The Other Side – one of two backyards: Part 1

We moved into our current house a little more than seven years ago.  It was a new build.  While in the building process, we made a number of changes to the original plan.  One of the changes we made was to have the builder finish the basement and add big windows for as much light as possible.  This change, in turn, necessitated a “re-alignment” of the house on the lot, because of some city bylaw (I don’t remember the details exactly).  Whereas before we would have ended up with the standard four feet of space to the property line all along the one side of the house, the re-alignment left us with a V-shaped space instead that was 4 feet at its narrowest and about 13 feet at its widest.  It was good for storage, I guess, but I could easily see it becoming overgrown with weeds if left unattended and it was wasted space in my mind.  Plus, I didn’t have a space for outdoor dining – something that I really missed from our previous house.  This is what it looked like in the beginning.  The poor dining table looks so forlorn…

So into our third summer in the house (2015), I asked our resident carpenter (oldest son) if it was possible to build a deck at the widest end of the “V” that would be big enough for a gazebo.  With many measurements taken, oldest son thought it possible, though he warned that the space was not square.

With the possible yes in mind, I promptly went shopping for a gazebo.

I knew I was going to use the space one way or another, and had already shopped for flowers and colorful chairs.

Oldest son worked hard in the midst of summer heat.  Progress was being made.

Finally, it was done.

Looks fine right?  You can’t even tell that its not square once the gazebo is on it.

And the dining table and chairs now have a home!

For the rest of the space, we bought a small fire pit and placed the chairs around it, and arranged various potted plants and planters.

I brought a hall table from inside for some serving storage, and found a great picture for the space – even though it was too big for above the hall table.

Here is Sam “snoopervising”.

Still looks a little sparse though, but we were nearing the end of August by now, so we figured we were done for the summer.

Or so we thought.  Turns out Mother Nature had a little surprise for us…

It was later in the fall at this point, and the day after Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving day had been unseasonably warm and very windy as I recall.  There was a knock on our door the next morning from a neighbour asking us if we knew our gazebo was in the back alley.  Yikes!

Damaged beyond repair, unfortunately, as the frame was bent.  At least nobody was hurt and no other property was damaged.  Phew.

So sad, but that was our ignoble end to summer/fall 2015.

I didn’t really want to break this post into two parts, but I thought it would have been too long otherwise.  I hope you will come back for Part 2 next week where I show how the space looks today.

Thanks for visiting.

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