I would suggest patio furniture and some potted outdoor plants on the deck.

That looks nice. Already a big improvement! Nice and neat. I like the walkway.

Great improvement! I love the raised beds!

Great addition!

It’s been quite some time, but we have pretty much finished the backyard - 4 years later!! I wanted to share an updated pic.

We did all the work by hand, tore down the old fence, put up a new fence with concreted posts and sienna wood. Then we refinished the shed with the same wood and painted trim to match the foundation on the house. We refinished the deck (old green PT) with Sansin stain in barn board, replaced posts brackets and caps and painted them black. We pulled up the walkway leading to the garden, put down a new weed mat and refinished the walkway as well. What do you guys think? :)

Looks very good!

Nice job! Can you tell me how you made the raised beds? Real cedar wood? Do they have bottoms? How have they held up? I'm thinking of making some for a future firepit area. (Since they will be on stone they would have to have bottoms.)

@ljptw7

Thanks :) We made the raised beds using cedar fence boards which are quite thin, in the corners we used cedar 4" x 4"s, and we lined the interior sides with weed fabric just to help preserve the wood a bit. We also put boards right in the middle of each bed for extra strength and to help fruits / vegetables stay separated (sometimes we do plant two different types of plants in a bed). We didn't cover the bottoms of the beds.

We didn't stain or paint the wood - just to avoid any chemicals leaching from the paint into our plants.

Those have been down for 4 years now, in Northern Ontario, we get a lot of snow with our winters hitting minus 40 celcius and the summers hitting plus 40 celcius. The boxes are weathered but they are still good after 4 years. Once these beds start falling apart we will be replacing the sides with thicker cedar and probably adding an extra row of boards for more height.

The beds were trial and error for us, they have held up better than I imagined (the thin wood). I think a lot is personal preference though.

00mm00, thanks for the information!

Sweet! I can’t wait to see a picture after everything is planted and blooming!