quick and easy patio makeover ready for summer #AD

**Posted in collaboration with Very**

It’s finally that time of year when we can put the washing outside to dry with less fear of it raining (this is England so there is never any guarantee at any time of the year sadly), we all cut the grass and start to make our outside spaces useable again ready for all the much-anticipated summer BBQ’s, entertaining and just spending some needed time outdoors.

Usually, at this time of year, I am busy concentrating on which fruits and vegetables I will be planting with the children and would have already had them potted up and growing on the kitchen windowsill until they were big enough to plant outdoors. This year will be the first time in around 5 years that I am not growing anything, the reason being we are having our garden grass area landscaped. Sadly, this means the grass area and my vegetable patches are out of bounds until it is completely finished.

Thankfully, we also have a patio area we can use so are still able to enjoy some of the garden until the work is finished, and the children can still access their trampoline and swing (just about), I’m just hoping we don’t have a heatwave like last year as I’ve no idea how to fit a paddling pool into what looks like a building site safely!

As we are limited to the patio area for a few months, it was great timing that I teamed up with Very on a garden project. They have a huge range of garden furniture, garden storage and even sheds which can help to tidy up your outdoor space, making it not only beautiful but functional and practical too.

I wanted to make the patio area somewhere we could use on an everyday basis, from drinking my morning cuppa while watching the sun come up, eating our dinner outside on these beautiful evenings to working on my laptop during the day while the children were at school.

Harry and I spend an entire afternoon weeding this area, removing the junk which we had dumped there over the winter and sweeping the patio. It took longer than planned as it was a job I had kept putting off, so not only did we have overgrown weeds to contend with, but we also had fallen leaves, sand from the sand pit and a whole winter’s worth of dirt to remove. We also took this opportunity to get rid of old toys which were broken, a sandpit which was no longer played with and extra flower pots etc which had been kept just in case we needed them.

We have a double bin shed in this area which we use to store the children’s bikes and scooters, while this stores those items garden storage for other toys was an issue. This was solved by adding a garden storage cushion box to this area which now houses all the footballs, skipping ropes, extra swing seats, paddling pool toys and a few other garden toys – and the best thing is there is still loads of extra space so if I wanted to store any garden cushions etc in it there.

Adding an outdoor rug to the area made a huge difference to what was a plain and boring bricked patio (and also saved me the job of having to jet wash it for a little longer – I do need to do this but it’s a job I hate so can wait a while longer).

We cleaned up the garden table and chairs I already had and added a new garden parasol which completed the look and provides us with some much-needed shade while eating outside or just sitting in the garden. This is a great size at 3m so provides us with plenty of shade and opens with a crack mechanism and also tilts if needed to block the sun further when it starts setting in the evenings.

To pull the new look together I added a string of solar power lights and hooked them up to the garden fence along with a metal solar-powered dog ornament which I have put on top of the bike shed. This area now looks fantastic when the sun goes down and means we can stay outside even longer in the evenings.

As there is no foliage in this area I chose to add a Prunus Okame Patio Tree, which will eventually flower with white and light pink flowers during Spring and Summer then orange and red during the Autumn season. The tree is trained to sit as a straight ‘lollipop’ stem and is ideal for small gardens, containers and patios. This is a low-maintenance tree which is great for patio areas which may be a little more shaded.

The final item which has pulled this new patio makeover together is a Chimenea which not only looks great when unlit but when lit too, and provides heat on the chilly evening when the sun has set. We have really enjoyed sitting outside with this lit in the evenings and the kids love the fact they can toast marshmallows on it too.

I am really loving our new look patio area and can’t wait for the rest of the garden to be finished to fully enjoy our outside space to its full potential.

While I have added a few new items to this area, it is amazing the benefit that just adding a little garden storage makes to tidying up an area, it means that there is a space for all the unsightly items and gives you somewhere to keep everything together in a neat and tidy fashion – out of sight ready for when you need them again.