This is THE Spring / Summer that I really want to use outdoor spaces to their full potential and enjoy them as an extension of our home. I recently gave our patio dining room table, chairs and benches a makeover which really got me pumped to tackled our large patio; read more about the makeover here. I'm so in love with how my patio table turned out, It looks incredible and feels so perfect on our patio.

When I think of my outdoor style, I see it as a mix of California Modern Casual: modern clean lines, pop of colors, waterwise plants & lots of planters + Hamptons Backyard Style: weathered grey furniture, wicker and lots of fluffy hydrangea plants. I love the classic look of the Hamptons meets the modern streamlined look of California style, Down the line, I'd love for my entire backyard fence to be boarded in hydrangeas - a girl can dream, right! Inside my home, I love the layered look of different wood finishes and patterns. My plan was to bring the same look outside, creating a layered look and nix the 'matchy matchy' look that patios often have.

Over the weekend, we made huge progress on our patio and I'm so excited with how everything is coming together. Our patio feels so good and so relaxing. While developing the floor plan of our patio, we opted to create an open concept living room / dining room area. We have a generous sized patio, however, due to our pergola I had to keep in mind the placement of our pillars and design around them in an intentional way.

Welcome to my patio in progress! As I mentioned, my goals were to fully utilize our outdoor spaces, and create a relaxing space for my family to enjoy and great place to entertain. I envision my family enjoying lots of dinners outside. Outside my patio, I placed a dwarf Pink Lemonade tree in a large pot, I'm hoping next year it starts producing fruit. I got my large planter locally at Green Acres Nursery, here's a similar large modern planter. The outdoor BBQ cart my husband and I built last year is the perfect spot to hold dishes, drinks, plants and more. On the other side of my door, I placed a large hydrangea in a pot, since I've had no luck with hydrangeas in the ground and thought I'd grow one in a pot and see how it goes. I also hung a modern wind chime next my hanging planter filled with petunias. I picked up my hanging planters years ago from Ikea; they no longer make them. However, this modern planter is a good alternative and a really good price.

For seating in our lounge area on our patio, I love the look of these grey modern streamlined Cammeray wicker chairs, and decided two would help create an intimate seating arrangement. The weathered grey sofa, also from Pottery Barn, had me at hello! I chose the standard cream slipcovers for both the sofa and chairs; my plan is to make them 'life-friendly' and Scotch Guard them. Later this year, I'll most likely have covers.

My plan was to fill my patio with an array of plants in various styles and planters to add visual interest. I love the Iris planter and placed it next to my sofa to add visual interest and softness; in some ways, it feels like a side table. This trio of plants feels like a trifecta of happiness: Philodendron, Citronella plant to keep the pesky bugs away, and Hosta.

Pretty much my entire patio area is filled with plants, which helps layer in color. I recently did a quick and easy DIY with the planter holding the mandevilla, I found the planter at Marshall's originally, and knew it would look so much better dark gray. Next time you come across a so-so planter, think of the possibilities. To the left of the mandevilla, I planted a blueberry bush. I ended with two blueberry bushes on my patio for cross pollination to produce blueberries.

Having the dining area directly across from the lounge area really helps create an intimate feeling on our patio. For larger parties, I can also picture us placing the dining table on the lawn to create a more open space. A few summers ago, I bought the faux concrete planters from Target, and bought another one the other day. I love the look of the rectangle planters; they're a great modern addition to my space. In two planters I planted hostas, and in the third one I planted a raspberry bush.

Having an outdoor area that we love has been years in the making. I love how our space is coming together, but we still have a few items on the to-do list:

Add a large natural rug
Add pillows to the sofa and chairs to layer in color
Hang a pair of baskets above our dining table
Hang cafe string lights from pergola
Add a coffee table for drink holding etc.
DIY a meter screen to help conceal our meter, I love this one from House Tweaking
Hang a mirror or Chalkboard above BBQ Cart
Add outdoor music!

The past few nights my husband and I have been spending time outside under the stars with a glass of wine in hand. Its such an amazing spot, and I'm so happy we have an area my family can enjoy with dinners outside, outdoor game night or chilling on the sofa.

Have you been working on your outdoor areas to enjoy this Spring and Summer? What do you think of our space?

Looking for Modern Planter Ideas for Inside and Out? Then this post is for you, a round-up Modern Stylish Planters

I love how amazing my front garden beds look, everything has grown in so lovely, even better its blooming season right now. However, my large backyard garden bed was Hot Mess. I seriously cringe whenever I'm in my backyard. The garden bed is full of weeds, rocks and is lumpy for digging a trench last year to add power to the Cottage Studio (read more about the project here)

I'm so going for that California Casual meets Hampton's backyard vibe, which for me means a mixture of lush green grass as far as the eye can see and garden beds that burst with color. Until a few days ago it only weeds and only lone gardenia (that's been neglected) filled my 10x17 garden bed. I had three goals in mind for my garden

Garden Goals

Remove Weeds & add Weed Protection
Level Soil
Add an abundance of COLORFUL plants that will grown in over time

I'm happy to report my garden bed turned out amazing! Its totally possible to transform a weed riddled garden bed and give it new life in a weekend! Yes, it's going to be lots of work but it all feels so worth it once you're done. Here's my large garden bed before in my backyard that sits below my sons bedroom. Awful view right? Lots of large rocks and spider like weeds filled this area.

