The backstory

This house had me at hello.   Seriously.   The first time I clapped eyes on her from the from the curb, I just knew.   The porch, the garden the curb appeal had me hooked.   In fact, I've spent more time debating a shoe purchase than I did to buy this place.


The Good:  Cute street with neighbourhood vibe and porch culture.   I also loved the layout, which is a classic Toronto urban setup with the living room and  dining room up front; the kitchen in the back. It also had the biggest deck ever.

Upstairs I have two decent sized bedrooms and a finished basement with more room than I need.
The house was also in good shape and in move -in condition with room to improve and add value when budget allowed.

The Bad: The kitchen and upstairs bathroom need updating.   I'm over my claw foot tub!  I  also didn't care for the Tuscan yellow main floor paint.   And  I knew I'd have to replace the old knob and tube wiring and old furnace before my insurance company would even think about insuring the place.


But I'm slowly tackling  projects one at a time, room by room. I have a lot of ideas and a wish list a mile long.   Stay tuned.

In My Garden

You know those annoying folks who spend hours and hours in their garden, staring at plants and weeding, talking to flowers?  Yeah I'm now one of them.   

I have inherited a gardener's garden.  I can't take any credit for it, but people in my hood have walked by to stare at the garden and tell me how pretty it is.  It's not perfectly manicured but more on the crazy English wild side.

Fall Garden 2010

Bleeding Hearts

Tulips

Poppies (nearly yanked these out before they bloomed!)

As my friends know,  I spent years working with Mark Cullen producing his gardening shows for HGTV Canada and his segments on Canada AM.   But I never really had a true  garden of my own to play with until now.  This Spring and summer, I've been trying to bring up all that knowledge I learned about compost, soil acidity and how to keep raccoons from eating everything in site. 

Oh the glorious peonies

So what's the biggest lesson I  have learned so far?   Just because it looks like a weed, do not yank it out!   I already came  close to ripping out all my poppies because of their ugly leaves which looked weed-ish to me.   Ditto for my Daylillies.  I removed quite  a few of these because of ugly foliage mistaken for weeds.


Anyway,  each week something else arrives.  It's like the gift that keeps on giving!

Deck Do over

So it's been a while sine I last updated this blog.  Okay a long, long while.  But that's how it goes.   Life happens.

But the good news is that I've started things up once again and  today's post has to do with what I've done with the back 40 over the past few summers - specifically the deck.  I'd never been all that thrilled with the way my deck looked, probably because it had three different colours of wood making it a bit of an eye sore.

So I eventually decided to do something about it. Fortunately, it's a fairly large space but the finish was basically finished.   Putting aside delusional thoughts that I was going to do it alone, I hired a pro to do the job.  And after going back and forth over the question of paint vs. stain, he introduced me to this amazing product from Behr called DECKOVER.  It's a type of paint that Behr calls an, "innovative solid colour coating".   It also comes in many different colours and textures.

Be warned: watching You Tube product review videos will both encourage you and scare the daylights out of you at the same time.  But even after seeing a few negative experiences,  I decided to go for it anyway.


Step 1:  Power washing

My handyman started things off by giving the whole deck a serious power wash.  It's amazing how getting the dirt off alone made everything look so much better.

Step 2:  Sanding

It took him a good day to get everything sanded down and then he move on to patching holes in preparation for painting.

Step 3:  Ready to roll

  Over the next few days he cut in the corners then rolled the first coat of DECKOVER all over in a deep chocolate colour.  Then, he let it dry for a few days before rolling on the second coat.  It's a big job, especially considering the fact that  I have a have a pergola that has to be painted by brush.

Step 4:  The reveal

  And voila!  The final product.

 I've been very happy with the deck and just how durable DECKOVER has been over the past two   summers and  very cold Toronto winters. Oh and I should add that my south facing deck gets full sun almost the whole day.    This fall I plan to touch a few spots, but overall it's help up amazingly well.  My deck is my favourite room in the house.