Being the home owners on a budget that we are, we set out to build a knockoff version of a West Elm outdoor sectional. Ours was made for a fraction of the cost using cedar fence planks and we have building plans for you to make one too!
Continue Reading “Build an Outdoor Sectional for under $100”
Check out our back patio makeover and how we gave it a much needed refresh for spring.
The time has come to reveal our back patio refresh! Yay! We have had all our awesome finds from At Home just sitting in the empty room that is soon to be the nursery and I have been dying to get them out where they belong for almost a month now! So we are thrilled to finally have this space finished and be able to share what we did.
We had these grand plans to have the entire backyard completed (new flower beds, a fire pit, etc.) by this point but as I am sure you may know, life sometimes gets in the way. What can you do? There is only so many hours in a day and so many weekends in a month. You can’t control the weather and let’s face it, sometimes you are so tired you just don’t feel like doing anything but sitting on the couch, eating pizza and watching a marathon of a dumb reality show.
So we are just rolling the back patio overhaul out slowly one area at a time. But we have already made a huge leap forward with our back patio makeover by creating our lounge area.
In all the excitement of decorating this space I forgot to take a before picture at an angle facing back towards the greenbelt but the one from when we first moved into the house is close. Before, the patio was hardly a patio, it was just an empty and ugly slab of concrete. So much work needed to be done in this space.
We are absolutely in love with our back patio makeover and the completed lounge area. The colors pop so nicely and every single item we picked out goes so well together and is an integral part of the space. It was well worth the time we took at the store to make sure everything coordinated and worked well together.
For so long we had to look out our back windows at just an unattractive concrete slab and now this bright cheerful area really makes us happy every time we look out the window. It is so welcoming and cozy that we can’t wait to spend spring and summer nights under the string lights lounging on our comfy cushions and host backyard BBQs now that we can seat lots of friends and family.
First things first we did some work on the concrete slab. We filled in the huge gap in between the two slabs as well as some of the really large cracks where grass and weeds would frequently grow through. The previous owners had foundation work done and it did a number on the concrete around our home including the back patio where we have huge ugly patches left behind as reminders so we needed to find ways to disguise the unattractive areas of the concrete. Next, we power washed, stained and sealed the concrete to get rid of all the gross mildew and make it easier to clean when it does come back.
After our concrete was in better shape we started decorating the space with the items we picked out from At Home. We have said it a couple of times before but At Home is really the one stop shop for outdoor decor because they have such a wide variety of items in just about every color you can imagine and you can easily stay on budget. In case you missed it, you can read more about our At Home shopping trip and all the outdoor decor we picked out in more detail.
We first picked out the Azure cushions we liked from At Home and then built our outdoor sectional based on the dimensions of the cushions so we would be 100% sure they would fit. The size of the cushions also helped us determine the number of pillows we needed. We will share more details about how we built this awesome sectional for under $100 in the coming weeks. The cushions and pillows make this seating area so comfy and cozy.
We built the coffee table to match our outdoor sectional and it was the perfect place to put these super cool lanterns that were our splurge items (they were not very expensive, they just were not on our initial list) during our shopping trip. They hold candles so they can add a little mood lighting at night.
Can we talk about how awesome this umbrella is? It is functional, covers almost the entire sectional providing much needed shade during the day, and really helps define the space. And it was only $80. Boom.
We love the color and pattern of this rug and how it contrasts with the new color of our concrete. It is so bright and cheerful and just invites you to kick off your shoes and stay awhile. Bonus, the large rug covers a huge nasty crack in the concrete slab easily helping to disguise the faults in the concrete.
These blue chairs will eventually go around our outdoor table that we plan on building but for now we added them to the lounge area to provide extra seating. They are really comfy and we like that the mesh fabric will allow them to dry out with all this rain we are getting here in Houston.
I love relaxing in our new lounge area. We are so happy with all of our choices and how everything came together to really give this space a much needed refresh.
Check out how we built our DIY outdoor sectional for under $100!
So what do you think? I know there isn’t much to compare it to since we literally started with a blank space but we are really proud of our back patio makeover and just the overall tone it sets in our backyard. Its funny, adding just a few bright outdoor decor pieces can make a huge difference in a space and make it much more enjoyable and welcoming.
