Summer Deck Tour – New Seating, Upgrades and Rearranging!

Summer deck tour. I started writing this post over a year ago in the spring of 2021 when I was still young and full of hope lol. The drought and heat we got hit by last year meant outside pictures were just SAD. And after seven years of living here the only times I’ve ever shown you guys the deck was in the fall. (Here in 2020 and Here in 2017.) So I had to wait another year to get the chance to give you guys a deck tour when its my favorite place in the spring and summer time.

There have been lots of changes since the last time you’ve seen it but many things I built years ago are still going strong for us! Our giant, 700 square foot, wrap around deck with three separate house entrances was on my absolute must-have list to build way back when I started the renovation in 2014.

Initially (maybe like most first time home owners) my deck boasted a couple of camping chairs and a little portable grill perched precariously on an ancient kitchen table.

Little by little though we’ve been working on it and the deck furniture situation is no longer an embarrassment… and there actually is enough!

THE BEGINNING TO WHERE WE LAST LEFT OFF IN 2020:

In 2017 I started building our seating.

I built two large sun loungers that also work great as big benches and I also built a whole wrap around bench in the back corner which I remain a little too proud of… in my defense though some projects just turn out better than I imagined and that is definitely one of them!

I built a base for one of the big barn doors I had out in the barn to FINALLY have a table to eat at. Around the table I used my Grandpa’s two workshop benches as more deck seating.

In 2018 I added some fun solar lighting to the deck with post lights and hanging lights.

In 2020 we purchased plastic Adirondack chairs and retired the mish mash of old rocking chairs and stools to plant holders and side tables. That finally felt like we were getting somewhere!

And the Adirondacks were less than $25 a piece!

We did learn something the hard way though – you really do get what you pay for. They’re so light we have to weigh them down or (quite literally) a decent wind will break them by just blowing them over!

One of the very first projects Lodi joined me on was actually those wire cable rails back in early 2020 that we REALLY love!

Also in 2020 we built another favorite project of mine: A bar top along the deck rail. Of course that needed seating too so we also purchased stools from Amazon for it.

We eat at that bar all summer!

deck tour

In 2020 I also built a coffee table and a new table top to replace our old barn door that finally fell a part.

Last year I found these foldable outdoor chairs on Amazon to add some even better seating. They matched the stools at the bar and were less than $200 for the four of them.

(In fact we liked those chairs so much we purchased another set of four!)

Our deck was working but some things had been bugging me so right away last spring I did some rearranging…

The least utilized portion of our deck is absolutely the wrap around bench that I love so much.

It dawned on me that it might just be perfect for our table so we swapped the coffee table out, added our dining table and I’m kind of wondering why it took me so many years to get that done as it definitely belongs there…

Its like a corner booth at a restaurant!

The new lower deck we built last year got both our sun loungers / benches until we build something custom for the area.

(I thought I would miss my sun loungers up here but the first time I settled into an Adirondack with my feet up I immediately got over it. And to get an actual tan the sun loungers down in our lower deck are actually better positioned.)

Next up we moved the buffet I built a few years ago (very carefully because its granite and heavy as hell) over to right beside our kitchen door. This put it directly in the center of the deck which is ideal for food and drinks!

It had been housing my portable camping grill but with Lodi came his full size propane grill thus freeing up the buffet (after many years) for what I actually built it for.

With that (and scooting our grill over a couple more feet) we opened up several feet of our railing that we haven’t had open to us for years – which is exactly what we needed!

Because we moved the coffee table to the other side of the deck we now needed a new place for our chimenea… Or, ya know, we would be lighting our coffee table on FIRE.

This gave us the opportunity for two Adirondack chairs and one of the end tables I made a few years back for a cozy little seating area in front of the chimenea.

If you look at the previous reveal pictures you can see I was using them as planters but, when I first made them, I actually advertised them as built in coolers for drinks!

deck tour

It was all really fun and I kind of really loved them…

Unfortunately we have chipmunks…

ALOT. OF. CHIPMUNKS.

And Chipmunks do one thing all spring, summer and fall: They bury food. Last year I was so excited to plant a whole array of herbs up here on the deck in our little built in planters…

And I was lucky to get five basil leaves because those damned chipmunks dug up everything to bury sunflower seeds instead!

So, I got over it and replaced my built in planters with flat boards… Bummer. Honestly though they work much better as end tables now!

I’ve had several people ask me why we haven’t added area rugs and also why we never stained the deck and my answer for both is because I want this deck to last and to be as low maintenance as possible.

Honestly I can’t count how many times I’ve put big outdoor rugs on my Amazon wishlist but I always end up deleting them… Rugs to me are one big wet spot for our poor deck to rot under and we’re happy with how this seven year old deck is holding up so far.

We do plan on power washing it and maybe replacing the top rail at some point but we won’t ever be staining it.

Stain does not last in our harsh climate in northern Minnesota and I can’t bear going to so much work and cost and time to have to reapply it every couple of years…

I expect our deck to last us another five years at least before we need to consider replacing the deck floor and then I’ll insist on using composite materials.

We spend a ridiculous amount of time out here when the weather allows it.

The upper deck becomes a 700 square foot extension of our home that we miss desperately all winter long.

SO relieved that 2022 made up for the furnace that was 2021. Combined with the amazing weather the upper and lower decks were awesome for our reception.

We accommodated nearly 100 people!

And when the party wound down, and the evening cooled, our new fire pit gave us a wonderful bon fire.

We’re still working out the kinks in the lower deck though. The first round of string lights I chose failed but the new LEDs you see here have entirely grown on me.

Another unforeseen issue is that the depth of the pea gravel makes seating interesting – PREPARE YOURSELF – when you sit your chair is going to drop another six inches! (Makes you feel a little bit like you’re sitting on the ground… not ideal.)

So, as you might have guessed, I am definitely going to be building something.

What I’m imagining is basically an outdoor sectional sofa… so we can use its separate pieces but also combine it together.

The pea gravel has definitely settled since we put it down late last summer but its still quite “soupy” to walk in which I’m rather bummed about. Its something we can live with but also something I would definitely warn folks about if they’re considering putting in their own pea gravel area.

I admit it is a little my fault as I made sure we got a lot of gravel and it is VERY deep. I didn’t want to have to worry about weeds out here despite that we did put down several layers of weed fabric.

At just a few hundred dollars though you cant beat the price.

Our lower deck has given us another 1,000 square feet of outdoor living space!