Garden and Big Deck Makeover

Hi Hi

Hello Friends, I hope you’re having a wonderful week so far, it’s a bit rainy down here in Devon but that will not stop me writing about our Garden Makeover – Any excuse to talk about our Big Deck!

(Clarity: This post contains gifted items, I will mark them clearly so you know)

The Big Deck Jokes

If you follow along on Instagram you may know that we had some decking put in about a month ago, in reality, it’s a regular-sized deck (whatever size ‘regular-sized decking’ is) but I joked on stories about it being ginormous because it felt massive in our postage stamp-sized garden! So I guess ‘Big’ is relative (That’s what they all say!) The other gag is that last year you may remember we built a smaller deck at the ‘bottom’ of the garden (I use the word bottom loosely, technically it’s on a different level but it’s about 3 steps away from The Big Deck) so we’re now a two-deck household…or Double Deckers if you will. The final Deck related joke in our house is that when you say the word Deck in a (terrible) New Zealand accent it’s pronounced ‘dick’… you can image the guffaws. Hours of our lives have now been spend making Deck Jokes, it just never seems to get old! God forbid we have visitors round as it’s all they hear now, I tend to greet people very loudly at the front door by shouting ‘Have you come to sit on my Big Deck?!’ (In a tragic New Zealand Accent – I apologise to New Zealanders everywhere)

Lets see this Big Deck…

Now you’re all caught up on the Big Deck Jokes let’s cut to the chase and have a gander at this bad boy. I’ll start with the Before and After because that’s always the best bit anyway isn’t it! I say that but this ones a real basic shot to show you the difference. On the left is no deck (obviously) and on the right is the day it was finished before it had any furniture etc on it …(I have to say, looking at these pictures…. it’s a lot better in real life. It hardly looks different here but in real life, it’s a work of art!)

We used a wonderful local business Olympus Landscapes who built the deck and pergola for us, I highly recommend them if you’re local and need any garden landscaping done. We’ve moved our garden furniture up from the ‘little deck’ for now to see how we use it before we invest in more furniture for either. It’s basically an extension on the house, we absolutely love it!

Working from the deck (when I was ill…hence TISSUES!)

Furnishing the Deck

So when it comes to furnishing the Big Deck, I think the best decision we’ve made so far is to buy hammocks… I just LOVE coming home, climbing into my hammock and swinging away whilst listening to music on my headphones. You know when you have to pinch yourself because you feel so lucky you can’t believe it’s your life… that’s how my hammock makes me feel. I’m a bit grossed out at myself by how cheesy I feel.

THE pièce de résistance

From the moment we started talking about doing the decking and pergola I knew I wanted to make it heavenly – after all, what’s the point in spending all your savings if you don’t love it?!

I felt like heaps of festoon lights would make the pergola look incredible so I went to Lights4Fun as they’re my go-to for, well… lights. Christmas, fairy, outdoor – ALL THE LIGHTS! I’ve shopped with them for years now and they’re such a lovely team. The festoons in the images above are ones I purchased for the ‘old deck’ that live around the shed so I used them as a guide. I took the lighting VERY seriously, as we all know: there’s nothing worse than a poorly lit Deck. :p and I ended up using a bit of wool to hang around the pergola to see where I wanted the lights to go. Once I was happy, I took the wool down and measured it to make sure I ordered the correct length of lights – I ended up going for 15m of festoons with the White cable and ‘Warm White’ bulbs and I went for the ones that plug in as I’m going to try and be fancy and get them (I don’t know the words…) electriced in so that they are on a light switch (that’s not the right words). Lights4fun very kindly offered to gift us the lights, they’ve got a few different settings and I really thought that I would have them on the steady ‘on’ setting all the time (you know the one I mean?) but I actually LOVE the twinkly settings, it feels like magic’s happening around you!

You can see them in action in the picture below…

The other incredible thing that happened (and I still can’t believe) is that AO kindly gifted us a projector so we have AN OUTDOOR CINEMA. (And an indoor cinema when we don’t want to watch it outdoors haha) So basically I’m never leaving the house again. I’ll be living on my Big Deck from now on and when it rains I’ll just sausage roll into the house and press play in there. It’s the greatest thing we’ve ever done, we have friends round for film nights and we make popcorn and turn the volume up and the twinkly lights on and OMG I’M SO LUCKY!

We have the Optoma HD143X HD projector in Black

I’ve used it a lot since we got it. From Love Island to Lion King I’ve been watching everything on it both indoors and outdoors!

I bought a projector screen which we use in the house (Affiliate link here incase anyone’s on the look out for a projector screen – likely) but to be honest, outside I just taped a flat bed sheet to the side of the pergola and it works like a charm. I find the screen better indoors so we don’t tear the paint of the wall taping a sheet up but outside I find the sheet easier, especially if it’s windy.

I’ll leave it there, with me looking as shocked as I feel that I get to enjoy this space. Thanks for stopping by pals, I’m off to check the weather and wait for the rain to pass so I can live in my hammock again! I’ll leave you with a few more pictures in case anyone wants a scroll and if you want really great outdoor cinema vibes then I highly recommend checking out Lust Living’s Blog who does Outdoor Cinema like no one else…

Take Care,

L x