LANDSCAPE CHRONICLES || urban backyard makeover

The time has finally come, yes I know you've all been waiting with bated breath - well hopefully at least some of you have!? The BIG backyard reveal!!!

I'll give you one last look at the bland before pic...

If you head back over here, this is where I ranted about my industrial glamour vision for our urban yard reno.  I think we managed to execute the essence of the vision BUT... the backyard ended up having more of a mid-century modern flava, still glam, less industrial.  Either way we LOVE! 

Drum roll please......

WHA BAM! Squealing with JOY! I didn't dare step foot outside last summer, now I can't stay away.

LANDSCAPE CHRONICLES || modern backyard patio project

Ever dream of an urban oasis that’s a little bit boutique hotel and a lot bit relaxing and lush?   Well...that’s all I can think about these days and now we're one step closer; we have a patio!  The backyard patio project has turned out to be one of the easiest and best experiences we’ve had since owning this house.  The decision on what material to use, the layout and how much grass to leave, was much more painful (as per usual with us) than the actual execution. Here’s how it all went down…

Parkview Building Supplies, whom I’ve mentioned before - pure awesomeness they are – plunked down in our front yard 6 humungo bags of crushed aggregate and concrete sand, one 4 yard bin and the 24x36” ivory limestone pavers we picked out.

The landscapers showed up with shovel in hand and were enthusiastic in their digging efforts; they excavated 8 inches.

From what I could see, as I spied from the bedroom window, they used the crushed aggregate to build the base and topped with concrete sand for the stone to rest on; you have to create a foundation that won’t shift once the stones have been laid in place, so they tell me :) . They leveled it off, with a slight slope to allow for drainage, not visible to the eye. 

Once it was all flush they began to lay the stone. You know how fast the roadrunner moves, meep, meep? Well they moved faster; 3 guys for 2 days and they were done, quickest installation ever! AND as a bonus they offered to lay the sod for us and they prepped the garden beds using triple mix, amaze!

Alas…she is everything I ever imagined, a perfectly symmetrical, mid-century modern dream.  It’s one of those projects that gives you a pit in your stomach, it’s so permanent and so expensive that no matter how it turns out you have to live with.  We couldn’t be happier with the result. It feels like it’s been there all along and it’s beyond exciting to finally have that extra space to lounge and entertain in. Now, let the fun begin, furniture placement, styling and accessorizing woohoo!

Apologies, not the most glam pic, shot through the screen of the second floor window (where I spied from)

LANDSCAPE CHRONICLES || pretty progress report

What an unbelievably gloomy day here in the Big Smoke, my Hunter boots are getting a real workout!  On the sunny side, there’s been some progress with the backyard reno, so I thought I’d share a few quick tidbits to get you up to speed.

Starting with the juiciest nugget first, we bought a fire pit! A legit, marvellously modern, glorious bowl o’ flames to stare endlessly at whilst listening to the heartbreaking sounds of the baby racoons squeal and the constant rumble of the streetcar passing by, aaaahhhh city life.

Here’s the dream. I so desperately wanted this pit, I love the light gray colour, obvi, and the mod river rock. Canadian made (Paloform) which is cool, but too freakin’ expensive.

And this is the reality. I still love, just not the exact look I was going for, but for $2000 less than its superior counterpart, we opted for this pretty Restoration Hardware model with lava rocks.  It's propane fueled, so it does have a cord that comes out of the side and knobs to adjust flame height (which they don't show in this lovely photo, grrrr). The propane has proven to be excellent, we get approximately 10 hours of burn time per 20 lb tank. 

She glows like a bride on her wedding day and I have to admit it’s kinda starting to feel like a hip boutique hotel back there.

DIY || modernizing porch lattice

As I’ve previously complained about, our house has a negative rating in the curb appeal department (keep in mind we bought a flip so at least most items were “updated”: front door, windows, new porch ya, ya, ya…).  On the list of outdoor uglies, was the white plastic lattice underneath the front porch. As a quick fix last summer (I’m embarrassed to even admit) we spray painted it in hopes that it would blend with the deck, knowing we would be ripping the sucker out this summer.

