Summer is FAST approaching! Has the time been absolutely flying for anyone else? This time last year I was feverishly prepping for our son’s gradation party, so it’s been nice to take our time pulling everything out this year.

As we were uncovering the outdoor furniture and cleaning up, I started thinking of how we could move some of the outdoor furniture around. Inside, I tend to leave a layout the same way for years…once I find what works it seems to stay that way forever. 

But outside we have large spaces to work with, so it’s fun to move things around occasionally. This time the rearranging started with our covered patio — this is the area where spend the most time. We have four comfy chairs here, but we’ve had as many as ten chairs pulled up around the fire! Friends and family love this spot. 😊

Last year, as we prepped for the graduation party, I changed the seating layout on the patio to this: 

Instead of two and two chairs across from each other, I moved two against the window. 

This gave us a lot more walking room along the edge, but over time we found it to be a bit awkward conversationally. When two people were sitting in front of the windows next to each other, it wasn’t very comfortable. I always found myself angling the chair so we could comfortably look at each other while talking. 

I’ve always loved this layout for chairs, but haven’t had enough room to do it inside. 

We moved the rug over toward the window a bit more, so there’s plenty of room to walk around this seating arrangement. The old fire pit is square and fit OK, but it’s on its last leg. I used my Mother’s Day gift card toward a much smaller table for us.

In the warmer months we can use it for drinks or food, this will be awesome!

Of course if you give me a cookie, I’ll keep going with little tweaks! I started noticing other items I wanted to move around on the rest of our outdoor spaces as well. 

I moved the ferns we usually have on the steps up to the covered patio, as they always get fried by mid-summer. These pretty bee pots replaced though (from HomeGoods) and in a week or two these clearanced flowers will look fantastic!: 

Boomer approves of the new layout 😀:

Having that big surface is GREAT for laying out plates and food. 

I got the last of our planters filled up earlier this week — can’t wait to see how they fill in over the next few weeks!:

We moved the rocking chairs that were in that corner over just a bit — before they were facing the covered patio, but now we quite like that they face our pretty backyard: 

I put the old fire pit between the chairs until it completely stops working. 🙂 It will be SO lovely to have this little spot on nice evenings — I can already imagine us rocking with a glass of wine and enjoying the view!

You can see in this before pic of the same view how HUGE the arborvitae trees around the patio have become! This was from around six years ago: 

Our peonies are blooming and beautiful, as always! I got this garden sign for Christmas and absolutely love it: 

Not much has changed on that other side by the round fire pit area, other than the trees growing like weeds: 

These are the Green Giant Arborvitae, and if you’re looking for a fast growing evergreen, this is the tree for you. 

They’ve created so much privacy — we have them all over our side and back yard:

Our Polywood Adirondack chairs are still looking BRAND new after six years. I always sing the praises of this product because I don’t think I’ve seen such a quality product in years. 

These have been out 24/7 — through wind, rain, sun and many inches of snow. (The snow sat on them for weeks on end last winter.) We’ve never covered them, and they still look like the day we got them. If you have the budget, I cannot recommend the Polywood products enough!

We kept our table and chairs in the same spot centered on the patio, but removed the rug we had underneath. It took forever to dry after rain, but I do love the added color and warmth they add: 

This summer I have two DIY’s planned back here — a stone pathway through the mulch and grass, as well as replacing the landscape lighting. Now that the plants have gotten so much bigger, I need to change the layout of the ground lighting. 

I can’t wait for the first hang out in our new conversation area on the covered patio…seriously, why didn’t we think of this earlier? 

Have you been working outside lately? I finished up our veggie gardens on Mother’s Day — now I watch and wait for them to grow!