In 2023, my husband and I packed up our shoebox-sized apartment, said goodbye to our fast-paced Manhattan lifestyle, and headed to our new, adorable coastal Connecticut suburb. We purchased a fixer-upper and embraced it.
Our house was built in the ’80s and came complete with linoleum kitchen floors, a compartmentalized dining and living space, and a dark-brown wooden back deck that had creaky steps.
Vision became our newest best friend, so we rolled up our sleeves and looked at each task as an exciting opportunity to make the house entirely our own.
Multiple renovation projects — and three years — later, the inside was just about done, and it was time to give the outside space its own personality.
Our newly renovated home deserved the same TLC on the outside as we gave it on the inside
Alexa Mellardo
The first spring in our new home, I spruced up the deck with an outdoor rug, a small sofa, two chairs, and fringed umbrellas as a sort of Band-Aid.
The deck was old and installed when the house was built in the ’80s. It was too small for entertaining — and the overall aged condition of it was honestly a vibe killer.
Alexa Mellardo
Three years after purchasing our home, the backyard became a priority. After all, we were eager to spend most of our time outdoors enjoying the nice weather, and we wanted to make that area as nice as the inside.
We envisioned an outdoor space where we could entertain, kick back and relax, and make the most of our backyard.
But alas, we faced a crucial crossroad: Should we replace our deck with a new, larger one, or install a patio? We chose the latter and wouldn’t have it any other way.
We saved a significant amount of money choosing a patio over a deck
Alexa Mellardo
An earlier renovation project we worked on involved swapping out our dated front porch for a new one with dark hickory-colored Trex decking and a cable railing to match our coastal aesthetic.
Based on the $14,000 price tag for labor and materials we invested in our front porch, we estimated that a new back deck built to the size we wanted — roughly five times our 8-by-10-foot front porch — would cost us over $60,000.
Alexa Mellardo
This estimate, along with our vision for aesthetics, solidified our decision to install a patio in our backyard. We ended up spending a little over $27,000 on a 600 square-foot (20 by 30 feet) patio, saving us an estimated $33,000 or more.
A patio made perfect sense for our dream of backyard entertaining and relaxing
Alexa Mellardo
From fine-tuning the right layout and stone pavers to selecting furniture that would optimize the space, we put much more thought into our patio than initially expected.
Our backyard genuinely deserved some extra love, and we gave it exactly that. It’s now a peaceful oasis, complete with a backdrop of glacial rocks covered with ivy and lush foliage. In the future, we envision bountiful strawberry-vanilla hydrangeas spilling over the patio’s back wall.
We decorated our new space with stone planters, lanterns, a plush six-seater sectional, Serena and Lily-esque throw pillows, a coordinating dining table, and fringe umbrellas.
Our patio also transformed how we entertain at home, from holiday barbecues to garden cocktail parties with friends. It serves as a seamless transition from indoors to outdoors.
And the best part? It has no boundaries, as it spills into our yard for games, flower picking, and cozying up around the fire pit.
When we’re not planning social gatherings, we’re sunbathing, curling up with a good book, or savoring wine at sunset. The money we saved was used to construct a new front walkway and fire pit area in the back.
