outdoor living @ the palace

As y’all know, our outdoor season is pretty short in Vermont…but it’s glorious. We don’t get extreme heat/humidity. We get mostly pleasantly hot, sunny days. And so…we do our best to get outside.

We are fortunate to live in a neighborhood that not only has a private beach (hello kayaking!), but easy access to the bike path (including a causeway), and a park literally across the street from our house.

We decided to invest some time & effort this year into sprucing up our two outdoor living areas. Dan has been building, I have been shopping!

Our side deck desperately need to be rebuilt. It’s the space where we most often have coffee in the mornings, so that we can enjoy our (distant) lake view. Dan is re-building with Trex decking so that we don’t have to worry about weather wear & tear. I’ve been painting a set of wicker furniture that we picked up a few years ago, using Krylon Peacock Blue. I found a great outdoor rug at World Market, and some conveniently color-coordinated acrylic & melamine dishware at West Elm. One of my besties in CA (hi Shane!) recommended a portable heater, and we thought “duh! Why didn’t we buy that years ago??” I’m leaning toward bold red flowers for this deck – we have several large white containers that will make quite the statement.

Our back deck is our dining al fresco space b/c it’s just off the kitchen. It will need to be rebuilt/repaired in the next year or two, and will likely be part of a larger outdoor living space revamp. I ordered new dining furniture, b/c the set that we purchased when we moved in (4 years ago) did not withstand the weather very well. I fell in love with these rope chairs from World Market, which then led me to order a coordinating table and bench. The chairs & bench arrive tomorrow…can’t wait! We already have a navy umbrella, although we may end up replacing it with a larger sail. I’ll likely go with bright flowers – maybe hot pink & orange? We have yellow adirondack chairs around the fire pit near this deck, so I think a bright/tropical theme will be a nice complement to the whitewashed furniture and grey/navy textiles.

I’m feeling too lazy to link to all of the sources…so if you want to know about something specific, leave a comment!