One of the main reasons we decided to buy our home was this amazing deck space that we have. Unfortunately the BBQ that was here when we moved in was all rusted and unusable so we thought we would maximize the deck space and pull out the built in aspects and make an entertaining area.
So first up we cleared out what was in the storage holes which was just a whole bunch of fire wood, then we got to dismantling the structure. We removed all of the merbau planks very carefully so that we could hopefully reuse them, then pulled apart the frame.
Not so lucky for us, when we tried to reuse the wood we had salvage much of it wasn't going to work (for rebuilding the decking anyway). As there was already a lot of screw holes in the planks of wood and none of them matched up with the existing pattern or the cross beams to attach them to. So we did some math and calculated how much wood we would need to buy to fill in the gaps.
Then we just basically copied the pattern and board lengths from the top part of the wall section to lay out the new boards. and the floor was easy we just cut them to lengths and attached them to the frame underneath.
We then had to let the boards weather for 4-6 weeks (this allows for the moisture and chemicals used in the treating process to come out and make the wood more porous and it will absorb the stain better) prior to staining, we opted for the merbau stain as this is what the rest of the deck had been stained with.
Now onto the creative part, if you know Taylor you know she is quite a frugal person so anything we can do on a budget is a win. Soooooo we decided to save a tonne of money and make a couch out of pallets we got for free off the side of the road. We just had to fill the nail holes with wood filler and paint it the colour we wanted, which was white, and stack them up. Taylor's beautiful brother created a custom fire pit for us which was black so we decided to go with a black and white theme in this space.
We also wanted to be able to use the fire pit as a coffee table when we weren't having a fire so we cut some plywood to create a top, and painted it white to match the couch.
Then the fun stuff, the decorating! We added in this cool outdoor rug and some black avocado chairs (that we already).
With some of the left over wood we decided to throw together a few planter boxes, where we basically cut 6 lengths of wood for the front and back and another 6 shorter pieces for the sides. We attached some cross pieces to the back side of the front and back to secure the three of them together and have something for the side pieces to screw into. (check out Instagram @homemade_home94 for a video tutorial and probably a much better explanation lol)
The final touch? Lighting!! We have been wanting to get some festoon lights out here basically since we moved in and now is the time. The plan was to concrete some timber posts into plant pots to put on the ends of the decks to give our lights something to string on to. The problem? The pots we got weren't big enough, therefore there wasn't enough concrete in them, meaninggg that they weren't heavy enough to hold the weight of the lights when they were strung up, let alone if a big gust of wind came through. Sooooo the back up plan, we screwed the posts directly to the ends of the deck and they are SOLID! We have had some pretty knarly winds since installing these and they are not going anywhere!
We just love how this space has come together and we can't wait for some better weather to be able to enjoy it to its fullest potential.
Love TM xx
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