My Backyard - The Inspired Room

This deck project is in partnership with Trex and Lowe’s

Welcome to our backyard and the reveal of our brand new Trex deck! The day has finally arrived. It’s not every day that I get to share such a big project reveal, I’m so excited you’re here for the VIRTUAL DECK REVEAL PARTY (and thanks for offering to bring such delectable sounding snacks and treats, the winners of the Simple Gatherings book giveaway were emailed last night!).

I have a lot to show you, so get ready for lots of photos! Did you see the other posts on how we designed and shopped for the deck and the deck build process? You can go back and catch up anytime! If you’re hoping to have a deck built at your home you’ll find helpful information in those posts, too.

Just so you can visualize what it would feel like if you were actually at my house, this is where you would approach the deck if you walked out of the dutch door in our newly remodeled kitchen and headed down to the backyard.

If you’re new here, for point of reference our home is located in the city of Seattle in the beautiful Northwest. Our backyard faces the Puget Sound, so we get to see sunsets and a glimpse of the water as well as the Olympic Mountain range!

I’ll talk about this area more in a bit. But first let’s head down to the backyard!

I can hardly believe what an impact this deck has already had on our life! We absolutely LOVE being in our entire outdoor area now. The deck makes it all feel so inviting and comfortable.

Now to give some context of what the back of our home was like before the deck, let’s take a look back at what the backyard was like when we bought the house three years ago

Who doesn’t like to see a before and after?

Before

All we had was an ordinary old cracked patio. Bonus in the before shot, the house wasn’t even painted yet so it’s a double before and after!

And now ….

After

I couldn’t be happier with how far we’ve come! So much better than it was.

Before

After

We love being out here now. Somehow adding the new deck made our whole yard feel bigger, too!

Our pups love the deck, too.

They think it is their new personal playground.

The new deck offers us plenty of useful space for us humans, too, so we were able to create several functional areas with furnishings.

We’ve never had a large enough outdoor dining table, so first on our list was to establish an area for our family to gather to eat. Our two daughters are grown, but they live nearby (and our son is still at home finishing high school this next year), so we know this space will get a lot of use for family gatherings.

With the large rectangular market umbrella, the table is shaded during the day making it an ideal spot for breakfast and lunch, too. The table comfortably seats our family of six, but this past holiday weekend we pulled up extra chairs for our extended family when they were here for the 4th and there was still plenty of room.

The deck is really going to be an amazing place to host a large party, but it’s also set up to be comfy when it’s just the two of us.

Because my husband and I love sitting outside after dinner to watch the sunset and during the day to watch the birds, we now have a cozy seating area for two (near the patio heater to keep us warm on cool evenings!).

I really LOVE these new chairs! They not only look amazing but are also really comfortable! By turning them towards the backyard, we get to look out towards the great view. The rug helps define the space and gives a splash of color and fun pattern, too.

On the other side of the deck, opposite of this area, we put a rounded sectional and area rug to create a larger conversation area. It all fits so nicely with the angled shape of the deck in that corner!

We still have plenty of room here to pull over more chairs as needed. It’s also a place where we can set our fire fountain, or even set up a table or add lounge chairs. The size and shape of our deck is so versatile, we know it will always be evolving to suit our needs!

Most of the outdoor furnishings featured on the deck can be found through Lowe’s! So not only can you head to Lowe’s to design a Trex deck and make it a reality from concept to build, you can order new outdoor furniture and rugs so you can enjoy your completed deck, too. So convenient! You’ll find the specific source links at the end of the post.

If you have been following along with this project, you might remember that this low deck was able to be installed over an old concrete patio. You can see how the deck connects to the side yard through the double gate with a new concrete patio and steps we put in a couple of years ago.

I love the railings around the deck! I love how striking they are with our white brick home and how they echo the black and white design of our newly remodeled kitchen, too. Our railings are called Trex Enhance in Charcoal Black.

But I also think they really complement the landscaping and our northwest greenery around the property!

When we were designing the deck project, our intention was to add complementary railings on this side porch area since both are visually connected. I was thrilled that Trex offered a black railing that we could have installed on the concrete as well as the deck!

The railings turned out even better than I had hoped, I can’t stop going outside to walk up and down the steps to look at it all. It not only looks great, but it is great to finally have railings.

Now people can walk safely up and down the steps and I don’t have to fear that a dog or human will take a wrong turn and plummet off the porch.

So many little things you appreciate when you’ve waited a very long time for something!

And for those of you who are regulars around here, you may have noticed we finally have our completed porch posts, too. Bless. I’m still keeping my fingers crossed that we’ll soon have the gate we’ve been waiting for, but let’s talk about that another day.

We’ve been doing a lot of planting in this area, and it’s fun to see it growing already! We can’t wait until it’s really lush and fills in around our gates and deck, but when we look back where we started with this side porch, we can’t stop smiling at the transformation. You can’t even recognize it!

Take a look:

Before

After

If you’re planning your own deck project, you may also want to add plants and furnish the space for maximum comfort so everyone will want to be outside as much as possible!

Once you have the deck built, it’s the little details like seating, tables, rugs and umbrellas for comfort that will make your deck feel and function like another room of your home.

Our backyard faces the west, so we have bright afternoon sun. The patio umbrellas placed strategically around the deck keep the sun out of our yes and make the entire deck so much more comfortable on hot afternoons.

Of course, you don’t have furnish your deck or redo your whole backyard all at once if you don’t want to. We have many projects we’d like to do, so we are always saving some improvements for another year. We’ve been working on various parts of our outdoor spaces for nearly three years. Taking baby steps consistently will eventually get you where you want to go.

I love when all the magical little lights come on!

I took a panoramic the other night during a sunset, so you could see more of the deck than I can ordinarily show with my camera.

