My good friend, Jessica, started with your typical concrete slab driveway and chain link fence surrounding her yard. She loves gardening and being outdoors and wanted a private relaxed inviting space that would reflect her personality where family and friends could gather and enjoy evenings in the summertime. This space ended up with four distinct outdoor spaces... a living room, a dining room, a kitchen & garden work space and a fire pit for roasting marshmallows.
The first step was to remove the cracked asphalt and fence and gate. A new wide open stamped concrete patio area was poured.
Before Photos
In the video at the beginning and end of this story you will see the before, during and after images of the patio space and furniture. I built several pieces in this project and Jessica was generous enough to let me grab whatever I could find to recycle or upcycle from what was already lying around the house.
The pallet furniture includes: a couch, a chair & ottoman (both on on castors), a love seat (which can be used as two separate chairs), two log end tables and a privacy pallet wall set up behind the outdoor sink as a gardening and grilling station. All of the large wood seating is framed with pressure treated lumber to ensure that it will stand the test of time and weather and finished with pallet wood to give it a texturally rustic feel with a modern shape.
Building the furniture
The rectangle log end tables were cut from a log bench buried in a flower bed in the front yard. A little chain saw work and voila!
The blue steel chairs started out as empty frames that were pulled from a donation pile. I built the seats and table top from a salvaged stack of barn wood scraps that I had saved in my wood shop. You never know what you can make from those colorful scraps! I love to keep them around, but finally had a reason to use them up.
We salvaged enough lumber and corrugated steel from the garage attic to build a surround to house the garbage cans and a make a rolling bar. The bar is built on castor wheels to easily roll to wherever it is needed to keep food and drinks high above those counter surfing pets (with access to storage on one side) or hold a TV for a backyard outdoor movie night.
The wood rack and back door bench were also made from scrap bricks, pipes and wood that we drug out of the garage and basement. The large trunk was from a local antique shop, and set up as a coffee table. We added locking castors to make it easy to rearrange and it opens to store cushions when needed.
Everything was finished or stained with Thompsons' Water Seal to help it last through tougher Iowa outdoor seasons.
The black steel pergola was added to give a separate outdoor shaded space in the heat of the summer and finished with commercial string lighting for softer light in the evenings.
This patio project was completed the summer of 2016. Thank you to Harry & Johanna for all your elbow grease in getting the final touches done. Thank you Lori Drafahl for all your hard work on the video. I could never have set that up with out you! Also, a huge thank you to Jessica (and your green thumb) for all the beautiful flowers and for letting me loose to see what I could salvage and build to make this fun outdoor patio project come to life!