When building this home, we always knew we couldn’t do too much with the backyard since it was only small, and we didn’t want to put too much money into it, knowing it would soon be an investment property. So it’s nothing fancy or grand, but I’m so happy with how it turned out – simple, and MUCH better than the before!
Whenever I post it on my Instagram page, @jo.marie_blissfulbuilds, I often get a bunch of different questions, so since we wont be in this home too much longer, I figured I would get a blog post up sharing all the details in hopes that it helps anyone who wants to create something similar.
FENCE
The very first thing we did was get the existing blue and rusty colorbond fence painted, and as you can see, what a difference it made!
And we used the Taubmans SunProof Low Sheen Exterior paint in the Dulux/ Colorbond colour Monument, since we figured that would cover the blue paint the easiest.
We used the Wagner Control Pro 150 spray gun, which made it such a breeze to paint!
PAVING
Since I wanted to go with a similar colour paver to the exterior of the house, which is painted Shale Grey half strength by Dulux, I picked out the Vistapave Stonewash in Grey from Midland Brick.
It wasn’t from the budget range, but since it was such a small space I figured it was worth getting a paver I preferred, especially with the texture in it to help add a bit of interest!
PLANTS
I knew I wanted to add some sort of hedges that wouldn’t take years to grow, and from previous experience we found that Lilly Pilly’s shot up, so that’s what we went with along the one side of the fence.
We wanted to add them to the back fence too, but that whole garden bed is solid rock, so we couldn’t even dig holes to plant anything, so we covered it in mulch for the time being, and do plan on putting a couple of pots along there with star jasmine to grow up the fence, but we haven’t go there yet!
We also added in Buffalo grass, which really helped transform the space! And fortunately since Dunc is so handy, he did all the retic & installation himself, which saved us a lot of money!
DOWN THE SIDE
We also have a dead space down the side of the home that isn’t used, but we didn’t want to leave it as it was, because it wasn’t looking great!
Again, we didn’t want to spend much money here, so I used spare pavers that we had left over to create stepping stones, that way there was still access down there. We then dropped in a bunch of creeper plants, but I can’t remember the name of, so I’m so sorry!
They’ve grown pretty well in the last 9+ months, and will look even better once its’s completely covered. For now I love the look of it creeping slighly over the pavers, but we will start to cut it back so it doesn’t completely cover them.
FURNITURE
Now that the garden was all complete, the last piece of the puzzle was outdoor furniture!
I’d been searching for quite a while looking for a set that ticked all the boxes. I didn’t want anything grey, as the exterior & pavers were grey. I also wanted a set that wasn’t too big for the space, but had lounge style seating with a table, so that we could relax, but also enjoy eating out there too, and the Mapa 7 Seater Wicker Outdoor Sofa Dining Set from Luxo Living was perfect!
I was so excited to be able to work with Luxo Living with this set, which we have in the Natural colour, but it also comes in grey too. We’ve had it for over 6 months now and have been so happy with it. It really has ticked all the boxes I had, is so comfortable and was easy to put together.
LIGHTING
And lastly, our most recent and final addition that we added a few months ago are these solar powered festoon lights by SolaGarden, which have added such a cosy feeling out there at night time now!
They are fully solar powered, that have various settings and come on automatically each night, which is such a handy feature!
I was also lucky enough to previously work with SolaGarden, and they have setup a discount code which is JO10, and will save you 10% off sitewide if you wanted to add some to brighten & cosy up your garden too!
Hopefully that helped you out with a couple of ideas or details you were interested in, and if you’re hoping for something a bit more exciting, make sure to stay tuned to my Instagram page, because our new home is now only a couple months away from being finished, and our new backyard is a whole lot bigger & better, so I can’t wait to share all those details with you too ♡