the home edit, vol. 2
bring on the outdoors + my screened porch makeover.
time: 9:02am
location: my sisters apartment
currently: april showers bring may flowers, right?!
Is it summer yet?
Ok, ok, you’re right, spring is magical too, especially since us midwesterners *might* have made it through our last week of freeze warnings and 30-degree mornings. Everything is blooming and you can feel the spring projects brewing!
Creating a comfortable outdoor space is high on our priority list for any home because enjoying Michigan summers is one of the biggest perks of living here. I mentioned in my last home post the our house was a pretty intense fixer-upper, and the backyard and sad, sagging screened in porch were no exception. The backyard landscaping didn’t exist and was giving mud and mud only. The screened porch screamed potential once you got past the panels potentially being attached by elmers glue and a side order of rotting wood.
Your outdoor living space should be created into an extension of your home - a place for good (grilled) meals, fire pits, flowers and your favorite people. We’re going to have to do this outdoor edit in chunks because I’m finding that I have a lot to say and have no less than 100 tabs open on my laptop right now. Let’s start with some basics.
Landscaping + Gardening
Something you don’t learn until you start adulting? Plants are expensive! But wow do they make a difference. We started from scratch with the majority of the landscaping around our house, planting more and more each spring to fill up spots and see what works. We are thankful for hostas for our shadier spots and my mom & dads green thumbs and advice. I am no expert, but here’s my biggest lessons learned as I’ve taken on yard project after yard project.
Your Plant Hardiness Zone
You need to know the plant hardiness zone for where you live. This tells you the balance of heat and cold that plants need to thrive. Once you know your zone, you can go down the rabbit hole on what plants are the best for your zone.
Typically, you will find zone information on the back of seed packets or the labels on new plants. Knowing your zone will arm you with knowledge and save your wallet when you’re at the garden center surrounded by options.
Sun Map Your Yard
Whether you’re focusing on a certain corner your yard or the whole shebang, you should spend one day sun mapping. Ideally you should do this mid-summer so that you have a map based on the peak-summer conditions, but I know many of us will be planting this spring, so you could do it now and then for a prime and accurate map.
Choose a sun-filled day where you’re staying home and can go out to your yard multiple times.
Sketch your backyard. This isn’t scary or intense I promise, it can be the most basic drawing in the world - just include the general areas like your patio, garden beds, lounge areas etc. You need four copies of this general sketch.
Go out into your yard at 9:00am, 12:00pm, 3:00pm, and 6:00pm to check where the sun hits (this will give you an overview of the entire day). Label your sketch with the time. Using a pencil and highlighter or two different colored markers, color which areas have pure sun vs. shade.
Once you’ve mapping all four times, you can make a final map. Take a look at your four maps and see how much sunlight areas got throughout the day.
Full sun area = If the maps show sunlight in one location for more than 6 hours.
Full shade area = If the maps show areas that are shaded for the majority of the day.
Partially shaded area = Areas that receive both sun and shade throughout the day. In this case, note when the sun hits, such as morning or afternoon sun.
Again your wallet will thank you for this exercise, as plants and flowers are labeled full sun, full shade, or partial in their tags. Now that you’ve mapped the sunlight in your yard, you can plant according to the tags on your new plants and feel confident that they will be happiest (and have a chance at surviving).
✨ Quick tip - Most landscaping companies can do this exercise for you and design your yard accordingly if the thought of doing this yourself is completely overwhelming. Just a matter of being free vs. paying.
My apartment girlies,
I didn’t forget about you! The above is still so valuable for your window boxes or patios full of flowers or veggies/herbs. I’ve been loving watching what @justines.table is planting on her NYC patio - you can do this!
Other Quick & Random Lessons
Put tall things in back.
Buy things in groups of odd numbers and plant them in clusters.
Pay attention to colors and mix a whole bunch of them.
If it's too much to deal with all at once, just focus on one patch at a time.
Splurge for the self watering window boxes if you’re bad at watering (like me). Just do it. Especially if you’re using one to plant herbs.
My Favorite Resources
Suburban Homestead on YouTube.
@Gardenary on TikTok - I haven’t gone wild with a garden since I’ve been focused on basic landscaping, but am thinking of trying something like this this year. Way less committal than raised garden beds and such.
I’ve stumbled upon gardendesign.com while writing this and want to dig in more. In my collection of tabs, I have open “8 landscape design principles for residential gardens” which includes some gorgeous sketches and “ideas for an enticing cottage garden”. It just feels like these ideas should be combined lol.
One Day Dreams
The rabbit holes you can go down for backyard oasis’s is quite insane. Here’s what I’m dreaming about.
Pot’s like this full of hydrangeas.
Attaching greenhouses to a shed or garage.
Finding unique pots, large planters and bird baths to fill with flowers.
A corner of checkered pavers.
Big, comfy outdoor chairs placed directly in the sun.
The Screened Porch Saga
For the screened porch I mentioned above, we had no choice but to gut, re-support and re-build. We learned that we were lucky the roof didn’t collapse because the supporting posts were completely rotted. We put some serious sweat equity into this thing, and in turn its become our living room of choice in the warmer months.
What a journey! Once we properly re-supported the space and framed everything in with pressure treated wood, we used the Screen Tight system to screen every panel in. I couldn’t recommend this more - you can do it yourself and any time anything happens to a screen panel, you simply take off the cap and re-roll screen into the section. We’ve done it multiple times and it is so easy.
We painted the ceiling and floors using Sherwin Williams outdoor paint products. Again, so easy painting the floor and touching it up when needed.
We found bricks all over the damn yard and garage, so that became new edging around our landscaping, #resourceful.
I got our outdoor rug on etsy, but the shop I ordered it from is “taking a short break”. I will say, I’ve had great luck with rugs on etsy, so I’d take a look.
Our exact patio set is sold out from Joss and Main, but Wayfair carries the line. We wanted comfortable, living-room like furniture and this has held up and cleaned up wonderfully. When buying furniture like this, look for sets where the reviews that have been updated after time has passed. This will give you insight into how the cushions have held up, how cleaning has gone, it is really waterproof. These sets are not cheap, and higher price points don’t always equal higher quality, so digging into the reviews is key.
We swapped the table that came with the set for a fire table, which has extended our use of the porch into the colder evenings and tailgates months.
We hung outdoor curtains on one side for privacy, but its also been an easy way to keep water off of the furniture. We hung this Costo sun shade on the other side as an easy way to block some blinding sun in the summer evenings.
I’ve continued to love CB2’s outdoor pillows - comfortable, fun and colorful patterns and have held up great. Eyeing this icy blue hue, very on trend.
We got a basic wooden door and added a pet screen to the inside because someone (pictured below) paws at everything. Super simple solution to not replacing your door screen constantly.
Next edition I’m thinking should be focused on outdoor dining + lighting, but let me know in the comments below if there is something else you really want to see! More to come!
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Favorite read of the weekend!!! Needed all of this bc I have no idea what I’m doing with this stuff. Bought a house in Lathrup Village last June and really trying to figure out the whole gardening thing + what to do about our beautiful (yet rotting) covered porch with a balcony on top that needs some serious TLC.
Your covered porch reno is beautiful and love all of these resources! Going to spend the rest of my day reading through them all and taking notes.