New Windows
When we renovated our first and second floors, we talked about replacing our windows but decided we didn’t want to spend the money. Windows are expensive and not as exciting…
Backyard Renovation Final Reveal
We moved into our house 10 years ago, and our backyard and garage have mostly been unusable. The previous owner had large dogs and put gravel down in the backyard,…
Backyard Renovation: Walkway and Pavers (Phase 5)
Our backyard was not going according to plan and all of my original timelines were thrown out the window thanks to delays from our contractor. We expected the garage to…
Backyard Renovations: Final Touches
Our backyard renovation was so painful, right from the start. Thanks to a terrible contractor, everything was really delayed and I ended up doing a lot of it in pieces,…
Backyard Renovation: Garage Canopy + Deck (Phase 4)
Since our garage is at the back of our property and faces the house, we wanted the garage to mimic the back of the house with a door, window and…
Backyard Renovation: New Garage (Phase 2)
Our existing garage has been in bad shape for many years now. Wood rot and a collapsing roof has made the garage completely unusable. And with some property line issues…
Backyard Swing
When I was looking for backyard inspiration, I really loved the look of cedar post archways, especially contrasting against a black fence. I then saw a few examples where these…
Backyard Renovation: Floating Deck (Phase 6)
Phase 6 was supposed to be the final step in our backyard renovation plan. Our garage was supposed to be done in early May and I’d have all summer to…
Planter Box Revisited
Two years ago, I built a planter box for our backyard out of pressure treated 2x10s and some leftover cedar from our deck. Over the years, a combination of sun…
Backyard Renovation: South Fence (Phase 3)
With all of our garage drama, I pushed the neighbour to have the south fence posts installed earlier than we originally planned. The original plan was to install the fence…
Backyard Renovation: North Fence and Gate (Phase 1)
Once we had our backyard design locked down, I started to plan how the work would be done over the summer. Knowing that I would be doing much of the…
Backyard Renovation: Design
Our backyard fence was probably installed 25 to 30 years ago. The wood is weathered, the posts are loose and it doesn’t follow the property line. Our backyard has basically…
Deck Refresh
During our kitchen renovation in 2019, we also built a new deck off the back of the house. Our contractor built the structure, but I then spent many weekends with…
Building a Planter Box
Little by little, we’ve been trying to make our backyard a bit nicer. While perusing the internet at all hours of the night, I came across a really nice planter…
Building a New Deck
When we started out kitchen renovation project, we knew that we’d have to replace our deck at some point but planned to push it off until next summer. Unfortunately the…
Front Door Face-Lift
I’m going to sound like a broken record here, but we’ve spent so much time on the inside of our house that we’ve really failed to care much about the…
Backyard Upgrade
Our backyard has never been great. When we first moved in, it was a clean but unattractive gravel pit. The previous owner had 2 large dogs, so having grass never…
Grey Thumb
We’ve so busy trying to get the inside of our house done that the outside of our house looks pretty sad. We’ve also been using this excuse for a good…
Black Thumb
Improvements inside the house aren’t going so well, so I decided to venture outside and see what I could do about our front lawn situation. There were a lot of…