project backyard Archives - Storefront Life

Pergola Progress

Not quite sure where this week went. Last time I checked it was somewhere around Tuesday, and then BAM! Friday!

Hey, I’m not complaining, but I sure do wish I got more accomplished around the house this week.

Here is what we’ve been up to.

The pergola started creeping off paper and into fruition. We made a stop at our local lumber yard and picked up all the wood, including the 12′ pieces. Thanks again goes to El Granto’s Mum and Dad for the car loan.

After some demolition of the current deck’s fence/top posts, a big shout out goes to the previous owner for stripping Every. Single. Screw he used to assemble the deck. Really awesome work… A sawzall with a nail cutter blade later, and a pry bar, and we were rid of them, busted screws and all.

With demo complete, we started building anew.

The new posts were measured, kerfed (to go around the ledger on the wall), and up they went.

Then the front and side beams followed suit.

This was a bit of a scary ladder moment (14′ drop to our new concrete walkway with hands above head holding a 2x6x12), but El Granto took over for me, and got it done.

Decent progress, but still a ways to go. We have to add the cross beams, which overlap each other, so some careful math and half lap joints are in our future. Then we have to add some more fence boards. This kinda sucks. As our new pressure treated lumber is greener than a 19 year old after St. Paddy’s Day and our current fence/privacy screen has faded nicely. I know you’re going to lay into me about staining the deck. That is a ton of upkeep, and I’d like to ride the bare wood train as long as we can. I bought some Cabot deck wash, so here’s hoping I can brighten up the old bits a little, and that those new PT boards will fade quickly.

Back to the pergola. Our plan for the is to have a large open pergola like our inspiration:

This means not a lot of cross beams for shade, but what it does mean is that we are adding a fabric shade canopy.

We selected a Sunbrella sheer outdoor fabric for the canopy, Shadow Snow. It will filter out the harsh sunlight, but not block it completely. The last thing we wanted to do is remove all the beautiful natural light from our bedroom. The canopy will be loosely draped over the frame, and removable for winter. (Thinking corner grommets and hooks on the top of the pergola.)

Speaking of fabric. Our whole Sunbrella order arrived this week, and I’m super stoked.

Looks like I’ve got a hell of a lot of sewing to do! Anyone want to come help? I’ve got two machines! That or I teach El Granto. I think that’s a damn good idea actually! He’s a great hand sewer. He’s the king of sewing motorcycle patches to his denim jacket and vest. No, not the gang variety. We’re friendly neighbourhood bikers, not Sons of Anarchy bikers.

Where was I? Busying myself with projects apparently. Looks like we’re going to have another full weekend.

P.S. It was my birthday yesterday, and my awesome husband baked me a gluten free cake. The dog was a bit jealous, but man was it good. Best. Husband. Ever.

Have a great weekend, and follow us on Instagram to see what we get up to!

Sore Muscles & Dirt

The pathway & lawn are done. I may have killed El Granto in the process, but they’re done.

No really, El Granto is a wreck. I think the sheer amount of sunlight, heat & heavy lifting was too much for the poor Englishman. He’s got a bit of heat exhaustion, and is spending the day in the a/c topping up his fluids. I feel like a bit of a jerk, cause my girly muscles couldn’t really help him as much as I would have liked.

Here is what we accomplished, although it doesn’t look like much, it was an absolute ton of work.

Recap from last weekends progress: We took up the path, laid down new rock bedding, and re-laid the pathway, this time with the concrete pavers upside down.

Now, here’s what we did this weekend:

We rented a rototiller, and tilled the whole lawn. Yep, the whole thing, even where we had bits of grass growing. We wanted a fresh clean start, and to get our really packed down lawn a loosening up, and re-grading.

El Granto rockin the rotatiller — El Granto rockin the rototiller

While we were tilling, we ran into a few ~~bumps~~ err rocks. As I started to dig further to get the rocks out, we realized the back half of the lawn was filled with rubble, and then topped with a tiny bit of topsoil. We’re not talking a few stones, we’re talking a bunch of whole bricks, chunks of concrete and other junk. We dug them all out, and bagged them up. They will go out with our trash in our Bagster in the next week or so.

After we tilled and removed the junk, we dug out a trough beside the pathway.

We edged it with plastic edging, and lined it with landscaping fabric.

Trough & edging — We used 4 1/2″ wood blocks as spacers to try to get the edging laid evenly. That plastic edging however does not like to lay straight.

We then filled the trough with large river rock. This will not only be good for drainage, but it also gives a nice custom look to the otherwise cheapo concrete path. Like putting lipstick on a pig. You know its still a pig, but at least you’ve got something else to look at.

Trip to the garden center for 13 bags of large river rock. All told we have 25 bags of rock under and beside the path. Wowza.

After the rocks were laid, we raked and re-graded the lawn, and seeded it. We used a combination of sun/shade grass seed and white clover, and used an old EZ seed container we had laying around to distribute the seed.

Seeding Lawn — Seeding the Lawn (and looking awkward.)

