Backyard Projects Part 1

So we have a pretty long list of the things going on around here right now. In-between the indoor projects we're working on, we have multiple backyard projects on the go. I actually have a chalkboard in our office with all of the projects listed...yet it doesn't seem that I'm crossing a lot of them off lately. Every time Ian suggests another project, I point to that chalkboard and that pretty much ends the conversation...I think we often forgot how many things we have on the list.

Here's a quick run-through of what we're in the middle of right now:

To Do:

- Finishing the floors upstairs (hallway and all 3 bedrooms)
- Fill nail holes and paint all baseboards in 3 bedrooms after floors are installed
- Caulk all baseboards in 3 bedrooms after floors are installed
- Install nursery closet system
- Put together crib
- Put together nursery dresser/change table
- Put up blinds, curtains, photo frames, mobile and all other nursery accessories
- Sew crib skirt
- Create and paint change pad table topper
- Finish painting and sealing knobs for dresser/change table
- Finish buying major nursery purchases
- Fix all electrical/switches in house
- Finish putting plates and new switches around house
- Finish sanding and staining wood floor transition pieces
- Finish building up stairway posts
- Re-paint stairway railings
- Fix stone pathway and seal stones
- Plant tree and bushes in large back garden
- Plant flowers and bushes in smaller back gardens
- Seal deck
- Put up solar shade and patio furniture
- Prepare pool for use
- Finish mouldings in master bedroom
- Create roman shade for kids bathroom
- Put up mudroom light
- Put up new side porch light
- Fix up front garden (postpone to next year)
- Re-build pool deck (postpone to next year)


Completed:

- Finish privacy fence
- Rip out old plants/bushes in backyard
- Level and rebuild back garden
- Plant clematis in front of privacy fence
- Move side gate up to house
- Complete sod
- Build air conditioner sound wall
- Prepare deck for sealant
- Paint nursery
- Paint middle bedroom
- Put up nursery light

Ok that makes me tired just looking at it all! So obviously we'll blog about these things as we finish, but we have about 2.5 months to finish it all before baby arrives, so we'll see how that goes :) To keep us on track, I've posted this list on the right hand side of our menu bar of the website...now we have each other AND all of you to keep us on our toes!

So back to the backyard projects. We managed to knock 3 of them off the list this past weekend (despite the flooring mishap we had last week that I'll blog about later on), so we were pretty happy with that.

We finished the privacy fence, moved the side gate up and sodded the lawn and built the air conditioner sound wall. When I say "we" for these particular projects, I say that lightly. Most of this was Ian. I mean, I was helping...however its getting harder and harder for me to help with these projects as I get more and more pregnant, so the easy things like watering the sod, carrying back plants, etc., become my job.

So lets talk privacy fence first, shall we? We actually built this fence last year and decided to stain the deck and privacy fence as well. Finding stain was a big challenge for us last year but after 5 attempts, we did purchase a stain that we thought we liked. Since we couldn't seem to find a long period of time when it wasn't raining, we figured we'd start with staining the lattice in the privacy fence. We ended up deciding to leave the deck staining until this year and in the process made the decision to just leave the deck natural. Back to square one. So, since we were leaving the deck natural, we needed to replace the stained lattice in the privacy fence (so everything looks consistent).

Here's the fence last year:

 

then we stained it....

 

Then we decided to "un"-stain it....i.e. rebuild it;

 

 

The process for building this fence the first time around, began with 2 posts dug into the ground and cemented in. We hired someone to come by and do this for us, so they actually dug 3 holes and put in 3 posts for us. 2 posts were used for the privacy fence, and 1 was used for the air conditioner sound fence. Once the posts were finished, Ian built the rest of the frame (we actually measured how big we wanted this fence to be first and that determined where the post guys dug their holes):

We installed the top piece of the frame and then measured the distance from the ground to the top. We divided that number in half and cut 2 pieces of lattice to that size. Ian then installed a middle piece of wood to support the top lattice and to help give more support to the frame. Always level as you go...very important part or you'll end up with a lopsided privacy fence!

Next step was to install the first piece of lattice:

 Finally the second piece:

and you're done!

