boys to play too. We even designed how we wanted the space to look long before we moved into the house! So now it has come to be, its everything we dreamed of and more. I’m really missing being able to share this space with friends at the moment, so here I am sharing it with all of you during this pandemic! The garden was move in ready, it required little to no maintenance, but I love gardening and entertaining, so it needed to be filled with flowers and an area to have people hang out. Here is the garden before we started work on it:

So as you can see, a well maintained space, with nice trees and a big area to play with. We knew we wanted an area for a fire pit and a pizza oven with room to eat. So, work began to put in a patio.

Destroying the garden

I came home one day from the store to find that Dan had borrowed the chainsaw from a neighbor and taken out all the shrubs and trees that were in the way of our plans. I was a little in shock but because we had talked about what we wanted and I knew these plants had to go. In our initial design we thought the patio would be rounded off, but as we marked it out we realized cutting all those pavers to make that shape was going to be a pain, so we went with a small and large hexagon joined together.

I’m so glad we did because I love the angular look. The perfect grass that had disappeared and the mud bath that was now my backyard was terrifying. We are so luck to have awesome neighbors that helped and spent their spare time digging, with the promise of beer and fresh pizza when it was all finished. I guess they really like pizza! Once it was all level, we have to fill with hardcore, sand and finally picking out pavers. I wanted a nice deep grey. We finally settled on these from Lowes.

Making a patio

This part was without a doubt more exhausting than digging out the dirt. We could only get the materials delivered to the front of the house. So we had to move the gravel and sand to the back garden and then put it into the patio area. It was worth it, because the finished result was amazing. I am also very aware I’m very lucky to have a husband like mine. The dream garden was taking shape!

So then began the construction of the pizza oven. Which I will go into more detail about in another post this week. It has all of our hand prints in the cement. It was made using this kit and set instructions but the construction again was mostly done by Dan and some helpers that needed pizza quicker than we could build it.

So now, our furnished patio is complete, perfect for entertaining and with hard work and with a little help from pizza fiends, totally doable.

The Garden now

What a difference two years makes. I get asked a lot about the furniture so here is a quick run down of what you see here:

• Table – Wayfair
• Chairs – Dot Sun chairs from Article
• Lounge furniture- Henning Collection at Target
• Fire pit – Terrain
• Umbrella – Home Depot
• Pizza Oven Kit – Brick wood ovens
• Yellow Throw pillow – Opalhouse pillow at Target

How are you feeling about your outside space during quarantine? Post a comment below if you are thinking about or undertaking an outdoor living endeavor!