Patio makeover & patio decor ideas

I’m so excited to show you our patio makeover this season! Not only is our patio makeover something for us, our family and friends to enjoy, but it’s full of fun patio decor ideas for you too!

If you’ve been following us from the beginning of our farm journey, then you know we kicked off our first summer here with a massive renovation on our barn and added a large patio to it. But, it’s been left untouched for the last two summers and we prioritized other projects like the garden and the donkey space. This season, in partnership with The Home Depot, we tackled the patio and gave it a makeover that’s perfect for entertaining! It’s also full of patio decor ideas you can use in your home too.

The overall look

I really love Mediterranean outdoor spaces. They’re so lush, beautiful and full of simple things that make a statement. I love the vintage, iron chairs, terra cotta pots and big, pretty trees that gently wave in the wind.

Well, I live Michigan on a farm smack dab in the middle of the United States on a flat piece of land with almost no trees. I’m not sure I could really be any further from Mediterranean if I tried.

But I did decide I could bring a few of those touches that I love to our patio area with the help of The Home Depot. And, I think I was also able to make it work pretty well with our farmhouse too.

Here’s what I did…

Picking the table before setting it

I started by looking for a table set. Because I wanted a bit of a Mediterranean look, I knew that I wanted a dark table and that I wanted it to emulate a vintage iron set. I went with the Hampton Bay Laurel Oaks 7-piece steel dinging set with almond cushions. You can find the set {Hampton Bay Laurel Oaks set}. It will say it’s brown, but it looks more black to me in person and you can see it in the photos too.

I bought two of these sets because our patio is so big. Also, since we live in a different state than all of our family now, we tend to get a lot of visitors at once. Two sets allow us to have a seat for everyone.

I love the Hampton Bay Laurel Oaks set because it gives me some of that scroll-like iron work with the backs of the chairs, the legs of the tables, the arms of the chairs and the table top. These details really make the set beautiful and creates a statement on the patio.

The right patio planters for the look

If you follow us on Instagram, then you know I love plants and gardening. Incorporating plants into my outdoor décor is really important to me. So I’m going to give you a lot of patio decor ideas for your planters. I believe plants and pottery are kind of like the icing on the cake – the really sweet parts that make it so much more than just white or chocolate cake.

For this I chose a couple of different pieces from the Home Depot and they include:

Southern Patio Monroe resin planter that you can find {HERE}. This helps bring the white of the house out a little bit and break up all the stone elements.

Southern Patio Michelle terracotta clay planter, which can be found {HERE}. I love this planter! It has all the Mediterranean vibes that my little Italian girl heart desires.

Southern Patio Jean Pierre resin urn planter that can be found {HERE}. This planter is special because I think that it’s one of those pieces that is truly transitional. It can work at any kind home. It feels like it could fit at the farmhouse here and we actually had another set of these at our old house in the suburbs (That set is on the front porch.). But, it still feels like something I could find outside of a Albergo in Italy. I think the shape and color are both timeless too.

Finally, I also bought the Classic Home & Garden Natural Lava Stone Flower Pot planter, which you can find {HERE}. I wanted this pot because I needed something really large. Large enough to fit trees into. Our patio has ZERO shade until the sun slips behind the west side of the barn. I wanted to add some trees. Small as they might be right now, they give the whole space some heigh and bring the green of the grass a little closer to the sky.

The plants we used in the patio makeover

If the pottery is the icing on the cake, then the plants that go in it are truly the pretty embellishments. I like using a mix of herbs and flowers in my planters for several reasons:

1. I consider myself a food person and having fresh herbs at hand all the time makes me happy.
2. The herbs tend to give planters a lot of texture and interest. Sure you could buy other greenery to do this, but you get to eat the herbs to so it’s a win-win.
3. Most herbs have beneficial properties when it comes to controlling insects. Mint, lemon balm, chives, oregano, lavender…they’re all helpful at keeping the creepy crawlers away. You can see my full list of herbs and flowers that help repel insects {HERE}.

In my pots I used various combinations of herbs and flowers to create the look I wanted including Bonnie Herbs like sage, lavender, oregano and thyme.

Specially, in the Southern Patio Monroe resin planter, I combine lavender and sage with some additional flowers. Since the lavender is young, it’s not as prolific as it will be in a few weeks, but it will give it a pretty, slightly wild look that I love.

In the Natural Lava Stone, we planted Easter Red Bud trees from the Home Depot. They will flower in the spring each year and we can keep them in the pots for maybe two seasons before planting them on the property.

Around them I added petunias since the patio is full sun and Bonnie Italian Oregano and Bonnie English Thyme. The oregano will spread and act almost as a ground cover. The thyme will act as a spiller plant for any pot you plant it in.