 

So this year, the only thing that had to be done, was to remove the top finishing piece, unscrew the old lattice and insert the new pieces. It didn't take us as long since the frame was already in place. Since taking this photo yesterday, we've planted 2 clematis that will hopefully grow up the fence over time and give us some additional privacy. So privacy fence- done!

We also completed the sound wall for the air conditioner. As I mentioned above, when Ian had the guys dig the holes for the privacy fence, he had them dig one post for the air conditioner sound wall. This wall goes directly from the side of the house into the post, so we really only needed that one post dug into the ground.

Before the post was dug into the ground, we started off with this:

We basically re-did the gardens around the backyard this year, so we didn't need to remove any plants or work around much.

From that point, Ian was able to install the second post against the house and then attach the middle and bottom bracing pieces:

The boards were each attached to fill in the frame and finally the top piece to finish it off. It already makes a big difference visually and will be nice when we are sitting on the deck to mask some of the sound from the AC unit:

Lastly, we moved the fence gate up and sodded behind it. Almost 2 years ago, Ian decided to rebuild our side gate. We have 2 side gates, however the one side mainly acts as an access to the pool shed. When Ian rebuilt the gate, he kept it in the same place it had originally been, which was a good distance away from the pool shed. However, this left us with a large area of ground that either needed to be filled in with patio stones or grass. If we chose grass, he'd have to open the gate to mow it, which was a pain. The solution? To move the gate closer to the end of the house/edge of the patio stone. This would still allow us to lay sod, but on the OUTSIDE of the fence, for easy access with mowing.

Ian basically disassembled the gates and reinstalled them against the patio stone:

From this picture you can tell where the gate used to be- basically where the dirt begins:

Now that we had moved the gate up, we needed to sod the large area of dirt. Ian had a summer job laying sod once, so it tends to be a pretty quick process around here. In 10 minutes we had gone from the picture above to this:

It definitely looks much better and will be a lot easier to maintain.

So that's what kept us busy this weekend! Not a huge dent into our list of projects, but I'd say we're on our way.

Have any of you been working on backyard projects lately?!

Melissa and Ian

Like a Rock

Hi Friends!

Dont worry we haven't forgotten about you :) We've actually been quite busy with work and a few other things lately and have to deal with some unfortunate family things this week, but we'll be back next week sharing some projects and "How To's" with you all :)

I wanted to show you how far we've come with our patio beside our deck. Ian worked many many hours on this, and Im happy to say its finally done!

Let me remind you of the before:

and after many hours of carrying INSANELY heavy rocks back and forth from the car to the backyard, hours of cutting and levelling and and only a few injuries, here's the after:

Ya, can you see Ian poking out beside the house on the left? Oh wait, I'm sorry, you're probably focused on the MASSIVE DUST CLOUD that filled our backyard while Ian cut the rocks/stones. Even his eyelashes were white.

However, it looks pretty good doesn't it? :)

I love the side-by-side comparison:

So its much cleaner, the space is much more usable and once the deck and shed are stained/painted it will allllll match. Finally :D Im excited for that. We'll be posting on the process we went through to get to the final patio reveal, next week.

p.s LOVED reading all of your comments on our last post....TGIF really WAS the best, wasn't it!?  :)

The jungle has been TAMED

Happy Friday Everyone! I hope you all have great plans for the weekend. Lets be honest, who doesn't live for weekends during the summer?! We're still spending our weekends working away on our backyard jungle, however some spaces look more like a desert now... Its odd to think we went from this madness:

 

To this vast open space:

The ground has actually all been levelled and our next step is to lay patio stones. Ian also sealed up the side of the deck and included a little door in order to access underneath. You know, for when we need to play hide and go seek. Seriously though, it allows us to store wood and other things under there.

So much better:

Melissa and Ian-  1, Jungle - 0.

However, our taming was not complete. We also had the sides of the house to contend with.  Remember this?

