I’ve been meaning to write this post for months, but I’m only now getting around to it. Better later than never!! Our garden was a blank canvas, all it had was grass and the patio. As soon as we moved in we had the patio extended, but we hadn’t done anything else to it. We’re not really gardeners and I didn’t really know what to do with the space.
Then I decided that in the bottom corner I wanted to have a seating area, it is where the sun stays for the most of the day and I thought about putting a pergola there too. We finally decided that 2020 was going to be year that we sorted out the garden and made it look a lot nicer. Then Coronavirus hit and we were put into lockdown in March and we thought our plans would have to wait.
We were really lucky last year that the sunny weather arrived in April and we were spending a lot of time in the garden. It made us want our garden to be nicer and after a lot of watching YouTube videos, we decided to do the work ourselves. Andy is not a DIY person at all, but he was confident that he could do it.
When we started to mark out the area that we wanted to dig up, we thought that it would love better with a circular edge and that actually a pergola wasn’t quite what we wanted. After some searching I found a lovely wooden seating area, that had trellis sides and roof which was perfect. We placed the order and also ordered the stones and materials we needed to make a nice corner area for it to go on.
Andy did most of the hard work. We measured out the area and he dug out the mud. We got a Hippo bag to put it all in and I highly recommend Hippo, it is a lot easier than hiring a skip or trying to take everything to the tip. Because of lockdown the tip was closed anyway and that wasn’t an option for us. But we would still have got a Hippo bag, they post it out to you and then once it’s filled you book for them to come and collect it.
Once the area was dug out, we lined it and that was really easy to do and now a year later we haven’t had a single weed appear, so we must have done it right!! The stones were delivered and we started to put them in the space and the area really started to come together. It did look really bare and small at this point and I was starting to worry if we had done the right thing. But we carried on!
When the seating area arrived, we had to build it and this is when I had a real panic. It looked like it was going to be difficult to do and because it was just Andy and I, I wasn’t sure I would be strong enough to help Andy. Because we were in lockdown, we couldn’t call on our friends to help us. Luckily Andy was convinced it would be ok and I’m glad we did.
Once it was built and in place, I immediately loved it. It was exactly how I hoped it would be and the girls instantly loved it too. With it now built, it was time to accessorise the area. I brought some cushions and some plants for the area. I’m not very good at gardening and keeping plants alive, but I am trying. I brought the cushions from Sainsbury’s and I love the colours.
The girls really wanted to plant some seeds to grow their own plants and it still looked a bit bare. We had some plant pots and the girls loved planting the seeds. I also wanted to inject some more colour and we wanted somewhere that we could put our drinks. I found the perfect table that could go to the side of the seating area. It folds up, meaning we can put it away for the winter.
I love this finished area and when I look at it, I am really proud that we did it ourselves. It’s completely changed the look of our garden and we used it all the time last summer. The girls love to sit and read on it and so do I.
I can’t wait for the sunny weather to arrive and we can start enjoying it again this year. I’ve brought a table to also sit in the space in front of the seats and I hope that it will finish this area off.