If your backyard is in need of a little refresh, we hope this gives you a few ideas for your back patio makeover and the confidence that you don’t have to spend a ton of money to create your perfect outdoor oasis. For more awesome outdoor living inspiration, be sure to check out HGTV’s Spring House for lots more spring refresh ideas!
Tell Us: What is your favorite outdoor decor item to transform a space?
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of At Home. The opinions and text are all mine.
We built wall-mounted plant shelves to hold faux plants to create a greenery accent wall.
Brent and I like creating accent walls. So far we have created a wood plank wall in our reading nook and a faux brick wall in our home gym.
When it came to the large wall in our home office above our new cabinets we wanted to incorporate plants as part of the focal wall.
I was really drawn to the idea of having identical plants in identical pots in neat and organized rows. While I would have LOVED to incorporate live plants, let’s just be real they would have all died slow painful deaths at different rates and it would have totally ruined the uniform look we are going for.
Luckily, IKEA has some pretty realistic and inexpensive plants that really made our vision come to life.
To display the plants, we built five super simple wall-mounted plant shelves and today we are going to show you how!
Shop the products we used for this project in one place.
FYI: This post contains a few affiliate links to products we used to make this project. Gray House Studio does receive commissions for sales from these links but at no extra cost to you. We appreciate you supporting this site. Read our privacy and disclosure policy. You can also easily shop our recommended products here.
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1. First, Brent measured the 1×6 inch board and using the miter saw cut the piece for the back of the shelves 36 inches long.
2. Next, on the miter saw he cut three smaller boards 5 1/2 inches long each.
These pieces would become the shelves so they needed to be long enough and wide enough for the pots we had to sit on.
3. Before attaching the three smaller boards to the long board, Brent measured and made straight marks 13 inches apart from the bottom with a framing square.
The bottom of each smaller board lined up with these lines he marked.
4. Brent applied wood glue to one side of one of the smaller boards and used clamps to attach it to the bottom of the long board.
5. Then he secured the smaller board to the larger board with a nail gun and 1 ½ inch finishing nails.
6. He repeated the previous two steps to attach the additional two smaller boards to the large board where he made the marks 13 inches apart.
In total we built five shelves.
7. Once the glue dried, we painted the shelves Dovetail Gray (from Sherwin-Williams) to match the cabinets and desk in the room.
We painted them two shades darker than the walls so that they would subtly stand out from the wall without being too overpowering and taking away from the plants.
8. Next, on the top of each shelf, Brent marked and used a drill to make 3/8 inch holes in the center of each shelf, 6 inches down from the top.
9. To attached the shelves to the wall, Brent started measuring from the center of the wall and screwed five drywall screws 16 inches apart the same distance from the ceiling.
10. Finally, we hung the wall-mounted plant shelves on the wall.
11. Then we added our ceramic pots and faux plants.
I love how this wall turned out. The muted colors, the uniformity, and the greenery goes perfectly in our new home office and while it is definitely the focal wall, doesn’t overwhelm the space.
Here are the new items we picked out for our back patio makeover.
When it comes to home renovation projects there are a lot of different scenarios that can cause setbacks, including things out of your control like the weather. If you haven’t heard, it has been raining here in Houston quite a bit. While all this rain has really put a damper on our outdoor projects, we were extremely fortunate that our home was not one of the many that flooded. Another positive aspect of the rain is our grass is getting nice and green and we haven’t had to water yet.
We have been trying to start our back patio makeover this month but all this rain is totally cramping our style. It has inconveniently rained and/or stormed every weekend this past three weekends. We get it, this year the weather was really taking “April showers” literally.
When (or if) it stops raining on the weekends, the first thing we would like to do is repair and stain our drab concrete slab that is getting less attractive by the day.
But for the time being we thought we would share with you the fun and bright colored furniture and decor pieces we picked out for our back patio during our At Home power shopping trip. If you remember from our last post, we managed to get quite a large loot of cool outdoor decor items. At Home is really a one stop shop when it comes to home decor because they have a huge selection, everything color coordinates and the prices will allow you to stay on budget.
Ideally, we would show you what each of these items looks like in the space but since we don’t want the brand new stuff to get waterlogged, we will just go with plan B for now.
Rugs make a space feel so much more welcoming and cozy, especially when the area you are trying to make comfortable will sit on a concrete slab. We picked out the turquoise and snow cornwall tributary rug in 8×10 to define our seating area and bring some much needed color and comfort to this corner of our back patio.