Yikes. This was not the only jungle let me remind you. We have many. I mean can you IMAGINE what was living in our backyard? Well, let me tell you. Multiple bunny families, the usual chipmunks and squirrels, the odd raccoon and a family of turkeys. Heck, I wouldn't blame them. Who would ever find you in THAT? That, plus all of the other former jungle options in our backyard for homes. Its like a freaking palace back here. They even have a pool to bathe in. If I was an animal I'd live here. Well, not anymore...now they can all live under the deck- they pretty much have their own door in and out of it now :S

So we cleaned up the other jungles, working on one at a time...we needed to pace ourselves with this! We started with the biggest one by first clearing it out:

Then we removed all the weeds, and raked the dirt to break it up and level it out. We then moved a FEW plants (hostas since they require minimal maintenance and look nice) that we had in other gardens and  actually wanted to keep, over to this garden and mulched around them:

We wanted to make the gardens smaller and more manageable so we laid sod. The dry, dry sod. Just a tip when you are laying sod. Its best if you can do it at night or when the sun isn't as strong. Make sure you water the ground BEFORE you lay the sod down, and I also like to water the bottom of each piece of sod before laying it. Lay your sod, and then water generously. You should water it every day (unless it rains) to ensure that its getting the water it needs to root itself into the ground. Also, if you are planning on laying a lot of sod in a large area, make sure to stagger the pieces. Sound as if I know a lot about sod? Well Ian taught me all I know- he actully laid sod for a summer job once and said it was the worst job ever. However, I thought it had its perks: not only do we know ALL about sod now, but Ian was super muscular and tanned all summer because of it, so I personally thought it was an excellent work experience ;)

Anyho, here's the sod after about a week. We watered it every day. Notice how green the new sod is? Ya, thats because its been somewhat dry here this summer so we hadn't been doing the best job at watering all of the other lawn. Our bad.

We did the same to the other gardens behind this one, they just need to be finished off with some mulch:

We're actually going to have a privacy screen installed on this side of the deck to block our lovely neighbours from listening to our late night Settlers tournaments and to spare them from seeing us in bathings suits on tanning days...

So now that we've got the gardens mainly cleared out, we'll begin to plant in the next few months.

This backyard has pretty much consumed us, but its definitely coming together.

Have any of you been working on your yards? What flowers would you plant in a garden?



Backyard renovations

Our backyard needed a makeover. Not a simple makeover involving paint and decor and curtains- a complete overhaul. Our goal is eventually be able to sit and enjoy our space...a peaceful space like this beautiful backyard by Centsational Girl:





But we're not there quite yet.

Here's a sneak peak at what we've been up to with this backyard:

It might not look like much from that photo, but we actually had to rip out the entire deck and start fresh. Our original goal, was to make the backyard into a big square (instead of the odd shape it was before), so we could add a railing around the deck (which would help in the future for safety issues with the pool). So adding a railing around the deck was our way to solve the safety issue.

We initially thought we could just replace some of the boards on the deck (the longer and shorter ones) and just fill them in with new boards cut to the right size, forming a square. Then we would pressure wash the deck and paint it all over next year. Not so simple. The new boards are full of moisture and wider than the old boards, so they didn't fit into the spaces, and we ended up with this:




Hmmmm. We weren't liking the patchy effect and we couldn't fit the new boards in those open spaces. So we ripped it all out and started fresh.
After a week of hard work, lots of help from family (you rock dad!) and friends, our deck is coming along nicely:





I have to be honest...this deck hasn't exactly been a project I can claim credit for. This was one for the boys. However, I've been a busy little bee inside the house working away on my own projects...more to come with those later.

For now, I'm going to go enjoy a lemonade on my deck boards :)

Happy Canada Day Everyone!

Patio Lanterns

Yea Spring!!! We finally had some FABULOUS and I mean FABULOUS weather this past weekend :) It honestly felt like 30 degree's out! Im sure it was only about 14 or so, but with the amount of snow and cold weather we have had this year, we'll take anything above 10 degrees to be summer-like!

And with the spring weather we are getting just that much closer to SUMMER and patio weather!! Yippee!!!

We recently purchased some new patio/dining furniture for our deck (got a pretty great deal on it at Home Sense) and are pretty excited about it.

Here is our inspiration (and a sneak patio at what our furniture looks like!):

Im also on the look-out for some other key essentials:

YEA for Spring!!