A deck reveal!

Finally, I know!! I'm finally going to show you our deck transformation. If you've been following me on Twitter you know I've been talking about this for the past week, and I know I've mentioned it here just a few times over the past month or so.

It started a month or so ago with a few ideas in my little head. We weren't planning on doing the big stuff till later on. We just thought it would just be too expensive. Enter my friend Beckie over at Infarrantly Creative. We had lunch last week, and were talking about her new deck. She had passed along the name of the guy on Craigslist who had sold her her new outdoor furniture. I looooved it, and while I was down on the southsiiiiiiiide with her she reminded me the guy lived right down the street and to give him a call...

So I did, and that lunch turned into the most expensive lunch in the history of mankind. I got the deck furniture that day and stuffed my SUV to the gills with it. Then the next day, we went to Menards looking for the pergola Beckie and her husband had purchased as well. Found it -- SCORE!!

And then the whole deck just came together. We. are. thrilled. I thought I would share a pic of the deck when we first built it five years ago:

It's massive. Like 40 by 20 feet, massive. I browsed through deck books and found exactly how I wanted to stain it. Then we found a table and chairs set and a firepit that we've used since:

I love the redwood and white combo on the deck. Luuuurve it. Just a little bit of advice to my peeps out there -- wait as LONG as possible to stain pretreated wood (months). We did not know this and did it almost immediately after the deck was built. NOT a good idea. Now we have to restain it every year. Fabulous. Oh, and I would not recommend a firepit on a wood deck. We had a screen that went over the top but it always stressed me out. Yikes. Fire + wood = not the smartest move.

So anyhoo...the deck now looks like this:

Say it with me...ahhhhhhhhh. Oh good heavens we LOVE IT! We have wanted to build a pergola for years now. The sun is beating on the deck pretty much all day long, and it is very uncomfortable all summer. But this pergola is even better than a wood one -- we can close it or open it for shade:

The deck furniture is exactly what I wanted for this space. I mean, couldn't be more perfect:

It was $450 for seven pieces. It is soooo comfy. I wanted to do rust, olive and brown colors out here, and the umbrella we got is a rust color. But of course I can't find any pillows that work now, because everything is gone out of the stores! I've seen exactly what I wanted all summer but now they are all gone. (Do I need to remind the stores it's still July?) So I got what I could find -- some rust and some green and brown. They don't work together at all.But as hubby said, "We can use the red ones in the fall and the green and brown ones are more summery!" Ummmmm....who is this man?? Who took my husband? "More summery?" What kills me is he's RIGHT. :)

We have spent more time on the deck in the past four days then all summer. I dare say, the past year. Seriously. We. are. in. love.
The second part of the transformation was the part I started first. The back of our home is just an expanse of siding. Bor-ring:

And the back door was equally as drab:

So I made some shutters that match the front of our house:Ack! I love them!! I have been looking for window boxes EVERYWHERE and everyone is out of them. (Shocker.) I found two tonight but need a couple more...I'm checking around.

I also painted out the trim around the back door, changed out the light, bought a new mat (that was my color inspiration) and added some potted plants to warm up that area:

I cannot even tell you how different this space is now. It is truly another room. Our favorite time is at dusk/night:

Later this week I'll show you all the details. There are some major steals I can't wait to share! Hope you enjoyed the tour, and thanks for putting up with me!