Summer Backyard Tour 2020 | Summer Spaces Blog Hop

Hello and welcome to the Summer Outdoor Spaces Blog Hop hosted by AnnMarie & Anne from Simply2Moms! If you’re visiting from Lauren at Farmhouseish, or if you just happened to stop by, I’m so glad you’re here!

If this is your first time visiting Stacy’s Savings, welcome! I’m Stacy, and I love to share ways to save money and live frugally while not sacrificing style or comfort. I’ve got 3 kids under 11, one with special needs, so we spend most of our time at home. DIY is a HUGE part of what I share around here. I don’t believe in waiting for my home to look the way that I want. Maximizing every dollar in my budget, whether its for fashion, beauty, or organizing is my passion. I can create a delicious meal plan with very little money, but I mostly leave to cooking to my husband. I’m not a very good cook.

Make sure to follow me on Instagram where I post pretty pictures daily as well as show you behind the scenes of my frugal life on Stories.

About Our Backyard

We moved into our forever house in 2014, and we’ve been slowly remodeling it project by project ever since.  Our backyard is firmly in the middle of a Phase 1 Makeover.  If you’ve never heard of a Phase 1 Makeover before, its basically just working with what you have and fixing immediate problems.  We’ve got BIG plans in the future for this space, but for now, we’ve tried to make it as comfortable and as “us” as possible while we save up the cash for a HUGE renovation down the road.

We have done a few small updates over to this space over the last 6 years, most of those involved fixing things that were in disrepair. This house was built in 1995, and it is a total Fixer Upper.  We live in North Texas, so outdoor spaces are very important, especially pools to cool off from the intense summer heat.

We have a long list of things we’d love to do out here.  So far, we’ve cleared out the overgrown landscaping, resurfaced & retiled the pool, as well as replaced the retaining wall and iron fence.  You can see some of the before photos here and read more about fixing up the pool in this post.  Believe, me, you need to see those before photos to appreciate just how far we’ve come with a few contracted projects and a lot of elbow grease.

As I’m sure most of you are, we are on a seriously tight budget this year.  I haven’t really bought anything new decor-wise for our outdoor space.  We did make a few small purchases which I’ll talk about throughout the tour.  I’ve linked what I can for you, as well as some similar items, so you can shop easily.  We use affiliate links here to run the blog, and we are so very appreciative for your support.

So let’s get on with the tour!

Our Side Yard & Veggie Garden

We spend most of our time at home, and we love having friends and family over to visit.  It’s one of the reasons that we bought this particular house – its got a great entertaining layout.  Our favorite Summer nights are when our friends come over and we just hang out on the patio while the kids swim.  We back up to a creek and have giant trees, which makes for a really cozy atmosphere in the Summer.  We love to listen to music and tell stories while hearing the frogs & cicadas in the creek and watch the fireflies.  It’s so much fun!  Having the creek lot was what really sold us on this place, even if everything needed to be fixed.

Most of our Summer backyard guests come in from the side gate, even before COVID quarantining.  Our side gate opens up to our front-entry driveway, so it’s just easier for guests to come this way rather than dragging all of their pool stuff through the house.

Originally, there was a long row of overgrown holly bushes along this side of the house that took up this entire space – height and width.  I didn’t know hollies could grow that tall.  Those plants made it really hard for guests to come to the back yard.  We removed all of those bushes, and had the fence moved up to capture the HVAC system when we replaced the retaining wall and fence.  At the same time, we had some pathways made around our back yard and pool area to make the area accessible for our daughter who uses a walker.

We’d always wanted a vegetable garden, and this spot gets a ton of sun during the morning and early afternoon.   Moving the fence gave us the perfect place to grow our favorite veggies!  Two years ago, I built this raised vegetable garden with moveable gates to protect our crops from bunnies.  I had seen a similar one on Wayfair for way more than I wanted to spend, so I built this one instead in one afternoon for half the price.

Every year we grow cherry & Roma tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, jalapenos, bell peppers, strawberries and herbs like rosemary, cilantro, basil, and parsley.  The kids love to check on the tomatoes every morning to see what’s ready to be picked.

Our Backyard

As we come around the corner, you can really see the whole backyard.  Our aggregate pool deck sits about 4 feet above our grassy yard, which is about 8 feet above the creek bed.  We have two lounge chairs with a small garden stool in this area next to the pool.  This is my favorite place to read library books while my kids swim.

The safety fence is an eyesore, but so important to have.  We have 3 kids, and only one is a proficient swimmer.  Our middle kid can get to the side in an emergency and swim on her own a little, but our youngest is still afraid to swim without her floaties.  We’ve told her if she can learn how to swim this summer, we can take the pool fence down and then maybe we can get a projector and watch movies on the wall.  You have to incentivize them, right?  She’s not convinced.