Pillows & Cushions
Speaking of comfort, nothing makes outdoor seating more relaxing than cushions and lots of pillows! And we needed plenty to fill up our outdoor sectional. Thankfully, At Home’s cushions and pillows didn’t cause us to break the budget.
SHOPPING TIP: Don’t be afraid to do a mock set-up of your seating arrangement or any space you are trying to design at the store so you will not only know the right amount of items to get but also make sure they go well together. At Home has plenty of space to do this.
We initially picked out bright green cushions and then decided on dark tan cushions. Right before we left the store we were trying to decide how many pillows we needed so we set our cushions on one of the wicker sets and added our blue and green pillows. It turns out we did not like how the bright blue and green colors looked against the dark tan cushions so at the last minute we switched to a muted blue/green colored cushion and it looked so much better. I am so glad we took the time to plan that out in the store.
We need five chairs to go around our long rectangular outdoor table. It seemed like an impossible task to try and find five chairs and stay within the budget. So when we found these bright blue chairs for only $20 a piece we were like, “jackpot!”. There were others that we really liked the style of but they were triple the price. These chairs are practical, comfortable and are a bright blue color that will tie the dining area to the same color blues in our seating area giving the whole backyard a cohesive feel.
Remember how we always have one splurge item in our trip? Well, these lanterns were our splurge item(s). I walked past them several times because they were not on our list but I just kept going back to them over and over again because something about them was calling to me. I kind of have a thing for lanterns to begin with but I think these will be a really nice addition to our outdoor coffee table to add a little extra mood lighting.
We don’t have a covered patio so one thing we will definitely need in our backyard is some shade. A large 10ft. offset umbrella seemed to be an easy and affordable ($80) solution to this problem. We might in the future consider building a larger structure for shade but our back yard is not huge, so a large umbrella over our seating area should do the trick for now.
*We haven’t snapped a photo of our umbrella yet because it is still in the box. I am dying to see it assembled but we don’t currently have anywhere to store a 10ft umbrella inside the house.
Some of these items were on our list from the beginning and some of the items we changed our minds and switched colors or styles once we were in the store but we are really happy with all the pieces we were able to get to refresh and bring some much needed life to our back patio. We can’t wait to start decorating the space with these pieces and spend more time outdoors.
Now if you will excuse me I will be humming the rain, rain go away song continuously in my head this week and drooling over HGTV’s Spring House while I patiently wait for my turn to decorate our outdoor space.
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of At Home. The opinions and text are all mine.
How to build a wood herringbone countertop for our office cabinets.
We are back with part two of our office cabinets project and today we are sharing how we made our herringbone countertop. After spending quite a bit of time on the base of the cabinets, we were looking for an affordable and relatively easy solution for the countertop. We wanted it to contrast the gray base but still be interesting so a wood herringbone countertop worked out perfectly.
We should mention that this wood countertop is more for decorative purposes. We wouldn’t recommend this type of countertop anywhere where food is involved or as a work surface that would get a lot of hard use but in an office it looks amazing and works great.
Shop the products we used for this project in one place.
FYI: This post contains a few affiliate links to products we used to make this project. Gray House Studio does receive commissions for sales from these links but at no extra cost to you. We appreciate you supporting this site. Read our privacy and disclosure policy. You can also easily shop our recommended products here.
In this video I will show the steps as well as the materials and tools necessary to make a wood herringbone countertop like we did for our office cabinets.
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To build our herringbone counter top we used 2×4 Premium Kiln-Dried Whitewood.
We chose to go with a herringbone pattern for our counter top but we needed a game plan to determine all of our measurements for the pieces before we started cutting.
In order to figure out the lengths of the boards we first needed to figure out the length of the 45 degree angle and then divide that by two which gave us the length of the center of each board.
One side of each board needed to be cut at a 90 degree angle and the other side needed to be cut at a 45 degree angle.
All the boards needed to be the same length so to get the distance we just took the depth of our counter top and determined the hypotenuse (there are calculators online to do that) and then we cut all the boards the same length with the miter saw.
We determined that the center of each board should be 13 ¾ inches so I took my measuring tape and marked that measurement on the center of the board. To double check that it is the center I measured the other way and made the mark.
