Patio Decorating Ideas: Our New Outdoor Room

Come see how we created a relaxing and inviting outdoor room in our backyard. You’ll find lots of patio decorating ideas to inspire you.

If you need me, I’ll be outside on the patio with a novel and a fruity drink. You might even find me napping al fresco.

I’ve been waiting for more than a year to share these patio decorating ideas and to finally reveal our finished backyard makeover. But it’s taken that long to get the space furnished and planted and decorated. Real makeovers don’t happen at TV decorating show speed!

But we finally have the relaxing and inviting outdoor space I imagined with zones for dining, grilling, serving and relaxing. If you’re looking for patio decorating ideas and inspiration for your own outdoor spaces, you’ve come to the right place.

Before we continue with the tour, I should probably show you what the space looked like before.

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Late last summer, we had the large paver patio installed by an awesome crew from Ayers Hardscapes and Landscapes.

We also added a 12X12 cedar pergola, using a kit from Average Joe’s Pergola Depot. We hired a crew to put ours together after they built our patio. But the pergola kits, which can be customized and are available in a variety of sizes, are designed for DIYers to assemble themselves.

The kits come with all the hardware you need to assemble them, and the wood is precut, predrilled and premarked, so all you need to do is follow the detailed instructions to put yours together. If you need additional help, Pergola Depot has lots of how-to videos. Most kits can be assembled by two people in four hours.

Once the patio and pergola were installed, it took almost a year for me to find furniture and decorate the patio. As much as I wanted to finish the space quickly, I also didn’t want to make any rash purchases.

After searching stores, catalogs and online, we finally settled on the Hampton Bay Spring Haven All-Weather Wicker set from Home Depot, and bought it this spring. The price was right, and so was the look.

Since I’m all about navy and aqua in my decorating, I accented the slate blue cushions with throw pillows from World Market. (I also used several of these same pillows for the backyard oasis I designed for Downton Abbey actress Lesley Nicol. We clearly share a similar decorating style!)

After years of sitting around in lawn chairs, it is great to have a comfortable place to relax in our backyard.

Though the summer days are hot, we spend most evenings out here until the sun goes down and the mosquitos drive us back inside!

What the bugs don’t know is that I’m planning to use BugFighter™ Torch Fuel the next time I refill our TIKI® Clean Burn™ tabletop fireplace.

I can’t tell you how many meals we’ve enjoyed at this weathered farmhouse table I painted. (A full tutorial on how I created the weathered finish on the tabletop is coming soon.)

The table is 8 feet long, and I used French-inspired  bistro chairs from World Market at each end and gunmental bistro chairs from LexMod around the table.

(The remaining metal chairs are backordered, but the rest should be here in a few weeks!)

And the potting bench we built and transformed into outdoor buffet table server is always ready for a party!

Our back porch overlooks the patio, so we had to give it a little makeover, too.

The porch is shaded in the mornings, so we have really enjoyed having our breakfast out here.

The outdoor chair cushions my mom made for me a few summers ago are still holding up well.

I’m really enjoying our new view.

And I’m really proud of all the work we put into creating this space, from building to painting to shopping to planting to decorating.

One of my favorite features of our new outdoor room are all the plants.

There are so many beautiful blooms, and we’re trying very, very hard to keep them all alive.

I’ve been collecting pots and urns and buckets from yard sales, antique stores and barn sales, so I could create a lush garden of annuals and perennials all around the patio and the adjacent porch.

I love all the gorgeous colors.

I did splurge on a few cast iron planters.

But many of the planters, I’ve purchased secondhand.

I even upcycled some plastic urns from our outdoor Christmas tree topiaries for the porch steps.

And buckets, buckets galore.

Because I have a thing for galvanized metal, just like I have a thing for navy and aqua!

When you love something, you can never have too much!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this virtual tour, and hopefully you saw some patio decorating ideas you can use in your own backyard or other outdoor spaces.