I started planning my garden bed out a few weeks before, visiting a few local nurseries to get ideas on what I wanted to plant. When it comes to gardening, I'm so not the type of person that wants to replant every single season. I'd much plant once and watch everything grow in time. I'm totally an auto pilot gardener.

The garden bed receives partial full sun in the morning and then by 1-2 shaded filtered light covers the area, when selecting plants I kept that in mind.

What Type of Plants to Buy

Evergreen Plants: I love how they stay green yearlong
Drought Tolerant Plants: I love low maintenance plants once established
Color: I love for my garden beds to burst with color in a variety of shades from chartreuse to deep green
Perennials: I love plants that come back year & after year. Auto Pilot Gardening!
Growth: I love fast growing plants, it means I'm doing something right, right? When plants grow in fast, your entire yard looks 'pulled together' + it almost makes for carefree gardening

Where to Shop

I swear planting shopping during the Spring months is my hobby, here's where I shop for good plant deals: Local Plant Nursery: Green Acres, Sacramento Farmers Market: Mine has lots of plant vendors, I love seeing what have, and bought a few this year for my garden at really good prices! I also shop the 'big box' retailers garden section for plants both Lowes & Home Depot. In your area search out the 'big box' store that has THE best garden selection and you won't be disappointed. I typically buy my plants in groupings of 2-3, I love the repeat as everything fills in. I only bought one butterfly bush for this area, since I know how large they can get & I love that!

Here's a step by step of how I tackled my large 10x17 garden bed in a weekend, by myself + plus sharing the plants I choose for my garden.

How I Transformed My Large Garden Bed in a Weekend

Friday: Friday evening after I picked up my preschooler, we headed to our local nursery and I began selecting the plants I had previously looked at a few weeks prior. I carry my phone with me and look up any plants I'm not a 100% will work in my area (Partial Full Sun & Afternoon Full Shade) seriously smart phones make everything easier. Once I got home, I placed all the pots in the garden bed to determine the keepers and what was getting exchanged.

Next, I started pulling out all the weeds, making sure to pull to remove all the way down to the root. My garden bed was filled with what I call spider like weeds. Once all the weeds were removed, I watered the ground a with a sprinkler for 10 minutes to make sure the soil was moist and easier to dig the next day.

Saturday: My husband had to work on Saturday, so I did all the digging and replanting myself! On Saturday morning, I exchanged a few plants that weren't a good fit for new plants. I picked up one Butterfly bush and two Chinese Snowballs (Viburnum bushes). I placed all the plants in the garden bed and arranged all the plants, so over time there will be layers of differing heights in the garden bed that will help create visual interest.

Laying out all the plants before digging, helps you see the 'bigger picture' and how each plant will look in relation to each other.

Before digging, I leveled the uneven portion of my garden bed, using the back of a rack to smooth everything out. Then I began digging holes and placing the plants one by one, making sure breakup the root ball of every single plant. Inside each hole, I would add garden soil about half way, and then add a 50/50 mix of dirt and soil, that I mixed by hand in a wheelbarrow. All the dirt I removed while digging was transformed into my wheelbarrow to mix with soul. After I was done planting, I used the back of the rake to smooth and level the garden bed again. I set aside in large rocks I dug up to the side, I placed a few 'rock' piles in the garden once finished.

I used three hose tackle all the digging

Digging Shovel
Small Pick Axe (love this garden tool!)
Garden Rake
Garden Hose to help keep the soil moist as I dug

Sunday: I prefer buying my mulch in bulk, instead buying several small bags of mulch from the big box store, I buy mulch for our local gravel store. Gravel & Stone yards typically carry have a huge assortment of rocks, soil, garden soil and mulch that you can buy and bulk & save time and money.

We purchased 1.5 yards of mulch. The mulch filled the back of my husbands entire truck bed! Click here to see my Instagram picture, I'm literally standing on top of all the mulch in my husbands truck! Shredded Cedar is one of my favorite mulch choices, plus since its fluffy and thick it goes along way and last a long time. Shredded mulch also seems to help keep the moisture in, unlike bark nuggets (which I avoid) I like to refresh my garden beds every other year with mulch, we plan on buying another load of mulch this weekend to refresh the remaining parts of our yard.

Before applying mulch, I laid down several layers of newspaper, wetting each layer with a spray of water. I recently read newspaper acts as a natural weed barrier. Next, I applied the mulch and then gave the garden bed a nice good water.

I have a few areas in my garden bed that I'm unable to add a plants to (sprinkle system & pvc pipes irrigation) instead of leaving large areas open, I placed a couple of pots in the garden bed, they add visual height and color. I personally love planters in garden beds, I did the same thing in the front of my yard.

After a weekend spent pulling weeds, digging an insane amount of holes and mulching, I'm so thrilled with how amazing the garden bed looks now! I'm so excited about watching this area grow in over time and crossing my fingers, I'll be able to do some cuttings once the flowers mature. Here is my finished garden bed.

I plan to water the garden bed every morning for a few weeks, and then water every other day depending on how they're doing. I'm thrilled to have this project wrapped up and I can go back to my auto pilot gardening. and enjoy everything filling in over time

Here's a quick run down of what I planted.

Front to Back: White Cosmos, Oenothera Siskiyou Pink, Sea Lavender Statice, Little One Verbena, Holly Hock, Gardenia, Ornamental Basil, Butterfly Bush and Red Valerian and two Chinese Snowballs. In my planters I planted petunias and small flowering evergreen bush.

Are you working on any outdoor projects this Spring? What do you think of my new garden?