Do you feel like suddenly everything is in bloom? Finally, my garden is looking better than it ever has before and I can actually go outside and enjoy the space a little. Here’s what I’ve been up to over the past month…
I’ve been working on my garden makeover since the darkest days of January (remember those frosty photos? Brr!) and although we were doing a lot of work, progress seemed so slow. We’ve been doing a lot of digging and shifting of soil, as the sloped space needed to be terraced before we could even consider planting. And now, it’s almost there!
So much so that we were able to lay a lawn this month woo! Over the first last bank holiday we bought up a load of turf from B&M and (after reading some lawn-laying tips online) we had a go at laying it ourselves. I wanted to create a garden-within-the-garden, in front of my caravan, which would be a lawned area where kids could play and I could enjoy a Pimms with my pals.
We laid the turf, cut the edges of the lawn into a circular shape and then hoped that it would survive the hot weather. Thankfully, the grass laid down roots really well and now it’s growing almost too fast! So for the first time ever in my new home, I’ve had a tidy patch of garden to enjoy. Finally, the rubble and wasteland can become a distant memory.
I wanted to get myself some garden chairs to really make the most of my new lawn and spend some time chilling out in the garden, rather than constantly working on it. When Thompson & Morgan heard about my garden landscaping project, they offered to send me some lovely chairs to help me enjoy the space and here’s what I chose:
I’ve been watching Monty Don’s Big Dreams Small Spaces on Netflix ever since we started working on the garden and it’s given me plenty of inspiration. One of the main things was the style of garden furniture I wanted to have in my space, which were chunky wooden low chairs that I spotted on a seaside garden episode.
They looked vintage in style and very comfortable so I set about sourcing a pair of these chairs for myself. I soon discovered that the style is called an ‘adirondack’ chair so, armed with this knowledge, I began to search for a low-cost pair of these wooden seats. When you buy two together, there’s a discount available at Thompson & Morgan so I plumped for two of the wooden Adirondack chairs.
I decided to get the chairs in unfinished wood rather than treated wood because I intended to paint them with a pale white garden paint. I wanted to match the picket fence that I plan to install in my cottage garden in the near future and having bare, untreated wood will make the painting process easier. The delivery arrived over the bank holiday weekend and I was excited to get them built so I could enjoy a little chill-out session on my new lawn!
The adirondack chairs are easy to assemble at home. There are only a handful of pieces that can be bolted together with ease. Everything you need to construct the chairs is in the box – including screws and washers etc, but you will need a screwdriver to tighten the bolts once they’re all in place. Luckily, I had my new power tool kit to help me, but really you only need a manual screwdriver – I was just having fun with my new tools!
My tip for assembling the chairs is to have a friend to help you – and to only loosely attach the bolts to begin with. This gives you a little room to manoeuvre the pieces of wood until all the bolts are in place, then you can tighten them up securely.
What do you think of my new adirondack chairs? Is this the kind of laid-back style you would choose for your garden too? Let me know what garden furniture you have (and any DIY options you’ve used!) in the comments below. I’ll be sure to share some more photos of the painted chairs (and hopefully, my cottage garden style picket fence!) soon 🙂
Some items in this blog post have been gifted to me and the pink links indicate a gifted product, affiliate link or information source. All thoughts and opinions in this post are based on my own experience and I am not responsible for your experience 🙂
