Our big spring project (while we wait for a post-COVID existence) is getting our outdoor space decorated! We have two decently-sized terraces, one on either side of our ground-floor apartment. The front one gets southern exposure and most of our food-producing plants will live there. The back terrace is a bit more private (the front one is in the center square of our building), so we’re installing floor panels and building furniture to create an outdoor eating/activity area.
I posted our barebones plans on this post, so go check that out to get more visuals on what we’re working on!
Here’s what we have done so far:
More flooring
The first thing we did was expand the amount of flooring we have out there. The goal is to have a barefoot-friendly space. Buuut we’ve learned that the pigeons that live in the roof of the wall opposite our terrace tend to do their business on our terrace. So we bought some scrubby brushes and will be fighting to keep it clean this summer.
It’s… a work in progress.
Furniture
Right after I posted my plans to go to the hardware store to buy wood, COVID cases spiked and I thought all hope was lost. Happily, hardware stores count as essential businesses, so I can go with an appointment. So far I’ve done a couple trips.
I’ve finished the first little table! This is Ana White’s Simple Outdoor End Table. All of her plans are done with American wood measurements, so I have to convert to metric and finagle the plans a little. The nice thing about that process is that I understand the plans enough to adjust them a bit. For this table, I made the legs taller to suit the height of the bench:
I think she’s a beaut! 
These stacks of wood will be a workbench in about a week!
I also bought the wood for the workbench and the second table. I started with the table because I could get all necessary wood in one trip. But I regret not starting with the workbench. In the absence of a large, flat surface, I’m reduced to sawing, sanding, and drilling pocket holes on the ground like some unholy combination of Bob the Builder and Gollum.
But! All the pieces for the workbench are cut to length and sanded smooth, so over the next few days, I’ll be staining and constructing this beauty.
Plants!
The other very exciting thing that we’ve done since planning the terraces is BUY PLANTS! It’s a good thing we don’t have a car… Being restrained by the amount of arm space that we have is a very very good thing.
We went into the garden center with a list… and bought like four plants that were not on the list. I’m still counting that as a win!
We got:
- 2 kinds of strawberries (I don’t think last year’s survived the winter…but jury’s still out on one of the plants)
- Pickling cucumber
- Roma tomatoes
- Eggplant
- Purple potatoes
- Blackberry… Vine? Bush?
- Blueberry bush
- Ginger start (we expect nothing from this – it’s too cold here and it says clearly that it’s not suitable for containers, but we want to try!)
- Cherry tree!
What’s that? A cherry tree? YUP. It says that it’s suitable for growing in a container, so…we’ll see.
But of course, we got the plants home and started acclimating them to outdoor weather aaaaaand we started getting snow showers. So our living room currently looks like this:
These guys will be transplanted this weekend. 
Blueberry bush, blackberry vine, and cherry tree. 
Potatoes in sacks hanging out by the router.
Going Forward
So what’s next?
- Finish building furniture (est. 3 weeks)
- Plant all our plants in containers and get in a good watering routine (hopefully last night’s freeze is our last of the year!)
- Figure out lighting (probably battery-powered twinkle lights)
- Inaugural outdoor dinner!
