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Posts Tagged "backyard design"

Our Backyard Renovation

July 11, 2021
We loved working with the The Home Depot  on this project. This is a sponsored post. We also use affiliate links in our posts.

 

When we were asked to partner with The Home Depot on their Garden to Grill campaign there was absolutely no hesitation. We were all in!  With how crazy this past year has been, traveling coming to a complete halt and the entire family having cabin fever, this Spring was the perfect time to concentrate our DIY imaginations on taking our mess of a backyard and upgrading it into a Garden to Grill oasis! 

Our first step in bringing our backyard oasis to life was to actually plan out the plan.  My vision included a safer environment for our friends and family to visit during the pandemic.  I’ve also been super excited about having our own fire pit to roast a marshmallow or two. For years Chris has been talking about how cool it would be to grow our own fruits, veggies and herbs and have a designated grilling area to bring his hot summer dishes to life for our friends and family. Keeping all of this in mind, we eventually narrowed our projects down to a BBQ and outdoor dining space, a lounge area, and a fire pit.  

As you can see from how our backyard was looking….

We had a lot of work to do before we could even begin to think about incorporating The Home Depot’s amazing outdoor plants, grills and accessories or furniture ideas!

It was important to us that we planned our new backyard space out perfectly.  Making sure we had enough room to build a deck that would house our new Traeger Grill, Bonnie Herbs and Vegetables and our outdoor dining space. A pergola that could be used for shade over our new Home Depot lounge furniture, and that there was enough space left over to enjoy nights around our fire pit.

If you are interested in learning step by step how we transformed our backyard from the before picture above to looking like this below in just a few weekends:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out our Highlight Video documenting our entire backyard landscape renovation to catch every step along the way!

Next it was time to focus on the fun part…the SHOPPING!!! The Home Depot has always been one of Chris and my favorite stores!  We are probably at our local Home Depot at least once a day.  Even with that being said, I honestly don’t think Chris or I really understood how much The Home Depot had to offer in their Home and Garden space until taking on this project. Seriously!!! The Home Depot is a one stop shop!  

We started off by spending some time on The Home Depot website making a project “LIST” and picking out gorgeous pieces we loved that could be shipped directly to us or picked up curbside.  

Not only does The Home Depot offer great project ideas and attachments so you can entertain outdoors, but they also carry an array of top quality products that can help take your outdoor project to the next level!  From all of the different outdoor furniture lines they offer, to outdoor dining accessories for the perfect tablescapes, they even have the best grills and grilling tools and supplies.

Here is the Home Depot List we developed for this Garden to Grill space. Click the image for link:

BBQ/OUTDOOR DINING:

         

FIRE-PIT:

LOUNGE AREA:

 

 

We decided we’d start off by taking a trip to our local Home Depot store to check out what they had in stock.

 

Almost everything we purchased that was not in stock we were able to order conveniently online and have shipped directly to our home or scheduled for pick up curbside at our local Home Depot store.  This just added to our overall shopping experience making it super simple and convenient! 

I was also pleasantly surprised with the selection of Bonnie Plants at The Home Depot’s!  They had everything I needed to start my garden and was very organized!  It really made it super easy and fun for a novist like me to find the exact herbs and vegetables I was looking for to add to some of Chris’ grilling recipes.   

The Home Depot makes it super simple for even a novice like me to gather the best plants and gardening materials to grow your own fruits, veggies and herbs to help bring your garden to your grill to your plate! Here was my herb and veggie garden shopping list:

 

  

Chris has been eyeing the Traeger Grill for quite a while now.  So when it came time to pick out his new grill, he decided to go with the Traeger Timberline 1300 Wifi Pellet Grill and Smoker.

Chris had the best time picking out his new Traeger Grill!  Check out his Home Depot shopping trip below!

“This is the dance you do when you buy a grill like this!”~Chris Johnson

 

I have to admit I’m not the cook of the family (Chris is) nor am I an avid gardener.  However, I actually found the entire process of planting our own food very therapeutic and kind of fun. 

I’ll have to keep you updated on how everything is growing. I am fully dedicated to being a great plant mom!  If you have any tips for me definitely leave them in our comment section below!

Having our own vegetables and herbs right next to the grill has definitely been a huge plus!  Chris loves that he can simply lean over and pick directly from his new garden and place it right on the grill.  You can’t get much better than that!

With his crazy busy schedule, he loved the fact that it came equipped with smart WiFIRE technology that allows him to control the wifi pellet grill from anywhere as long as he has the Traeger App.

This has been one of our largest and most fun home DIY projects Chris and I have done together thus far. We are loving how it turned out and couldn’t have done it without The Home Depot! They had all of the top quality outdoor furniture pieces and accessories we needed to help us take our outdoor space to the next level.

 

Remember this before?

Check out these Afters!

We hope our Garden to Grill project has inspired you to tackle your outdoor space this Spring too!  Now all we have left to do is fire up our Grill, grab one of our favorite recipes and a cold drink and get ready for our friends and family to arrive!  

 

 

On to our next project…

 

Shop our backyard…
reclaimedkarma
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How We Stained Our Outdoor Living Space In Just One Weekend

July 3, 2021
This post is sponsored by The Home Depot. We really loved working with them! We also use affiliate links in our posts.

 

This summer Chris and I are concentrating our DIY creative minds on exterior projects around our home.  We just finished partnering with The Home Depot on a really fun outdoor entertainment space in our backyard.  Check out our latest blog with all of the renovation details here. It was such a great partnership that when we were asked to work with them again we jumped at the chance!  We are now partnering up with The Home Depot and Olympic’s Wood and Deck stains to add a pop of color to our newly built deck and our new DIY outdoor dining table.  

