Living Room Deck

Its sort of hard to describe, but on the far side of our house we have 5 patio/deck areas all stacked on top of each other, all with sliding glass doors leading out to them.    At the top is our Master Bedroom deck, below that the Screened In Porch that is right off the Kitchen, just a half flight down is the Living Room Deck (off the Living Room-genius, I know), and then the 2 cement patios off the Exercise Room and the Family Room that we've since turned into RyderLand. Its an embarrassment of riches really to have so many great outdoor areas, (not to mention the full backyard and garden), and up until now they've looked sort of... embarrassing.

Right away in year one I got to work building an outdoor sectional for the Screened In Porch, and its now our favorite area in the house hands down.

I'd still love to do more out here with outdoor drapes, an outdoor rug or painted porch floor (or both!) plus some side tables and accessories, but for now its comfortable and peaceful, which is all I can hope for at this point.  

The Living Room Deck was a sight for sore eyes though.  As I reminder, here's where we're talking about.

 The listing photos showed this space with a gas fire pit and comfy chairs, so we've been hooked on this concept from the start.

By the end of last year however, all we had managed was to rebuild the deck box into a seating beach and place our adarondeck chairs out there.

So when the Spring came this year I was itching to get back outside.  Even though we had 6 Patio/Deck spaces at this house, we didn't have a single place for a table and chairs, and I really missed that.  Our grill had been living out on the back deck off the Dining Room, but that area was way too small for a table.  It took a lot of convincing, but finally I got the Hubs to agree that instead of the firepit of our dreams, this deck would be perfect for a dining set and our grill.  The kicker was when we found this amazing set at Ikea for $270. 

 I love this natural wood set, and now I definitely want to restain the other pieces in this area, but that's a project for another day.  The best part is that the table expands for when lots of friends come over to enjoy a BBQ.

We didn't buy all 8 chairs because we have a few extra on hand, and we figured we can purchase those down the road, and store them in the deck box when we just need the 4.  Here's the new overhead shot of this deck, which we've already used 1000% more this year than last year.

Improvement, no? I can't wait to re-stain the other furniture and stain the deck at some point, but again, we're prioritizing here, and for now this space does the trick.  Almost daily we take a tray of items out through the Screened-in Porch  and down the steps to eat dinner on our new table.  Ryder is a big fan.