Patio To Do List & Outdoor Sectional

We have a big list of to-do's for our house that we are really focused on. (Now that I don't have wedding planning as an excuse anymore!) Luke is always working on some house project and I'm trying to do adopt his work ethic and take on a few projects of my own. I'm so in awe of his ability to see a project completely through. Mainly because I struggle with actually executing one of the many projects I have both in my head and on my Pinterest page.

High up on our to-to list, is working on our outdoor space. Though summer is a short 3-4 months in New England, we take full advantage of our backyard in that time. Dining al fresco, s'mores around our fire pit, reading in the new hammock...

While our to-do list is a long one, one thing we can check off is purchasing an outdoor sectional!

It's taken us a while to find one we liked, of good quality and still under our budget of $1000. We fell in love with the Newport while shopping at Crate & Barrel one day, but it was way out of our budget. We could barely afford just one of the pieces, even with the 20% off sale.
 

We also really liked the ARHOLMA sofa from IKEA, which was a really good, more affordable comparison to the Newport. It was definitely more in line with our budget, on sale for $635. But unfortunately, one of the pieces is currently out of stock and backordered a customer service rep informed me.

 

 

Our hunt continued until last week when we finally found one that was only half of our budget and probably 10% of the cost of the Newport. I actually never totaled up how much the Newport would have cost, I could fathom how much all of those pieces together would have cost. Way too much for a girl who is not above shopping at Walmart for everything.

 

Including where we found our new sectional from Walmart! We pulled the trigger after reading all of the great reviews and it was delivered very quickly. Did I mention it only cost $499?! This is what the online photo looked like:

And here's ours:

 

Working together, it took us less than an hour to put together. Might be strange, but I actually think putting stuff together like this is fun (might be because I've never shopped at IKEA....)  The cushions are big and comfy and it came with a coffee table as well.  

 

I think it looks even better than the online photo (which almost never happens)! While it may not be the Newport, we think we'll be very happy with our Walmart couch. I'm looking forward to summer nights bringing a wine night-in with girlfriends outside, late afternoon post-beach naps in the sun and bringing a TV outside (wouldn't be the first time Luke's done this...) for a movie night under the stars.

BUT the to do list continues! Still left to do to make our patio everything we envision:

 

• buy turquoise and red-orange throw pillows to tie in the Adirondack chair colors around the fire pit.
• buy big plants to fill our pots for either side of the couch
• perhaps spray paint said mismatched pots gold to create a more uniform look
• paint the cement patio. I still need to decide on a color and if I want to attempt a fun pattern like this one.
• string my café lights
• buy new chairs for the table
• purchase new umbrella for table
• eventually build a pergola over the patio too

Ambitious? Yes. But not when your married to Luke. I'm in for a long, hard-working summer...