Yikes! It is week 6 of the Pocket Patio Project for the Spring 2021 One Room Challenge - in any normal year this would be the final reveal post, but THANK GOODNESS we get two more weeks because everything is so much harder to accomplish right now!

If you are new here, welcome!  I’m Janet, a designer and blogger in the Greater Boston area with a passion for all things home….my daughter likes to refer to me as “Martha without the jail time”… I’d add I’m probably waaaay more chill than Martha, but she was my original inspiration for my love for cooking and entertaining with style. And she DID solve the mystery of folding fitted sheets, so thanks to her for that!

And this is the One Room Challenge a biannual event where hundreds of designers and bloggers complete a space from start to finish over the course of 6 (this time 8) weeks and document the progress and pitfalls in weekly posts.  It is a great way to get. stuff. done. with support and cheerleading from the many fellow participants!  

This Pocket Patio Project is the outside entrance to my home office #PPP.

Many thanks to One Room Challenge founder, Linda Weinstein and to the official media sponsor, Better Homes and Gardens. Check out the blog HERE at the One Room Challenge where we all link posts each week and prepare to be awed and inspired by all the wonderful projects in progress! 

The Pocket Patio Project Week 6 Update

It has been blazingly hot here for the last week and I’ve had to turn the hose on my poor plants every day to keep them alive. Pleeeeease hang in there! The astilbe looks like it is considering blooming.

I’ve made waaay too many trips to the wholesale nursery. I may need a 12-step program for that, there is just so much fun stuff!

I didn’t buy this fabulous bougainvillea as I don’t think it would survive here (or me #Iamnotagardener), but I DID buy a wisteria plant that I’m aiming to train up and over my front porch! I love wisteria, and I even love the sculptural vines of wisteria in the winter, so we’ll see how all that goes…

This week the excuse was I needed to fill the lattice planters (true confessions: the pictures on the lattice post have them filled with fake plants I keep around for staging), and I also needed to procure some annuals for these half basket planters I bought to hang on the lattice panels.

I’m waiting for the S hooks to arrive so I can hang them and pot them up. The S hooks are on a UPS truck currently touring Massachusetts and beyond….

While I was waiting for the S hooks, I assembled the umbrella stand. I even looked at the directions. It came with an anemic toy wrench to tighten the nut. The toy wrench didn’t even fit - it was too big for the size of the nut, but fortunately I have a grown up wrench.

Other than the questionable “included tool”, the stand is nice quality and very heavy (as it should be), and holds the umbrella nice and snugly so it hopefully will not turn into a projectile weapon with any unexpected wind gusts (this HAS happened here before…where my umbrella from the back deck did a Mary Poppins imitation flying OVER the house and landing in the front yard?!)

I bought another giant potted hosta, this time a golden variety, to fill in a forlorn corner of the patio. And I bought more gold hosta and some adorbs mouse ear hosta along with coral bells, solomon’s seal, lady’s mantle, and a flat of ivy for the planters.

That was a bit of overkill, as it turns out and it didn’t all fit, so the coral bells and some of the hosta will go straight into the garden. The rest will get transplanted into the gardens at the end of the season when we empty the planters for the winter.

I also bought impatiens in white, fuschia, and pink, to mix with ivy for the hanging baskets

The door is still not in yet…grrrr. But great news - my handyman was here today to finally fix the holes in my office ceiling, and he will replace the decking to create a floor for the patio. I’m waiting on pricing to decide between pressure treated lumber and composite decking like Trex. Trex is likely about twice the price, though with lumber costs right now, who knows! Pressure treated lumber will outlive me at this point anyway…I’m not “older than dirt”, but I’m getting there LOL.

So what’s left at this point is:

• The elusive door and trim

• Potential decking - yippee!

• Planting the flowers (as soon as the hooks arrive)

• Shopping for styling items

• Photographing!

Other posts you might enjoy:

Pocket Patio Project Week One (the before pics of the sad state of affairs)

Pocket Patio Project Week Two (inspiration and plans)

Pocket Patio Project Week Three (planting the garden)

Pocket Patio Project Week Four (some assembly required)

Pocket Patio Project Week Five (patio decor items)