I used the straightedge side of the board as my 90 degree angle. The 45 degree angle needed to intersect the center point I marked so I used a framing square and turned it until it showed 45 degrees and then slid it down the board until it met my mark.
Once it was on the mark I drew a line where I would cut the board on the miter saw.
1. Once my first board was lined up for the cut on the miter saw, I used a scrap piece of wood and a clamp to make a stop so that all the following cuts would match and be exactly the same.
In between each 45 degree angle cut, I needed to cut another 90 degree angle cut so that I could turn the board and put the 90 degree angle cut against the stop to make the exact same 45 degree angle cut.
To do this I put a spacer board between my board so the actual 2×4 sat flush against the straight guard.
Then I changed the blade back to 90 degrees and I made the cut and then flipped the board around and continued making the 45 degree angle cut.
2. After all the boards were cut, I started the process of attaching them together.
I used a drill press to drill a hole in the side of each of the boards to countersink the screws.
3. I screwed pairs of boards together and then once they were all glued and screwed together I took all the “v” shapes that were created and screwed them together the same way all the way down until the counter top was completely joined together.
Normally, I would just butt the edges together and use wood glue. I would let the wood glue set up in a clamp and it would hold fine.
However, because these are cheap 2x4s I used and they had a bunch of knots in them, each of the boards might expand at different rates and it could make the seams come apart. The screws will make sure to keep all the pieces held together tight.
4. I used a T-square to mark each side indicating on all the boards where to cut them for a straight edge.
5. Once both sides of the counter top were cut to length square with the miter saw, I flipped all the boards over, lined them up, put wood glue in each of the seam and used large clamps to hold them together.
6. Then I used a nail gun to drive finishing nails through the sides of the boards going from one board to the next on each side and then through the bottom going from one board to the next across the seams.
If the boards are bowed after being screwed together, you can straighten the bow by facing the highest point of the center up and then placing the clamp on the boards and tighten it until the boards straighten.
7. I left the clamps on for a day or two while the glue dried and then used an orbital sander on the top surface of the countertop to remove any high points.
8. Once the surface was flat, we stained the countertop being careful to get the stain in all the cracks. We used our favorite stain, Rust-Oleum Ultimate Wood Stain in Kona.
9. Finally, before installing the countertop I used our table saw to cut sections of wood pine molding down to size to frame the countertop.
When the wood pine molding were cut to the correct size, I turned the boards on their sides and cut the edges straight.
10. After staining the frame, we installed the sections of the countertop on our cabinet base and glued the frame to the edge of the countertop.
11. We used painters tape to hold it in place while the glue dried.
Check out our finished office cabinets or how to build a cabinet drawer.
After we installed the herringbone countertop, we secured the cabinets to the wall.
We are really happy with how our wood herringbone countertop turned out. It looks great on top of the gray cabinets. Our next DIY project will be building a desk with the same Kona stain and a gray front piece.
Our home office is coming together nicely and we can’t wait to share the final reveal.
Details about our adventure power shopping for our back patio at At Home.
I am about to break a stereotype here. I am a woman and I do not like to shop. There I said it. I’ll wait a minute to let the gasps quiet down.
When it comes to shopping for our home I do it sparingly. I am very slow to pull the trigger on purchasing any decor or furniture pieces for our rooms. I used to get overwhelmed with the thought of decorating a space, wondering how I would know if all the pieces I picked out would work well together and if I actually liked what I was picking out or if I was just buying it because it was cute or on sale.
So I took a different approach that might be a slightly unconventional way of home decor shopping or an unconventional way of shopping for a female. I used this method on our past two room makeovers (the home gym and guest room) and it has worked well for me and allowed me to focus on the design of the space and the general style of our home ensuring that I choose pieces that we genuinely like.
My preferred method: power shopping.
Usually, our room makeover process goes a little something like this:
1. Brent and I plan out a room or space. We online window shop for ideas, create a vision board post, and we set a general budget for what we would like to spend on the room.
2. We list out all the DIY projects for the space that we want to tackle. Then we do all of our DIY projects first and make waaaaay too make trips to the hardware store.
3. I wait until all the DIY projects are done before buying anything for the room and then I stand in the room and make a list of all the new items I will need to purchase to make the room feel complete and make note of the amount left in the budget to spend on finishing touches.
4. I power shop for the items on my list all in one day, all in one shopping trip and I always bring along a shopping partner (usually Brent or my mom).
