Four Weeks to a New Backyard

We are hosting a baby shower on July 11, so this has provided us with additional motivation to get the backyard done ASAP. The backyard has been on our "to do" list for some time, and we wanted to get it done last year, but it just never happened. The baby shower (and some of the beautiful weather we have had this spring) made the backyard jump past the basement in terms of priority, so four weeks from today we hope to have the deck and fence complete.

Provided below are some sketch-ups (this is more for the layout than the design). As you can see, we plan to tear down the garage, but will continue parking one car in the backyard (we will build a shed in the back of the yard at some point). We also plan to have some built-in storage for the garbage and recycling bins underneath the side of the deck. Other than that, it is a pretty simple design where we just tried to make the most of the space.

Here are the numbers with our current plan:
- 153 linear feet of new fencing
- 32 linear feet of railing
- 308 square feet of decking

We still have a lot of planning to do, including some decisions that we may post for our readers:
- The biggest decision we are trying to tackle is what materials to use. We do not want pressure-treated wood for the deck because of the chemicals. Right now we are deciding between either all cedar (i.e. expensive) or a cedar deck/railing and a pressure-treated fence. Composite is also being explored with contractors.
- We still need to confirm some details of the plans with our neighbours.
- We have not yet decided whether to hire contractors or do this ourselves. We are planning for the DIY route while simultaneously getting quotes from four contractors. The first quote we got was outrageous (i.e. 4-5 times the cost of DIY), but the second quote should arrive today and seems like it will be more reasonable. The DIY route will require taking some vacation time from work.