One Room Challenge: backyard oasis, week 4

Wow, who would have thought that week 4 of One Room Challenge is when it would dawn on me how much work a backyard overhaul can be?? I got back from my travels late Thursday night and dove into yardwork the very next day and haven’t taken a day off since. We’ve been going HAM on the yard… so much digging, raking, hauling, stacking, and leveling. It’s been truly backbreaking, but I feel like it’s starting to really come together. Or at least, I have to keep reminding myself of that as I stain yet another fence board!

That is what 200 fence boards looks like! Most of the work we’ve done this week has involved planning and constructing the new fence by using our pre-existing 4x4s. They were in good enough shape that we were able to salvage them, thankfully. And here’s some even better news: Dunn Lumber, a local Seattle business, was kind enough to provide boards and hardware for our new fence! They’ve been in business since 1907, which is even longer than my house has existed. Dunn Lumber also has a great home improvement blog, which was a fantastic resource for us as we planned out the project. The customer service was superb (Hi, Frank!) and we left the store knowing that we had everything we needed to complete our new fence.

How beautiful is the stain?? I am so obsessed. In case you’re curious, we’re using the SuperDeck IR Reflective Exterior Waterborne Solid Color Stain in Black Alder from Sherwin-Williams. My favorite part about it? Each coat dries in a little over an hour, so this aspect of the project has been going really quickly!

While staining so many fence boards, I’ve spent a lot of time further planning the vision of our space — and the pieces that will help to make it come to life. Overstock is one of the incredibly generous sponsors for One Room Challenge and has supplied some really amazing pieces for our space (in case you missed it, you can catch the unboxing on my Instagram Story highlights). One big area of focus for me has been our garden pot situation. I wanted to have a mix that feels curated and collected. I’ve looked at an array of materials, but always end up gravitating towards concrete and concrete-looking planters, so I’ve assembled these so far:

I might add a few vintage ones into the mix, but I am totally loving the overall vibe.

Equally important to me is our mix of textiles! Our Stori Modern pieces arrive tomorrow (yay), so I’ve paired these textiles with them for an eclectic mix in our palette of white, black, and blue.

The chickens would also like to show you the new garden bed walls we built with stones! Clearly, we still need to work on this section of the fence, but the stones are looking goooood.