Milwaukee Fashion + Lifestyle Blog
If there’s one (or a few) good thing to come out of spending more time at home due to COVID over the past few months, it’s taking some time to rethink and reconfigure the indoor and outdoor spaces in my apartment. With the goal of making every aspect of our home more comfortable, functional, and livable, Jeff and I have taken on a few projects and made a few investments that have made a big difference in how the apartment works for us!
One particular space that we’ve spent some time and money giving a mini-makeover is our outdoor patio space. As one of the bigger selling points for choosing an apartment on the first floor, we have a sizable outdoor patio with an entrance to Street we wanted to take more advantage of. Knowing that a lot of our plans for the summer would be cancelled or postponed, spending more summer days and nights at home was inevitable, which meant we wanted to level up our patio space. We’ve always brought our two trusty Adirondack chairs and a small side table out of storage when the summer rolled around, as well as switched out our icicle lights for outdoor lights. But this year, we wanted to make a few changes that made our patio more of a living space and an extension of the comfortable quarters we have indoors.
I wanted to keep the Adirondack chairs, but I knew we need more seating and more comfort. Ultimately, I wanted to be able to outside and lay down and read a good book, work on my laptop, or enjoy a cold beer! Thankfully, I didn’t go with my first choice of an L-shaped outdoor sectional, since I would have seriously overestimated the amount of space we have out there. After some time searching online, and tracking outdoor patio deals going into Memorial Day weekend, I found an outdoor loveseat and coffee table from Target that I love.
The loveseat brought the comfort I wanted with cozy (and easy to clean) cushions, and the coffee table provided enough table space for Jeff and I to work, eat, or relax outside! I also found a few cute pillows and a round outdoor rug to make the patio feel more pulled together and ground the social gathering space. Since our patio is mainly rocks beside the cement walkways, a rug allows me to walk out there without shoes or slip off my sandals and not worry about the rocky surface!
In addition to the furniture and decor updates, I also finally got some planters to hang off the railing of our outdoor patio to fill with some beautiful flowers! We’ve been enjoying our Lamb’s Ears (which are growing like crazy) and our other plants in our railing planters, and we’re so pleased with how well they’re doing. Besides the railing planters, I also bought two larger pots meant to sit on the ground that I planted with pink dahlias.
And finally, I bought a tabletop fire bowl that we’ve used on a few calm nights to add to the overall ambience and enjoyment of our outdoor space. Burning with a TerraFlame Gel Fuel canister for about 3-4 hours at a time, we love relaxing out there with the fire place and roasting marshmallows for s’mores.
COVID has no doubt been a challenging time and a major disruption to our everyday life. Despite all of the confusion and stress it has caused, I’m happy I was able to use this time to create a space where I feel safe, comfortable, and can enjoy with Jeff all summer (and Fall).