While this may not work for everyone, I have found my power shopping method works extremely well for me because my shopping trips are limited, I know my specific budget for the shopping trip, I don’t lose focus and I am tuned in to shopping for those specific styles and pieces. I always look for good deals and a fun splurge item as well.
I love coming home from a power shopping trip and immediately going to the room and arranging all the pieces in the space. It is so satisfying to me to buy just the right amount of items, that each items feels like it definitely fits the design of the space and that we genuinely like every single piece. It is almost like a challenge that I now enjoy. As long as it is only every now and then.
The next space we are making over is our back patio (you can see our plans here) so for my latest shopping trip, I brought Brent along with me and we power shopped for all the finishing touches we needed to complete our soon to be freshly made over and colorful outdoor space.
We were excited to do our shopping for our back patio at At Home because they have such a huge selection that it was almost a guarantee that we would be able to find everything we were looking for there and wouldn’t have to travel all over town like I normally do on my power shopping trips. So with a budget of $500, we set off on our shopping adventure.
The store is huge and the first thing you notice when you walk in the door is the large selection of indoor and outdoor decor and furniture they offer, especially cushions. If you are looking for cushions, this is the place to be. They don’t just have a wall of cushions to choose from they have aisles and aisles and aisles (I am not exaggerating) of every colored cushion imaginable and at prices that won’t make you cringe. Within each color are a variety of different shapes and sizes of cushions and matching pillows.
As I was testing out the cushions, I started daydreaming and it popped into my head that I am pretty sure you could build the largest cushion fort known to man in an At Home store. I am an adult so obviously I wouldn’t actually do that… but the possibility is there, just saying.
We brought our measuring tape to measure the different types of cushions to see what style would work best with our seating. Having all those options made us change our mind three times, but in the end we really did get the exact style and color cushions that we wanted. It was nice not to have to settle.
And remember, when the sign says “Ask for assistance when getting items off the top shelf.” It is there for a good reason. Brent learned this lesson. Ha. At least they were just cushions. I think Brent secretly wanted to have a cushion fight. And, the cushions won. I am telling you, there is just something about seeing all those cushions that brings out the kid in you.
If you are looking for outdoor pots, you definitely are going to have a hard time choosing your favorite from all of these. They cover a variety of styles so whether you are in to the big concrete planters or more of the colorful ceramic planters they have you covered for sure.
Just remember to be careful getting them off the shelves. Someone knocked three or four off the shelf a few aisles over from us and the kid in me yelled. “It wasn’t me. I am right here.”
After cushions, the next item on our list was an umbrella. I like that they put all the items they have on display so you can easily identify which color and style you want. We went with a 10ft. offset umbrella in a neutral color to balance all the color we are adding with our other pieces. The umbrella, stand and base were all $80. You can’t beat that price for that large of an umbrella. That one was a score.
The great thing about At Home is they not only have a lot of color options in just about every department but also a lot of styles within the colors and the colors all coordinate with each other throughout all the different pieces. If you want a blue chair you are not stuck with choosing the one blue chair offered but rather can choose whatever style blue chair that suits your taste.
We liked knowing that the blue chair would match our blue pillows because they all came from the same place. If you are a lazy shopper like me, then it takes all the guesswork out of running around to several stores to make sure your items coordinate perfectly. At Home already is set up in that way.
While they had some really cool blue chairs and it was hard to make a decision, we ended up going with the best bang for our buck and got five of these blue ones for $19.99 a piece because we needed several chairs to go around our outdoor table.
The best part of power shopping at one location is the look on the cashier’s face when we roll up with two carts full of stuff, half excitement, half dread. So. Many. Pillows.
It was a fun shopping for our back patio at At Home and as usual I was exhausted by the end but we have so much cool stuff for our outdoor space. We were able to get cushions, pillows, a rug, an umbrella and five chairs all for $500!
Then…we realized we had to fit it all in the back of my Jeep (the downside to power shopping). It took some strategy and patience to get an umbrella, 8×10 rug and five chairs in a small space but we did it and were super proud of ourselves and while in the parking lot we already got a compliment on our rug choice.
We can’t wait to show you exactly what we ended up picking out and how it all ties together with our back patio plans. Stay tuned to see how our back patio makeover turns out!
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of At Home. The opinions and text are all mine.
