It's home renovation time!! Part 1

After living in our house for almost four years, David and I have decided it's finally time to spruce up our deck. It's been the most neglected "room" of our house for some time now. We are in the process of renovating it and I've kinda just sat staring at all the options for a couple of days now. So, why not post it on my blog and see if anyone has some words of wisdom? I'm going to break it into three categories: Pergola , Table and Chairs and Accessories.

Today, we will start with the background of the patio, the things that we do know we want to use and get on to THE PERGOLA!!The former owner painted the wood of the deck a not so lovely shade of tan/flesh and installed a plastic pergola type awning over half of the deck for shade, which isn't so bad...but after four years, it's really showing wear.


(This photo was taken the day of the inspection, not our table or plants...honestly, it looked much better here in this photo with her stuff...but that was four years ago.)

View from below in the yard.

We've always liked the idea of the pergola, just not the white plastic (that she then painted cream color to match the flesh tone deck) that she chose. Why not stain the deck??? Well, being the do'er that David is, (this man gets things done!!!) he tore off the funky plastic pergola and pressure washed the deck to remove as much loose paint and mold as possible this past weekend... and we now have two friends lined up to help us paint next weekend! We've chosen a nice deep chocolate brown for all the wood. That part, we are pretty sure about...but the rest of it? It's all up in the air! So many decisions!!

Pergola in it's current condition, missing it's roof that is to be replaced and sans patio furniture (that's for the next post)!

I'm hoping that after painting the wood the dark chocolate color, it will look something similar to this person's deck above- of course, all of our wood will be the dark color, not sure what they were going for with the 1/2 and 1/2 look....just stare at the top section where the pergola will be!!

Our brick colors above.

Online color options above. Here in Nashville, I've only seen clear, smoke, grass green and metal options. At the moment, I'm open to all (not as sure about David). I guess we are leaning most to the white, smoke or metal ones, with the metal at the forefront.

So, we are going to keep the frame of the pergola and need to replace the roof, but are torn between replacing it with more of the same white plastic, or the sheet metal version. (And just today while looking for pictures of patios with this Corrugated Panels, decided that the smoky color isn't that bad either.). Here are pictures of some of the options in action:


This is what it would look like in my dreams. I'm just trying to visualize the dark wood against the white pergola roof, and this is a really really nice version of that.

Smoke color corrugated plastic pergola above.

Smoke colored plastic corrugated material...let's some light through as you can see the shadows reflected on the wood underneath.



Smoke color corrugated plastic above. Again, it lets some light through but still provides shade and cover from the rain.




Corrugated Steel roof above



My concerns with the metal are this: will it rust? will it look country or modern? will it be hot as hell under there and we won't even want to use the patio??

I guess, really....I just want it to be an extension of the inside of our home, which is primarily mid-century modern....but it still needs to flow with the architecture of the front and the arched doorways of the inside which are 1940's Tudor style...so I want it to seem modern and retro but not look like a barn roof. Following me??

Part 2 next week: Patio furniture!!