One Room Challenge Week 2: Materials & Space Planning & Scheduling, Oh My!

It's Week 2 of the Spring 2021 One Room Challenge! It looks like all of the participants are getting into their groove and I am loving following everyone's progress! If you checked out our Week 1 post, you know that the backyard is a mess right now and this is a doozy of a project that will definitely bleed past the 8-week deadline. For us, this week was filled with 4685036278595 phone calls and emails to order items & materials, follow up on previous orders and iron out the schedule for both deliveries and for any subcontractors. I *think* everything has been planned out accordingly, but I am also preparing myself for hiccups. Based on the current plan, it is looking like our reveal week will be between July 9th-16th and it may or may not include the outdoor kitchen island. Below I am detailing our chosen materials and products that have all been ordered and hoping that everything comes together how I am envisioning it. Fingers crossed!

One of the main features that I have been dreaming about for two years now is the lighting design over the outdoor dining area. We ordered 7 of the Serena & Lily Summerland Outdoor Pendant Lights (2 large bell, 2 small bell & 3 round), which will be hung above the table staggered and at varying heights. They all arrived this week and as you can see, I couldn't be happier 😂 The dining area and swing bar will be under a black Shou Sugi Ban pergola with thin slats that will look similar to this:

Besides the fun lighting feature, the dining area will have a table, bench, chairs & end chairs from Article and will look something like this:

The swing bar will feature this amazing Abbott outdoor bar with a thick concrete top from Pottery Barn, but we are going to tile the front and sides with Bedrosians Enchante tile in Moderno. Then we will make Ipe swing seats to hang in front from the pergola!

For the outdoor kitchen area, we ordered this Mont Alpi Black Stainless Steel Outdoor Kitchen Island that has a grill, side burner, small sink and refrigerator, plus storage! This was the best way to get an outdoor "kitchen" with everything we needed without paying $15-$20k+ for something custom and built-in, which 1) isn't necessary for us and 2) is not in the budget!

We picked up two outdoor rug options for under the sectional and this hammock from Target last year, which will go in the back right corner:

We ordered two of these Iksun Teak double chaise lounges with white cushions to go on both sides of the baja shelf next to the pool:

We will have an area on the right side of the pool with a sectional, rug and fire bowl. The fire bowl is getting ordered this week, so I will let you know what we decide, but the sectional won't be in until December. We chose to hold off on it and order it in a couple of months so that it will arrive for next Spring vs paying for it now and not having it for 6+ months and then not being able to use it right away. In the meantime for this season we will use a loveseat and two chairs that we purchased to use for our upper deck. I have to spray paint them, so I will share them in a future update post. The below rendering is an idea of what the sectional area will look like NEXT year when we actually have all of the furniture & there will also be a rug under this area. The planting above the sectional will look more like the second photo vs the round wall planters.

We are still making decisions about the outdoor shower area and have some things up in the air surrounding pool components, so I will save that and the information about the fence and pavers for a future update post as well :)

Come back next week to see all of the concrete officially gone from the yard (not looking forward to that back-breaking project this week), the prep work for the fence and an easy DIY project! For more updates throughout the week be sure to follow along on Instagram and don’t forget to check out the progress of each of the Featured Designers and Guest Participants!