Well, that got your attention, didn’t it? Blame my shrunken, shriveled brain, but somehow I have totally neglected to share a big part of our home renovation here on the blog – our new patio and deck, which is about thirty times nicer than what what our once-daggy 70s house had there before. (Those before pics are coming up a little later in this post).
I’ve shared our outdoor entertaining area makeover so much on my social media, but somehow I have totally forgotten to share it on the blog. It has added so much functionality to our house and made it so much nicer to entertain here, and the idea, I have to admit, was all my husband’s. I actually didn’t even want to do a deck here at all! (But when I jumped on board with the idea, I was all systems go).
Having the deck has changed things so much for the better that sometimes I wish we had done it much earlier, but then we wouldn’t have appreciated it so much, I suppose? I love it so much.
It feels like we’ve added another room onto the house – and a very appreciated room at that, now that we’ve gone from just two people living here with a dog to a family of five. (Yes, I count the dog. The neediest dog in the world, who sleeps on our bed every night with her head on the pillow, tucked in as she demands (and deserves. We are merely her disciples).
I love myself a little walk through renovation memory lane, so this is what our backyard/outdoor area looked like when we bought the house, nine years ago. It was a depressing, dark sunroom with disgusting fibreglass roof. Bleh. (Walk with me. We’ll get there. It will be nice at the finish).
I distinctly remember being at the home open, and a woman walking into the sunroom and grimacing. It WAS gross. But meanwhile I was all heart-eyes like, “Oh wow! ANOTHER room!” Genuinely joyous.
It’s funny because when I was house-hunting I had been looking at all these much, much smaller apartments and villas (in more desirable, but more expensive suburbs, such as Leederville and Applecross) and this was the first detached ‘house’ I visited. It was also unfurnished, and even though it’s by no means a big house, and I know it’s not the ‘done thing’ these days to sell a home unfurnished, it felt like it added to its feeling of spaciousness. It felt roomy and full of potential.
So despite its uglier features, like the sunroom, I was genuinely smitten by this seemingly huge house and its bigger block, and all the beautiful trees.
