The back garden renovation of our townhouse took place over two years.
There were two parts to this renovation – first we tackled the patio and after that, the garden.
The wooden structure of the patio had been painted purple and the roof was made of shade cloth. So certainly not weather proof. The garden was really overgrown with weeds and there was a lot of shade which would make growing most things tricky.
This is what the back garden and patio looked like when we bought the townhouse.
This is what the back garden and patio looked like when we sold the townhouse.
The journey in pictures
The patio
The first thing we did was to change the colour of the wooden structure from purple to white. We used a high gloss white enamel paint from Dulux. The townhouse was part of a strata complex and we had to obtain council of owners permission to make all these changes. That was more challenging that the reno! Anyway with all our permissions in order, we changed the colour, removed the shade cloth and set about installing a roof over the existing structure.
This picture was taken after we had moved in but before we made any changes.
We chose a clear polycarbonate roof sheeting from Bunnings. It was always our plan to install a ceiling of some sort on the underside of the roof for a couple of reasons. One, it would look so much nicer and two, provide shade in the hot Perth summers.
The Skilled one of the team had to do a lot of cutting for the ceiling boards as they didnt fit exactly between the trusses. We finished it off with quadrant along each truss.
We had moved the washing line from the left side of the back garden to the right. However, we still wanted to screen it from the sitting area. To do that we decided to re-purpose the shutters we had taken down from the lounge window. They would make a prefect screen.
We used stainless steel hook and eye turnbuckles at the top and bottom of each shutter. This ensured that the screens were fixed and did not move in the wind or when bumped. I painted the screens with Annie Sloan French Linen chalk paint.
There were shutters on the kitchen window, which we removed and we used them as doors on a small cupboard to hide the hot water system. They can be seen behind the table in this photo. The large shutters on the left in this photo came from the bedroom and dining room. I also hung mirrors on the colourbond fence between the shutters, jus to blurr the boundry and not make it so defined.
The garden
When it came time to do the garden, we dug out all the weeds and tried to level the ground as best we could.
Initially, the lawn grew quite well. However, the shade from the trees eventually caused it to struggle. So we had to come up with another plan. We decided to remove the lawn from under the trees and create a pot garden. The idea of a pot garden appealed because they give instant height and the tree roots would make it difficult for plants to grow.
We hung some mirrors from IKEA on the back fence to soften the boundary.
To add interest, we dotted a few cheap lanterns from IKEA amongst the pots, mirrors and shutters.
So, there you have it. That’s the view of the finished garden from the patio.
I hope you enjoyed looking through our garden renovation. If you would like to see some other transformations of our Claremont town house please just click on the link. We have renovations from other houses here as well.