Last week we finished up and sealed our outdoor patio and I am SO thrilled with the result.
The bulk of this project was completed in January (you can read more on the decking there), but we needed a jigsaw to cut the Ikea PLATTA decking to fit around the brick curve.
Paul created templates out of cardboard and my dad used this saw (cheap and effective!) to cut them down to size.
The result is pretty perfect.
This patio has been in place for about a month now and with the little bit of rain we've had it seems to have settled into itself well. I am very happy with the look and equally happy with how it feels to walk on. We ended up sealing the surface with teak oil (applied it by hand with a paint brush). It darkened the deck (in a good way!) and hopefully will help keep the color longer and slow the graying of the wood.
Every time I look outside (very often) I am shocked at the change and overwhelmed that this backyard is mine. It's such a fun space to sit in and will be getting even more use as the days grow longer. I would still love to do something with the plant area behind the cement wall (maybe add some white rock to brighten things up?) and we are going to get cafe lights strung overhead but this space is pretty close to done. (Which means I get to check another item off my 2014 goals list.)
our deck chairs are Ikea (thank you, Stephanie!), the fire pit is this one from amazon & here's the jade ampersand tutorial.
