So it may have taken me a year (if not longer) to get round to, but good things take time right guys?
The final phase in our reno was completed over 2 long years. Lots of blood, sweat and tears went into it but it was worth EVERY SINGLE sacrifice we made to achieve it.
Our outdoor reno was the final part in our plan to give our home the makeover it deserved and make a space that flowed effortlessly from the inside out, creating the perfect entertaining atmosphere with spaces for the kids to run and play, come rain or shine.
I had a vision from the moment we came and viewed the house at the open home and we have managed to turn that vision into our reality.
It is a project that I am so incredibly proud of.
My blog started as a place to document our renovation progress, a place to look back and see how far we have come – This post is pretty much the final piece to that puzzle!
It began with lots of sketches and scribbles, which turned into LOTS AND LOTS OF PLANNING! Who knew there were so many nuts and screws and bolts and posts needed to throw together a deck. Don’t even get me started on the roof…taking into consideration uplifting winds and ways to get larger spans so we didn’t end up with posts in the middle of the deck. This was an essential step as obviously we needed to build something that wasn’t going to fall over, but we also had to crunch all the numbers.
Before we could even think about starting I needed to go over our finances. Now that we had a plan of attack and I knew what materials we would be needing I was able to cost up every post, nail, screw and piece of timber to ensure that by embarking on this project we wouldn’t be overcapitalising on our property… basically we just needed to work out whether we could afford to create our dream or not. With all of the work that we have done on our home over the years we have utilised our equity to borrow more on our mortgage to cover the costs of the renovations. It has been a great way to transform our home as it means we can use our savings to go on holidays whilst still being able to invest more into our property to transform it into the home we imagined.
Step one was demo! Ry’s favourite part. We had to rip down the existing structure and get ready for the digger to come in and open up the space. The area needed to be dug out, levelled and prepped for the retaining wall.
The retaining wall was whipped up followed by prepping all the holes and posts for the deck as well as the roof. We also had to prep the base for the fireplace.
We spent our summer holidays doing this first phase of our outdoor reno, all day and into the night, every single day. We spent New Year’s Eve sitting on some deck posts, eating Burger Fuel in the last rays of sunshine and then had an early night after being beyond exhausted from the days work. I meant it when I said we poured everything we had into this project.
We finished off the deck mid January 2017 just in time to use it for some special celebrations we were hosting including the kid’s birthday parties. We still had the fireplace and the roof to complete but we also needed a break, the boys were headed back to work and we had a busy few months ahead of weddings and celebrations most weekends so we decided to press pause on work and have some fun for a while.
We kicked off again in April to get started on finishing off the roof and fireplace before winter kicked in. We worked every weekend to get it done for the next few months.
When it comes to renovating we have found that once the momentum wears off it’s hard to finish off those last finishing touches and you just live with them and they become your normal…we actually only just built the stairs off the side of the deck towards the playhouse a few weeks ago…2 years after the deck was finished! Like I said once that momentum wears off!
I am still utterly in love with our outdoor area. It is even better than I envisioned it to be and has created such an incredible lifestyle of living in our humble abode. Working so hard on it ourselves and seeing how far we have come makes us appreciate it all that much more. I am beyond proud of what we have achieved …people say we are lucky, but it has nothing to do with luck. It has been lots of hard work and sacrifices with a vision and goal we aimed to achieve.
THIS IS OUR HOME…and we created this magical space!
Thank you so much for reading and following along on our journey.
I have partnered with BNZ and this is a paid partnership. BNZ did however not pay for any of the renovations. We have been banking with BNZ since we bought our house nearly 8 years ago, but my working relationship began with BNZ after we renovated our home. BNZ home loans are subject to lending criteria (including minimum equity requirements) terms and fees.
Comment
HI can I please ask where your outdoor table and chairs are from? What a beautiful area you guys created 😁