Check out our YouTube video of the entire process:

 

First things first, we headed on over to the Olympic website to plan out what type of stain and what colors we would be using for our deck and dining table.  What we loved about Olympic’s website is that they have a tool called the “Olympic ProjectPro” that helps you to plan your staining project from start to finish.   

After answering a series of questions about our two projects, Olympic offered suggestions on what type of stain to use and they even have a “Visualizer” program where you can see all of the stain colors you are interested in displayed on the type of wood project you are planning. This really helped us to make a decision on the color and finish we wanted to go with for our deck and dining table.

 

There are many options to choose from when it comes to the best deck and exterior furniture stain. It’s been said that the more opaque or solid the stain is the better weather and wear resistant it is, but if you are looking to see more of the wood’s natural beauty and grains, you’ll want to go with a more transparent to semi-transparent stain.

We decided to go with Olympic’s Maximum Stain+Sealant which we picked up from The Home Depot.

We knew the Olympic Maximum Stain + Sealant was the right choice mainly because of the crazy weather we have down here in Atlanta, Georgia.  Olympic Maximum has some pretty great benefits when it comes to application and durability:

  • Weather-ready application allows you to clean and stain on the same day in temperatures down to 35°F, application is ready for rain in 8 hours
  • Penetrating, durable Wood Stain + Sealant in One protects and beautifies in one step
  • Durable wood stain formula features advanced SunBlock UV defense, exclusive SCUFF GUARD technology and enhanced waterproofing protection
  • Mildew and mold-resistant wood stain coating protects the surface from moisture and water damage
  • Cleans easily with soap and water, eliminating the need for harsh chemicals
  • Low VOC, water based wood stain formula gives off less odor and harmful fumes as wood dries
  • 6-year warranty on decks and 8-year on fences and siding to give you peace of mind that your wood surface stays protected and beautiful

Our stain colors of choice for our projects were the Semi-Transparent stain in “Teak” for our deck…

And for a little extra pop we went with the Olympic Maximum Stain+Sealant Solid in “Ebony” for our dining table.

When staining, prep is so key!  If you don’t take the time out to prep your project surface, you can expect to be re-staining that project sooner than later.  Even though we had just recently built our deck, after some research we discovered that new pressure treated pine wood also needs to be cleaned prior to staining for the most optimal results.  We made sure to grab the Olympic Premium Deck Cleaner from The Home Depot to clean our deck prior to staining.

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Time to get to work!  After blowing and sweeping off our deck, we sprayed it down with the Olympic Premium Deck Cleaner and let the cleaner sit and do its work for approximately 30 minutes. 

We then sprayed the deck down again, but this time with our high pressure hose t0 add a good dose of water.

We grabbed some heavy duty Husky Plastic Sheeting and 3M Rough Surface Extra Strength Scotch Tape from our local Home Depot and got to prepping.

After prepping our deck area, in true Atlanta fashion it started to rain…HARD!  We had to wait close to a week for the continuous heavy rain to stop before we could get back to work.  We found ourselves really impressed that the 3M Rough Surface tape held the heavy duty plastic up to our siding even through our hot and humid crazy rainy Atlanta weather.  It was a pleasant surprise that we didn’t have to re-prep!

On a positive note, we also didn’t have to wait long for our deck to dry out.  One of the great benefits of the Olympic Maximum Stain + Sealant is that this product can be applied to damp wood.  It also has a weather-ready technology that allows you to clean the wood and stain it on the same day even in these crazy hot temperatures down here in “Hotlanta”. When using the Olympic Maximum product you can stain in 35 degree weather up to 120 degree weather. And to top it all off, the stain coating is mildew and mold-resistant protecting the deck from moisture and water damage. Our deck was rain ready in just eight hours! You can’t beat that!

There are many different options when it comes to applying stain to your deck. You can apply it with a roller, a sprayer, a brush or even a rag. We decided to use our handy dandy Wagner Flexio 2000 HVLP Paint Sprayer.  

It’s fast and efficient and it gave us the ability to gage how much stain we wanted to apply to our wood.  

Once we started applying the stain, we realized pretty quickly that we probably should have grabbed the Olympic Maximum Stain+Sealant in Transparent instead of Semi-Transparent.  We really love the look of natural wood grain and even the semi-transparent finish was a little to “painted” on for us.  Instead of heading out to buy more stain, we decided to keep using the semi-transparent, but to follow our sprayer with a rag wiping down the boards to the exact finish we were looking for. By wiping them down, we also helped the stain to soak into our deck boards, allowing better, long-lasting stain results.

It literally took us longer to prep our deck than it did to stain it! With the help of our Wagner, we were done staining in less than an hour.  I’m absolutely loving this Olympic Maximum Teak stain color!

Next up was our DIY dining table.  This was a super easy build!  We picked up three pieces of 2x12x8 pressure treated boards from The Home Depot and attached them with screws to old rustic steal table legs we had sitting on the side of our house for the past couple of years.

Yep they were pretty gross…but a little Dawn soap and water went a long way!

Chris was happy because this was one of the easiest table builds he’s ever built and I was ecstatic to get one more thing out of our storage area. It didn’t hurt that the table legs looked really cool too! It was seriously a win win for both of us!

Prior to staining our table, I did a light sand with our orbital sander to take off any residue on the new wood and to give it a smoother finish.

Next I applied the Olympic Maximum solid Ebony stain with a brush.  I made sure to hit the sides of the table as well before I attached the boards so that the entire table was stained.

Lastly, I used a painters rag to back wipe the stain into the wood.  This helped the stain penetrate the wood as well as get rid of any excess brush strokes.

And just like that…we were both finished with our weekend staining projects!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

This staining project was a super quick and easy added finishing pop to our outdoor entertainment space! Now all we have left to do is to fire up the grill, set the table and invite our friends and family over for dinner!

On to our next project…

reclaimedkarma
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