Reclaimed Muskoka Chairs

While walking to get coffee last week, we found these two chairs put out on the street by one of our neighbours. They were obviously in bad shape, but I thought they were worth salvaging for our backyard.

The main problems with the chairs were that 1) the finish was badly worn, 2) the screws used to assemble the chairs were not suitable for exterior use, and 3) a few pieces of wood were cracked or broken. I basically removed each piece of wood, sanded it roughly with 80 grit sandpaper (just to remove old finish), and then re-installed it with exterior grade screws. I also used longer screws, added additional screws, and/or added additional support in a few places that needed to be strengthened (primarily the arms).

My brother then cut, sanded and routed four replacement pieces out of some spare oak we had lying around. The oak is much harder than the existing wood (pine I believe) and stands out, but it was free and will work fine. To protect the chairs, I then applied some Cabot Clear Cedar stain that we had lying around from when we stained the cedar shingles. Eventually, we will paint both chairs brown or white ... or maybe a more creative colour? For now though, they should be great as a comfortable spot to sit in the back of the yard by the garden.

Oh ya ... and while shopping for hydrangeas last weekend, we saw these EXACT chairs for sale for $220 each. I realize that ours aren't new, but they are very solid now and will look pretty darn new once they are painted. This project cost us about $6 for a box of exterior screws.

More Backyard Photos

I took some more photos of the backyard after the improvements we made during the G20 and Canada Day long weekends. After removing much of the overgrown garden and installing a new lawn, my brother helped me to install some new back steps, a bench seat, and a fence along the driveway. We may still add a small patio at the bottom of the steps, but we want to find the right patio set first. The main goal for this year was to give us a backyard space that our whole family can enjoy (especially baby and dog), and I think we have done that. Next year we will embark on a more ambitious project that will likely include a garage renovation, a new deck and/or patio, and a lot of new fencing.

New Lawn!

We spent the last 2-3 days transforming the backyard from an unusable (pretty much) space full of weeds into a great space for Mackenzie and Owen to play. We did not take many before photos, but previously our backyard was surrounded by a large garden, so our task was to remove 80+% of the garden, and then re-sod the entire backyard. I would estimate that we went from having 750 square feet of garden to about 140 square feet.

Our first task was to re-build the back steps, install the framing for the temporary fence, and move the A/C unit to the side of the sunroom. My brother and Mom then helped me to remove some overgrown bushes at the back of the yard, clear out bags (and bags!) of weeds, transplant dozens (and dozens!) of plants to the new garden areas at the back of the yard. We then tilled the entire yard and installed sod.








I will post more photos once the fence and steps are finished. We still plan to do more work in the backyard, including a deck and/or patio, as well as removal or renovation of the garage, but those things may not come until next summer.

Revised Plan for Backyard

We have decided to hold off on the deck and fence project for now. We are going to re-visit the plans over the next few months and decide how to proceed. We may even keep the existing garage and fix it up a bit ... we'll see.

Given this latest turn of events, we have decided to embark on a small project to fix up our current backyard and make it more enjoyable for the whole family. This will include:
- Installing a temporary fence from the sunroom to the garage, thereby providing a fenced yard for our dog Owen.
- Installing a small pavestone patio (using stones we already have laying around) behind the sunroom.
- Moving the air conditioning unit to the side of the sunroom (we had moved it to behind the sunroom in anticipation of the deck installation).
- Removing 75% of the garden in our backyard; some plants will be transplanted to the front garden, while many will be given away to family/friends.
- Tilling the old garden and weed-infested yard.
- Installing new sod throughout the backyard.

Hopefully it doesn't rain too much over the next week; we need to save that rain for after the sod is installed.

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.

Easy Birdfeeder Project

I found some great plans online and decided this would be a fun project to tackle for a Christmas present for my Mom. The materials required for this project are as follows:

• 1"x6"x6' cedar
• 36" piece of 3/8" dowel
• Finish nails
• 2 screw eyes
• 2 hinges (smaller than the width of the cedar ... I used 1")
• Sheet of plexi-glass (this plan requires two pieces that are about 5"x10" each, but with a minor adjustment to the pitch of the roof, you could get by with one 8"x10" piece cut in half)

The plans have a good cut list, which made this a quick project to complete. The most difficult task was cutting the plexiglass to fit, as I did not have the correct saw blades, so I had to do this by hand.

I pretty much followed the plans, but made a few adjustments.

• Rather than drilling completely through the side pieces to insert the dowel perches, I drilled about 2/3 of the way through. This way the end of the dowel does not show through the side.
• Instead of cutting 1/2" openings in the bottom of the plexi-glass to allow bird seed to flow out onto the floor, I installed 1/2" pieces of wood on each side to support the plexi-glass; this cut down on the amount of glass cutting I needed to do.
• I added the cute little bird onto the roof on the front of the feeder. This was created by ripping a spare piece of cedar in half, and then cutting out the bird with a jigsaw.