Since the other pots were frilly, I kept the Southern Patio Jean Pierre planter simple and sophisticated with a simple Boxwood bush.

Additionally, we picked up some Big Boy Bonnie Tomatoes and Sweet Red Bell Peppers to help replace some vegetable plants we lost in a late freeze. It was incredibly devastating. Honestly, I cried – ugly cried – and showed off the failure on Instagram stories.

However, a bright spot is that I was able to run to Home Depot to pick up some of the Bonnie vegetables. Bonnie vegetable plants are the same plants I used in my very first garden six years ago. They already come as strong and firm plants that are slightly larger than seedlings. They’re very easy to continue growing and I’ve had lots of luck with them.

Traeger Ironwood Grill 885

Every patio needs a grill, and we were really ready for an upgrade. I’ve been hearing people rave about Traeger grills for years and since we got one from the Home Depot, I can see why. This grill/smoker combo cooks meat perfectly every time. We’ve had a chance to use it on a few occasions now and LOVE that it’s WIFI enabled. Kevin never has to worry about overcooking anything because the meat thermometer tells him exactly when it’s done.

You can find the Traeger Ironwood 885 {HERE} to see all the details!

The night we photographed the patio makeover with all the patio decor ideas we were having some company over and used it to help grill up a Tequila Lime Steak for a spring salad with grilled veggies and Cilantro Lime Dressing. Here’s all the ingredients you need:

Tequila Lime Steak Ingredients

• 2 Flank steaks
• Tequila Lime Steak Marinade Ingredients
• ½ cup of silver tequila
• 1/3 cup of soy
• ¾ cup of lime (About 6-10 limes depending on size)
• 1 Tbsp. of garlic, chopped
• 1 jalapeno, slice (Leave the seeds in or out based on what you prefer.)

Cilantro Lime Dressing

• 1 cup of Greek yogurt, plain
• 5 tsp. chopped garlic
• 4 Tbsp. lime juice (4-6 limes depending on size)
• 3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 1 1/3 cup of cilantro, chopped and packed
• 1 tsp. of Kosher salt
• ½ tsp. honey

Vegetables

• 4 red bell peppers
• 8 oz. of cherry tomatoes, sliced
• 8 carrots, sliced lengthwise if they’re thicker
• 2 yellow squash, sliced lengthwise
• 4 ears of corn cut into 3-inch pieces
• 2 cucumbers, sliced

To make this, just let the let the flank steak marinade for 2-3 hours in a large plastic bag. Add the veggies to the grill and grill for about 5 minutes per side, depending on how crisp you like them. Then add the flank steak to the Traeger Grill and use the meat thermometer with built-in Wifi to cook it to the correct temperature.

For the dressing, blend all the ingredients in a food processor and store in an airtight contain in the fridge until ready to use. You can keep it for up to a week.

Outdoor entertaining patio decor ideas

We purchased an outdoor plate collection from the Home Depot that I am in LOVE with and would highly recommend. It’s the Certified International Perlette 12-piece set in cream. It had service for four per set and comes with a dinner plate, a salad plate and a bowl. It’s perfect for outdoors because it’s not glass, but also looks so gorgeous that you would never know. You can find it {HERE}.

I also bought silverware (or goldware, really) that’s perfect for outdoors. We needed a set that we could use in this space without having to bring out pieces from the house. I think this set is the prettiest color too. You can find it {HERE}.

Our napkins are from a Home Depot line by Manor Luxe you can find {HERE}.

Homemade serving boards & centerpieces

Lastly, we made our centerpiece/serving boards for the occasion. I really wanted to bring some of those rich, wood tones you might find in a Mediterranean location to our patio makeover and this is just a fun patio decor idea. I love that rich wood tones bring more of a rustic and natural look to the whole space too.

Not only that, but I also wanted a way to be able to serve people family style when we were eating outside.

The serving boards provide all of it! Plus, the colorful food doubled as our center piece, so I didn’t need to buy any additional flowers.

To build these, we used:

• 1 – 2×8 that was 10 feet long
• Varathane Stain in Early American
• Watco Clear Butcher Block Oil
• Rag for the stain
• Rag for the butcher block oil
• DeWalt Miter saw
• Jig for helping to drill the holes at an angle
• Clamp
• 1-inch screws

We cut our wood pieces to fit our table. So, each board was 33 inches long. I’d recommend measuring your space and cutting the boards to the length you want. Then we cut feet for each board from the same 2×8 at 2 inches thick. We attached a foot to each side of the board with 1 inch of space between the foot and the end of the board. This allowed for easy carrying.

So, friends, what do you think of the patio makeover with Home Depot? Did you get any patio decor ideas for yourself?

Thank you so much for visiting today! I hope that you’ll come back again and see what else we are up to here at Sugar Maple Farmhouse.