living: Back Patio

When we first looked at our house 4 years ago, about this time of year, both John and I fell in love with the back yard. The P.O.'s had created a wonderful patio circle, planted herbs all over the place, had grapes (I ate one off the vine!), a fire pit, raised veggie beds and chickens. The energy was fabulous and secluded. Sold!

But there were things about it that just didn't work. For example, the circle patio wasn't large enough for us. We like to have bunches of people over to sit around from time to time. Also, the path forced you to walk right through the middle of the patio. There were strange posts leftover from an unfinished project (this is classic of the P.O.s). I hate that black plastic edging crap. The veggie beds' wood was rotted, and they were filled with weeds and random seedlings (like red buds). The chickens (top left of photo) were gone.

We immediately got to work expanding the patio space itself, moving the path to the side to give a direct way to the back veggies. We left the cool brick knot design, and bought our own fire pit. And we moved plants all over the place (a red bud in the front is a transplant from the back).

Eventually, we replaced the wood on all the veggie beds. We removed all the posts and have since reused them for various projects, such as the directional sign, bee box and garden bench.

Anyway, fun to look back at this old photo and see how things have changed.