Good morning! Backyard Brian here.

Some of you have been following the posts that Victoria has been sharing on the renovation of our own house here on Walnut Avenue in Waynesboro. We’re really excited to have the ability to renovate this old place and are currently focused on the interior remodeling so that we can move in soon. However, I wanted to take a few minutes to show you all the backyard and expand on some of our ideas for the renovation of this outside space in the future. This is one of the things we really like about this house. The backyard is one of the main reasons we chose to purchase this place.

As you can see, this is a pretty old, classic home on the side here. It’s got a great, full, wrap-around front porch. Here in the back, we have a second-story balcony porch that we’re really excited about. It’s a great space up there. We have a deck on this side, so we have brought our table over.  We also have a swimming pool! This was not something we were intentionally looking for, but with teenagers in the house and lots of extended family, we are really excited about having the opportunity to host fun, outdoor gatherings. This is one of my favorite places in the backyard.

One slight, problematic thing I’ve observed about this existing setup is the deck right here; our main gathering area. There’s a rail between it and the pool, which means that you have to go down these steps and through the gate to get into the pool area. We’re planning to change that since most people will gather on this deck. Changing this will enable people in the pool to go back and forth easily. Our goal is to add another deck light level here to bridge the elevation difference between the pool and this upper deck to create easier access to the pool.

We also have a gate over there for security on the pool, which can be closed to create a better space here. The pool deck is concrete right now and a bit cracked. We’re planning to lay Travertine over the top of this concrete surface. Travertine is fantastic for swimming pool decks because, unlike a lot of stones, when it gets wet it increases the traction rather than becoming slick. It stays cool underfoot and looks great. We plan to also remove this scraggly tree and fill in some of these beds with hardsapes instead of mulch so as to prevent tracking into the pool. The pool has just been opened, and we got the pump and filter running to continue clearing the water up. We also plan to extend the hardscape around the pool so that there is more space for people to gather and hang out. Our extended family lives close (and there are lots of them) as well as many of our friends, and they are all excited to hang out here at the pool.

Beside the pool over here, we have a garage, which was an unexpected blessing. We weren’t planning on/looking for a detached, but it was a bonus. Once again, this fence will be removed to create more open space around the pool. Since we’ve got the security of the larger fence on the outside, there’s no real need for this fence here.

Another long-term dream we’ve talked about is to build a covering for this deck – possibly a rooftop sundeck – which will create shade down below. So, maybe a two-story, deck addition down the back that would tie into the garage and create a little more space inside the house. Those are a few things we’ve considered and look forward to implementing.

This second-story porch is really nice as it provides a great space to relax in the shade and overlook the pool. We’ll share progress as we go, but this is the beginnings of it all.

Everyone have a great week!

We will talk to you later, bye.