This pool fence is great because you can remove it when you want to, like if you’re having a party or you don’t need it anymore, but it provides lockable protection when you do need it.  It comes with color-matched caps to plug the holes in the pool deck when you remove it.

Our Outdoor Dining Space

The larger part of our pool deck near the kitchen door is where we have our dining table and chairs.  We have a very small covered porch area, and this part of the patio gets severe sun in the afternoon.  This adjustable umbrella and stand from Target has held up extremely well and matches our Hanamint furniture perfectly.

One of my favorite ways to add a little decor to our dining space is to corral things on a tray.  It’s the perfect place to store a citronella candle, a plant, and suncreen or bug spray.  I got a new tray this summer, and I love the contrast of  color-block on the galvanized metal.

Speaking of patio furniture, this is one of the things that I can’t wait to change when we redo the pool deck in the future.  We bought this expensive Cast Aluminum patio furniture way back in 2003 when we bought our first house.  It’s done a great job in extreme heat, torrential rain, gigantic hail and even a maybe-tornado.  But after 16 years, its just not my style anymore.  It works for now, so we just try to take care of it.  These are the original cushions, and I clean them with my electric pressure washer to get them looking as good as new.  I love the contrast of the yellow against all of the green of the trees, pinks of the flowers and blue of the pool.

In our dining space, we have a really old chiminea for marshmallow roasting and making Smores.  When a giant tree limb fell in our backyard last year, we had a ton of little logs cut up so we can have fires for the rest of the year.  Gotta love free stuff!

Our Water Table Area

Our girls love a water table, and ours was on its last legs, so we purchased a new mermaid water table this year.

They love the mermaid toys and making waves.  This water table also comes in a pirate version.  The small adirondack chairs were from Home Goods several years ago, and are perfect for them to play at the table.  They also love to move the waterproof poofs around the patio, especially on Smores night.

Our Shade Garden

Around the corner on the right side of the backyard, we have a shade garden with a path to the pool equipment and our other side yard.   I’m trying to grow blue hydrangeas and hostas in this shade garden, because it only gets filtered sun during the summer.  We replanted this bed in the Spring because the bunnies had eaten every single thing we had planted over the last two years.  To combat that this year, I bought a giant-sized cayenne pepper that I sprinkle on the plants every few days to keep them away.

Our Grass Yard

We have a strip of grass outside of our iron fence that we’ve been semi-successful at keeping thick.  After the massive tree branch fell last year, we have more sun on our yard now.  We may try to resod some of the bare spots in the backyard next Spring and see if it will grow.

Our Landscaping

Our main decor for now is our landscaping.  We started from scratch when we moved in, and over the years, we’ve added a few drought-tolerant plants each year.  Our beds get a combination of full sun and full shade, which along with the Texas Heat, makes planting tricky here in Zone 8.  Our favorite plants for back here include Red Yuccas, Elephant Ears, Liriope, Cannas, Cast Iron Plants, and Cora Vinca.  This spring, we planted the right side of the pool bed, and we can’t wait for that to fill in over the next few years.  I love using flowers with shades of hot pink all over our yard, especially flowers that attract hummingbirds – my favorite!

Our Pool

Of course, the pool is the main attraction of our backyard in the Summer.  It’s a basic kidney shaped pool, with no hot tub. We get a ton of use out of it and the kids and I absolutely love to nightswim.  Remember that old REM song Nightswimming?  I love that song.

When we remodeled the pool, we had a color-changing LED pool light installed to make the pool just a little more fun.  Those were really expensive back in 2014, but have come down in price significantly over the years.  It was definitely a splurge back then, but we’re really happy with it.  You can set it up to change colors depending on your mood.  Our daughter loves purple, but we also love the Red White & Blue version.  My husband has been known to turn on our favorite team’s colors to alternate after a big win.

Our future plans for this space include enlarging the pool deck using stamped concrete, building a limestone fireplace, multiple seating areas, string lights, and maybe an Egg Chair.  Definitely an Egg Chair.  I mean, an Egg Chair could work right now, right?  I think so.

Someday well get those things, but it’s going to take a while to save up for them.  So in the meantime, we daydream and perfect the plan for this backyard.

But seriously, I need to go teach my kid to swim so we can get that projector and watch movies on the wall ASAP.

Here’s a pin so you can save all of these inspiring Summer Spaces for later!

The Summer Outdoor Spaces Blog Hop continues with Ahna at Hammers n Hugs. You can find links to all the inspiring outdoor spaces below!