Hallelujah, praise the design gods, the time has come; we just did a super fab DIY and replaced it all! We decided to add 1.5” wide horizontal slats to create a more modern look. Here’s how we did it:

       

- Nail gun

- Circular saw

- Table saw

- Drill

- Screws

- Medium sandpaper

- PL glue

- 1"x6' maple wood planks

Out with the old; we tore off the existing lattice – which took all of 2 secs and measured out the distance across the porch (Note: there was an existing frame the plastic lattice was attached to so we just used that, if you don’t have one it’s easy to create).

Before

Next, cutting down to size; hubby and my bro used the table saw to cut the wood into 1.5” strips

Then, the sanding; really easy, doesn’t have to be perfect, just use a medium grain sandpaper and do a quick once over of all sides

Installation; this was also pretty simple (coming from the person who “supervised” and sunbathed the entire time :) ); the boys added two support strips of wood vertically down the centre of our existing frame to prevent the slats from warping in the centre. They also made  a 1” inch thick spacer, which allowed them to maintain the exact distance between each board every time.

They held the spacer against the underside edge of the top portion of the frame, they butted the first strip of wood up against the bottom of the spacer and using the nail gun put nails into the wood at each support beam (far left, centre and far right).  They repeated this step all the way down.

And…voila, bye bye sad sissy slats, hello sleek lined lady. I LOVE!  The finishing touch will be the paint.

After

Time: 5hrs (two people)

Cost: $75 (my brother had all of the tools)

Difficulty Level:  7/10 (for peeps who know at least a little something about power tools)

LANDSCAPE CHRONICLES || backyard design scheme

Glorious, glorious, what a wonderful sunny day; seems like the most appropriate time to post our final design for the backyard reno.  Actually, we are pretty lucky, right now the yard is a blank slate and there aren't any major quirks; the only thing that’s staying is the deck which was here when we moved in, but everything else is being primped and polished.  

Main objective for this petite space = create two  functional areas for entertaining, one for  dining and one for lounging.  Since the lawn has been such a nightmare (can't get it to grow) we decided to simply cover the beast with a natural stone patio, problem solved,  this will be the lounge area. This means the dining area will be up top on the walk-out deck (I’m kind of cursing this decision now since I’m having a biatch of time finding a table to fit). 

Here’s a pic from last year before we moved in, didn’t I tell you, total mud pit!  

I’m sooo looking forward to having a sexy space where we can entertain, have a glass of wine or toast marshmallows over the fire pit, can you imagine?  I’m also uber excited to have a real garden, funny as this may seems since I’m a major hazard to the plant world; thankfully hubby spent his summers landscaping during high school. 

I'll leave you with a few pics that inspired us when creating this design; let's hope the backyard looks even half as fab as any of these outdoor dreams. 

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LANDSCAPE CHRONICLES || industrial glamour inspiration

Talk about beautiful weather, these past few days have been lovely; the sun brings with it both freckles and anticipation of our upcoming landscape overhaul!  Yup, we’re tackling the great outdoors; a full chicification of the backyard and front of the house.  When we moved in last summer we had a mud-pit out back, but coming from a teeny tiny condo we were pumped about any type of greenish/brown space; as for the the front of the house, let me tell you, she’s not a looker.

So, we’ve decided to make it more functional, do some soft and hard landscaping and turn it into something FA-BU-LOUS! What’s on the list (P.S. lists are my life, drives hubby insane): painting the fence, porch and back deck, adding a limestone patio to the backyard, furnishing a lounge and outdoor dining area and planting the gardens with all new foliage.

My fave part of his whole project, creating a vision board of course, I give you  “Industrial Glamour”.  

I completely heart these ghost chairs, but the seats are narrow and they aren’t the most comfy so I didn’t want to commit to them for our dining room, but I’m thinking they might work for outdoor dining? Pairing them with an industrial style sawhorse table will be tres chic.

I'd also love to hang a cool light fixture – the one above from Design Within Reach, is a great mix of industrial and glamour with the brass finish and exposed filament. We’ve already purchased a Cane Line sofa for the lounge area (it has charcoal coloured cushions), it was the floor model and was such a STEAL so I snapped it up.

Our budget for this project is decent, but most of it will go towards labour so I’ll need to get creative with the decor – apparently according to hubby this or this is not in the budget, boooo. We have some DIY projects on the horizon which will help keep the funds in check and allow us to splurge on a natural gas/propane fire pit!

Lots of decisions to make in the next few weeks, time to roll up the sleeves and dig deep into the savings account!