After we seeded, we raked over the lawn, and have been watering perpetually ever since. It isn’t ideal to seed in July, but we will try our hardest to make this grass & clover grow! For the next couple weeks, Odin is blocked from the yard, and we will have to do walks for all his dog needs. Hopefully this will actually give the lawn a shot to get going!

A full reveal is a few weeks away. We’ve gotta turn this dirt patch into a lawn. You can follow along on grass watch 2014 on Instagram. Cause you know, watching grass grow is super interesting. We know how to party round here!

We also got started on our deck pergola. An update will come on that later this week!

Excuse me while I go mow down on copious amounts of ibuprofen.

Bring It, Weekend!

I am counting down the minutes to the weekend. This one is going to be EPIC.

We have El Granto’s Mum’s SUV and a very long to-do list. When I say very long, I really mean it. We’ve started tracking our home to-do list, broken down into tasks on a project manager website called Trello. Our Backyard & Balcony lists are almost off the page. It gives me anxiety just looking at them.

However, we are making some progress! (even above and beyond our progress here.) We made all our outdoor fabric choices, and I ordered all the Sunbrella fabric for the whole backyard. We’re talking new curtains, a daybed cover etc. As soon as the fabric arrives, we can get started sewing. Little secret… sewing was the first DIY I ever learned, and I almost went to school in Halifax for textiles. However, since we moved to the Storefront, I haven’t gotten a sewing machine out ONCE. Literally, I have not sewn a single thing in over three years. I hope I’m not too rusty, and I still remember how to make cording, and how to sew a zipper panel.

Here is what our weekend plans are:

Till backyard, and plant grass & clover seed.

Finish pathway.

Dig garden beds, edge and plant.

Buy lumber for deck pergola.

Build pergola.

Buy & install new exterior lights.

Install new door hardware.

Paint Doors.

Wash deck.

Finish this little outdoor side table project I started this week.

Bonus Project: We got a Bagster! This means we also hope to clear out all the reno debris and junk in the garage. [yeah, we still have reno debris from our kitchen reno, yikes!] We cant wait to get rid of all that junk.

Once the debris is out of the garage, El Granto can get to building a new work bench, and we can get permanent homes for some new tools we acquired over the winter (and we even added a few more new ones this past week.)

What have you got planned for the weekend? Wanna come over and lend us some muscle?

Backyard Progress Report

While I don’t yet have a stunning after shot of the backyard, we are making some progress!

Here’s what we’ve been up to the last few weeks:

We painted the back of the Storefront. This was a bigger task than you’d think, after scraping, caulking, priming, and two coats of paint, only painting in mornings so there would be no direct sun on the paint, it took a whole long while! Glad to have this one done.

We almost choose a door paint color, but then decided to get sample fabrics, and decide on all the colors at once. We will be making new outdoor drapes (this time out of real outdoor fabric instead of drop cloths.) We will also be making a nice permanent cover for our outdoor daybed, again using the super durable and water repellent fabrics from Sunbrella.

We borrowed Grant’s Mum’s car, and loaded it up with HPB (High Performance Bedding), a cool rock product that is the perfect bedding for pavers, and requires no sand or compacting. We purchased 12 cubic foot bags of it from the super nice & helpful guys at Van Beek’s Garden Supplies and lugged it home and into the yard.

We then pulled up the old 30″ x 24″ pavers (man they we’re heavy!), laid down the rock, screeded, and laid the pavers back down. We really wish we had the budget for new pavers, but the most important part of this job was to fix the drainage problems.

We did have one ace in our sleeve however. We flipped over the paving stones, so instead of having a fugly textured concrete pattern, they are now just plain concrete. A lot more industrial looking, and surprisingly a big transformation. I’m not going to spoil the after yet, so you will have to wait a bit longer to see what they look like. The most important thing however is we had a huge rain storm last night, and there was ZERO lake in the backyard! No dirt on the path, and no puddles! Big win for the Storefront.

As much progress as we’ve made, we still have a lot to do. Whats left on our list?

TO DO:

Till up the grass, create and edge garden bed by the ivy, top dress lawn, and seed with clover and grass.
Get & install new exterior lights. I have my eye on these.
Get fabric, and sew new outdoor drapes.
Sew cover for outdoor daybed.
Make 2 new outdoor side tables.
Paint doors.
Add some more flowers & landscaping.
Replace door knobs.

ANNNNNND we found another project to add to the list. A few weeks ago we were out at a rooftop patio downtown, and they had this draped pergola shade structure.

How perfect would that be on our upstairs deck? Yep! Add another project to the list.

Build badass shade pergola.

So what did you get up to on the weekend? Any backyard projects?

Backyard Snowball Effect

It started.

The project snowball effect is rolling into our backyard.

What started as some flaking paint, and a patch of grassless yard has now turned into a full on backyard makeover.

Continue reading “Backyard Snowball Effect”

Project Backyard

For an urban backyard in downtown Toronto, our yard isn’t bad. We have a detached garage, main and second floor deck, and a 12′ x 26′ stretch of grass and garden.

Continue reading “Project Backyard”