A Rare Look At The Back Of Our House (And Interim Plans)
Well, y’all. The studio bathroom is pretty much finished. I still need to hang the artwork, deal with finishing out the awkward electrical outlet, and do a few paint touchups. It’s always those last few nagging detail projects that get me bogged down. I’ll try to get the pictures taken today, but I won’t make any promises. It might be Wednesday before I can show you the final bathroom.
Until then, let’s talk about the back of our house and our back patio. I don’t show this area of our house much (if ever) because, quite frankly, it’s ugly. Y’all know I’ve wanted to tear down the sunroom and build an addition back here for the last ten years. But here we are, in 2026, and we still have the sunroom.
When we had the new siding installed and painted, I had them stop at the sunroom because I didn’t want to waste money on a room that I thought would be gone by now. So not only is it ugly, but it also sticks out like a sore thumb because it’s a completely different color.
But now that we’ll be keeping the sunroom for a while longer, I’m thinking it might be time to go ahead and paint it. I still don’t want to put new siding on it. That will feel like a complete defeat to me, and I’m not willing to give up on my dream of an addition and give into defeat just yet. But a couple of gallons of paint? I can do that. And since I’m about to turn my attention to some outdoor projects for a while, this might be the perfect time to do that.
I’m also thinking about finally getting rid of this awkward fireplace planter combo. We’ve never used the fireplace, and I wouldn’t even feel safe using it with that tree so close to it. And the planters are falling apart and act as a weed factory right now. I’ve wanted to get rid of them for so long now, but I always thought I’d put off any projects back here until we get the addition built. But I’m tired of waiting.
I think with a coat of paint on the sunroom and those planters and fireplace removed, the back of our house could look…decent. It won’t look great as long as that sunroom is there, but decent is better than what it is now.
And removing that planter and fireplace would go a long way towards opening up that area visually and making the whole back yard look and feel more usable.
Right now, we don’t even use our back patio at all. Since the sunroom has been used as a storage room for so long, we basically avoid it altogether, which means that the patio isn’t easily accessible. So I use the patio for projects (I’ve painted many a cabinet door out there over the years), and that’s where I gather all of my old partially empty paint cans that can’t be thrown away in the regular trash and have to be taken in for recycling.
But now that the plan is to actually use the sunroom as a home gym (which will hopefully be temporary, but I have no idea how long that will be), that means that this patio will be more accessible to us. So I’m adding these things to my list of the outdoor projects that I’d like to tackle. I don’t think it’ll ever look great as long as that sunroom is still there, but I can imagine the area with the siding painted to match the rest of the house, the planters and fireplace gone, and the patio set up with a cute outdoor seating area that we can actually enjoy.
I think the time has come to stop putting off using our back yard until after we’ve built the addition. That has been my mindset all this time, but I really want to get our whole house, including the back yard, to where we can actually use and enjoy it without putting it off for a dream that seems to get more out of reach with each passing day. I don’t want to hang all of our hopes on something that may not happen for another few years…or may not happen at all. I want to finish our house, as it is now, and actually live in it.
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
Yes to making that area prettier and then using it! I imagine sitting there in the sun will be lovely – and watching Cooper next door as well 🙂 I hope the weather allows you to do your outdoor projects without either too much hot sun or rain… I’m looking forward to your input on this as I’m heading to our garden about now as well!
You should rent a dumpster and invite your mom and brother over and maybe some friends who can knock all of those blocks over and then throw it all away – opening it up and clearing away the clutter will make you feel so much better about the aesthetic back there!
Seems like now is the time for backyard projects – before heat and humidity make it impossible to do. We love our back yard – and when the wind isn’t howling (which is unfortunately rare) it is a delightful additional living space. Gives a different perspective on everything.
Getting rid of the fireplace and cleaning up the patio is a good idea and I would set up my outdoor furniture-if you actually plan to use it, otherwise I wouldn’t waist my time. Pressure wash the siding and the patio, put out a couple of planters and call it a day. I would not bother to paint the siding, I know its only a couple of hundred dollars but it really doesn’t look bad as is, you don’t need an excuse to delay your addition and the money can be better spent. Your yard is great, and You and everyone who knows you also knows that the sunroom will eventually be gone. My 2 cents of course.
I love your plans, go for it. You might even be surprised once the weeds are down that the fireplace and garden boxes may still be in better shape than imagined and you could use them. A good fire screen on the top of the chimney and you should have no worries about that tree. A nice place for dinning alfresco, seeing a lovely sunset, some firepit time and of course some lovely flowers and herbs in the garden boxes. At least until you are ready to remodel that side of the house. Remember, I’m an old Army wife that had to rent all those years. Clean up someone else’s designs and live with them because we could not change them. So, I always see what can be improved upon. Now, that it is our home, I do like the starting over bit too.
Cheers to you, Matt, and the Fur Inspection Team!
If you really wish to start using your back patio, how about cleaning up the area and seeing if you actually can use it?
What about cleaning out all the junk, removing that monster shrub growing over the fireplace, pulling the weeds from the planters, and power washing the patio? Then you could put new soil into the planters and plant flowers there to enjoy. You could clean out that fireplace/barbeque and stack decorative logs in there to fill up the opening with something attractive to look at.
As far as painting the shed, which will be torn down, consider resisting the urge to waste the paint money and time on that. If you are outside, you will be wanting to look at your flowers and back garden, not the house!
If you wait to demolish the planters and fireplace until you are actually ready to doing your addition, it will cost very little to have the heavy equipment remove that, which they need to do to do your foundation for the addition.
If you clean up the back area, and don’t like it, you can still proceed with more demo, but try it out first. Will it actually be something you two will want to use, and actually can?
I agree with this. My first thought was “is this another procrastination project”? (not that you are CONSCIOUSLY procrastinating). If it were my house what would bother me the most is all the ‘junk’ that has been set out there, and the huge ‘plant’ growing out of the fireplace.
Why spend the time and money to paint, etc etc until you know if you would really take the time to sit out there and enjoy the back yard?
What a wonderful back yard! I can just imagine being able to use it as a little outside retreat area.