This space has changed dramatically over the past few months! It was once brown with blank walls, but now it feels more like our own little resort. It has quickly become my favorite place to sit, drink coffee, read my Bible and look at nature.
There are a few affordable tricks I can share that have the biggest impact —plants, curtains and twinkle lights. Let me show you. (Don’t miss the nighttime shots at the end!)
You can also see how I experimented and designed things step by step in my Instagram stories labeled “Outdoors”. I show you all my projects in process over there! Come follow along.
Before
Let’s take a look at the before. This was before we painted the house white and before I had any kind of a plan. We were also saving up to buy an outdoor sofa, so it looked like this for a good year.
So many blank walls. And too many floats! Now I pretty much give them one at a time, otherwise they’re all popped within a week or two. I wait until they are in stores at Five Below for $5 at the beginning of summer and stock up for the year.
Once we painted the house white, it was giving me some hope. I really hated that brown color! (Lots of credit and love to my father-in-law for doing almost all the painting!)
It’s important to buy fans specifically for the outdoors for the patio. You can see how they sagged, especially the one farther in the distance. We switched them out for these simple outdoor fans.
Here are some before and afters to compare side by side:
Like the most of the interior of my house, I kept everything charcoal, white and green. I’ll break down what transformed this space because sometimes it’s hard to catch everything in a photo:
- brown walls painted white
- patio sectional with coffee table
- faux ivy screens on either side of the sliding doors
- inexpensive curtains
- hanging plants
The faux ivy screens ran out in my original link, so here are a few alternate links: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
This huge blank wall stumped me for a long time! I don’t want to talk about house much time I spent staring at it. This is what I came up with:
- faux ivy screens (I’m obsessed)
- outdoor console table
- large iron mirror
- lanterns with remote control candles
- faux ivy garland (above lanterns – such a good deal)
I’m my own worst critic, but I’m very happy with the way this wall turned out. The candles light up with a remote and make a lovely glow at night.
I bought this queen marble plant and hung it up. As I untangled the tendrils, a huge cane toad jumped out and hit me in the head! I’ll never be the same. I still keep my distance as I walk by it.
I made the two smaller ikat pillows from inexpensive placemats. See turn a placemat into a pillow in 20 min.
I planted this succulent box several years ago. It’s been completely neglected and needs some work, but it’s still going strong! This is the tutorial on how you line and make a box with proper drainage.
I’m not kidding, I’m obsessed with these faux ivy screens ($44) and highly recommend them. They break up blank walls and give the space life and a coziness. They can expand to your desired size. Amazing.
I painted this door green for $7 in 20 minutes! Head over to the post to see how and why this is the perfect green. That pop of green makes me so happy when I sit out on the lanai!
The previous homeowner was kind enough to tell us that he planted these four palm trees for hammocks. Isn’t that clever? I can’t wait for them to grow big enough and get four pretty hammocks out there!
At night
You better believe I put twinkle lights behind those ivy screens! They seriously make all the difference at night. The lanterns in front of the mirror have remote-controlled candles, which makes it easy!
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I share all the details on current projects on Instagram stories. Some don’t make it onto the blog!
It is so beautiful!!! I can see that you will be saving a lot of money…you never have to go on vacation …you have such a beautiful home and yard!
Kate, beautiful transformation of the exterior of your house, but how do you keep rodents from climbing up the trellises? I have always adored the look of trellised,climbing plants/vines up the sides of buildings, but have hesitated to do this myself because of inadvertently inviting this sort of problem.
I forgot to ask – the pool appears to be covered with a sort of “skylight”, creating the effect of having an indoor/outdoor pool. Is it actually covered, or are those just posts? I have never typically cared for pools that were built close to the structure of a house, but this looks fabulous! Did you do this, or was this there when you purchased the house?
Thank you so much, Dianne! I’ve always loved palm trees and just kept moving south until I couldn’t go any farther in country :)
Hi Lisa! The ivy is inside a screened-in lanai so rodents can’t get in, but I honestly didn’t even think about that! We are growing bougainvillea up the columns in the front of our house though, so we’ll see how that goes! As soon as I see a rodent I’ll rip it all down, haha!!
So this is called a pool cage. Most houses have them in southwest Florida. Bugs and leaves stay out and the space can be used as more of an extension of the house with the doors open during the winter. (It’s too hot in summer!) My husband always threatens to take it down as it needs to be re-screened since our last hurricane, but it keeps all the pine needles out of the pool!
Thanks so much for responding, Kate. Whenever I see plants/vines growing up the exterior of a building I think how pretty it is, and how much I would like to incorporate this on to the outside of my house, but then I stop, not wanting to invite unwelcome creatures on or into my house! I see these often in interior design and garden magazines, and many people have them, so there must be some sort of deterrent that I am unaware of.
So now I know about pool cages. Being a Californian, I have never seen them. I think the pool cage is fabulous. Not only is it attractive, but it serves a purpose. I think it creates an attractive transition from the indoors to the outdoors. Sort of like bringing the outdoors in.
I have never been found of swimming pools but your back yard and covered pool setting is very inviting and beautiful. Thanks for sharing your transformation..
Thanks so much, Pauline. It’s so hot here in the summer, swimming is the only thing to do! haha!
Hi I just came across your blog and have to say you did a fabulous job with your outdoor area! I love it! I really want to do the ivy. I wanted to know how you put it up and how it’s holding up. Thank you!
Thank you, Jacqueline! The ivy is still holding up perfectly! And I just hung them on random nails that were already in the wall, haha :) It’s fairly lightweight.
Gorgeous transformation! Where did you get your curtains? And your potted plants?
The curtains were some cheapies I found on Amazon. I thought I’d have to replace them after the summer, but they’re still up! Here’s the link: https://amzn.to/32Q5tAA and the plants were from Home Depot :)
Hi Kate, such a wonderful job. I was wondering what you use to hang things on your stucco walls? My husband is adamant we will NEVER put a nail or screw or anything on ours to cause damage. lol With our current house in Missouri (we are moving in a couple years and building in SW FL) we have quite a bit of fun patio décor but we have vinyl siding and use these super awesome clips that slide under the siding. Hence we have no nails or screws or even 3M hooks. Not sure what I’m going to do with my fun decorations if I have no options to hang them. Thanks for any ideas
Hi Kasandra! I understand not wanted to put screws in the side of the house. I’m hesitant to do it as well. For these ivy trellises I actually used screws that were already in the wall. Of course they could have been centered better, but I thought it was better not to make more holes. But we did use two screws for the mirror. I’m sorry that’s not much help. I’d love to know an alternative option, but with things like the mirror that are pretty heavy, I’m not sure there is one. Look forward to welcoming you as a fellow Floridian! So exciting
Hi Kate, fabulous work, I’ve been trying to get my pool deck as you have yours, so beautiful, can you tell me how I can accomplish that. I recently move to Florida and planning on implementing many of your ideas.
Hi Sue! Welcome to Florida! Unfortunately I’m not much help as our pool deck was like this when we moved in 3 years ago. I do know that you need to use special paint for pool decks though. Ours is a light neutral beige color.
ok inspiration!!! Thank you for sharing! We also have so many pool floats.. where do you keep yours kids pool supplies? I am STRUGGLING with ways to keep it all organized yet still nice.
I actually started buying floats I like, haha! Like a big white floating swan or flamingo, so then I don’t mind seeing them float around. I do have a storage box for goggles, flippers and toys :) But I know, the struggle is real to keep all their junk at bay!
Oh. My. Gosh. This is magical!! I’m moving from NH to FL soon and this has inspired me!
Cheers,
Erica