The Back Yard Down the Shore Before and After

The yard at the cottage down the shore used to be a maintenance  nightmare. The grass would always dry out from the hot sun, and it had sticky balls in it from the weeds we couldn't get rid of.

This is how it was, when we first purchased it. In the background you can see the seawall. This is before the township put up the concrete promenade over the rock seawall.

After a few years of this , we finally decided to rip all the grass out and completely EP Henry the yard.
I love it now. It's like one big patio.

This is how it is now.

This deck used to be an old worn out one, and we recently had it rebuilt  and I love that too.

If I can find some old pics of the deck before I'll post them later.

Even though that concrete promenade took some of my view from the yard and first floor, I've come to terms with it. I use that now to go for very enjoyable walks now down the coast!

We now use the entire yard, every inch. All the way back to the fence, where we have a firepit for the cool nights in May or September. That table in the pic is actually the firepit.  I love this because we can use it for a coffee table for drinks and stuff, when we don't have a fire burning.
And my daughters helped me build that little wall (under the fairy)in front of the fence, to create a little garden.



And then I decided that I wanted my porch to have more of an inviting, shabby chic, go ahead and fall asleep outside, feeling.  So I gathered up everything I had around the house to transform it from it's slightly tropical look to a place where you just were dying to sit and relax!!
First I started with the outside porch seating area

Which I added a ruffled white twin bedskirt to, and some fluffy pillow shams for the following effect:

and a duvet cover to the other side

Doesn't this look adorable?

And the best part is it held up with a group of 20 somethings down each weekend.

That was the true test. They started sitting out back more often because it was so inviting. 

And I thought 

" I'm going to have to readjust it every 5 minutes!!'

 But lo and behold.. I didn't have to ... and it stayed clean! I thought for sure it would be dirtied up inside a week, But NO. It looked this way from about early July till I dismantled everything in November when the weather around here gets kinda yukky. 

Now I can't wait for the nice weather to come back.

I'm playing at the linky party

Inspire me Tuesday

and 

Coastal Charm Party