The new deck has added so much to our life, it really changed how we live. It’s exceeded our expectations in every way!

Now you’ll know where to find me! I’ll be sitting out here every day because it’s become my office, my personal retreat, our family dining area, and so much more.

I’ll be sharing more details on our deck, including more before and afters of our outdoor spaces and other details all summer. Thanks to Lowe’s and Trex for partnering on this project and to you for following along!

Want to stay in touch with my future home updates, blog posts and makeover projects?

Click here to keep up with the latest happenings via email.

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You can get a little tour of the interior of our home here.

Catch up on some of the previous exterior project posts here.

Sources for many of the furnishings (provided by Lowe’s) are below.

1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7 // 8 // 9 // 10 // 11 // 12

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Begin planning your own Trex deck and schedule Lowe’s PSE (Project Specialist Exterior) Installation service here!
Decking and railing in this project was provided by Trex
Decking color: Saddle
Railings: Trex Enhance in Charcoal
Installation and furnishings provided by Lowe’s.
Catch up on this project: how we designed and shopped for the deck as well as read more about the deck build process.

Gateless in Seattle + Growing Gardens

I‘ve always been quite inspired by gates. They aren’t just a way to keep unwanted visitors out or beloved pets in, the right gate can feel like a special invitation to enter a secret magical garden. You know what I mean?

As far as I’m concerned, a gate doesn’t even have to be fancy (but a little charm is nice!), I just love what they represent. I actually go gate hunting in neighborhoods as often as I go just to drool over houses!

Gateless in Seattle + Growing Gardens

You may have seen those two gates from my previous drive bys. If you missed them, you can find the drive by posts here. But if you’re curious about our gate …

Gateless in Seattle + Growing Gardens

We’re still Gateless in Seattle, at least on this side of the house. I know.

Years ago (insert eye rolls over how long it’s been) I started talking about how excited I was about installing a gate to our side patio.

Gateless in Seattle + Growing Gardens

In fact, we had two other gates built around that same time, the double gate between our side yard and backyard (which we just painted, you can see a bit of it above) and a single gate on the other side of the yard (above).

But the side patio gate? It didn’t get done. It’s a long story, just a series of unfortunate events. So we still have to use a bench and assorted garden supplies piled up in the opening to keep the dogs in. I agree, it’s truly quite ridiculous.

The good news is we finally have a new contractor lined up that I’m confident is going to do the work (thank goodness for Lowe’s contractor service, I should’ve called them years ago! So much easier.). The new contractor is going to build our gate and wrap our side porch posts with wood trim (which we’ve also been waiting on for a long time! Wrapping a post gives them a more substantial, finished look).

Gateless in Seattle + Growing Gardens

This photo above is before our railings were installed (they look amazing, you’ll see soon!), and how our posts look now before they get wrapped. Note the pallet in the background acting as our gate. Lol.

Fingers crossed, knock on posts and gates, we’re on the home stretch here.

The gate and the porch posts are actually the last two projects we plan to complete in this long spree of outdoor projects this summer. Most of our projects have been on a small scale, like planting our veggie barrels!

Gateless in Seattle + Growing Gardens

These are the same barrels we have been using for the past few years (they are chemical-free for planting). I still envision a big garden in our backyard, but these barrels are so easy to plant! They tuck in quite nicely to this small space, too. Since we had so many other projects going on we decided to use them for another year rather than start another large project.

Gateless in Seattle + Growing Gardens
We planted a lot kale and lettuce (we got a late start so these plants were bought ready to plant, we didn’t grow from seed). I love watching them grow and can’t wait to eat ’em. We get a lot of our vegetables through a weekly delivery box from a local organic farm, but it’s still fun to grow some of our own.

Gateless in Seattle + Growing Gardens
Speaking of small gardens and growing, Lily’s little fragrant garden has really filled out! This was from a couple of weeks ago.

Gateless in Seattle + Growing Gardens

We spent the last couple of weeks setting up the deck furniture, planting the garden and flower pots. We planted these miniature rose trees (bushes?) that we bought last year. This spring they sadly got totally destroyed by aphids. I cut them all back thinking I’d have to wait until next year to see them flower. Well, they surprised me! They leafed out again and bloomed. The aphids came back, though, so I was going to go get ladybugs, but I tried some essential oils in a spray bottle first and it worked. Good-bye aphids! So far, so good.

Gateless in Seattle + Growing Gardens

As soon as I got all furniture set up, it rained so we had to put all the cushions and rugs inside again, ha! Yes, we live in Seattle so you just have to expect that rain might happen. I do bring cushions and some of the rugs all in if there’s going to be a longer spell of rain, otherwise I don’t worry about it and just let ’em get a little damp . We mostly have had fantastic weather, so I can’t complain about rain too much this time of year.

I will definitely show you the furniture and flower pots when I take the photos, and of course I can show you the porch posts and the gate as soon as they’re in! I might even be able to show you some progress on that in the next week or so.

I know lots of you have been asking about how we stained our side patio concrete (you can actually see it in the white gate photo with Jack, above). We’re just about done so I’ll update you on that project, too.

And of course, as promised, we’ll be hosting our virtual deck party for the big reveal! I’m really looking forward to all of the yummy dishes y’all offered to bring :). I’ll announce the winners of the Simple Gatherings books this week so if you didn’t enter yet, it’s not too late to enter by sharing what you’re bringing to the virtual party (you’ll find the giveaway in the previous post about the deck progress).

We can’t wait to be able to just get outside and relax in our entire outdoor area, I’m so ready to enjoy it all!

You can catch up on our deck and exterior projects here:

Painted Brick Exterior and Outdoor Projects

Outdoor Projects Part Two

Designing and Shopping for our Deck Project

Trex Deck Building Process