Thank you Sarah for having us – hope you’re off having fun on vacation!  We’re excited to share some fun before and after pictures with you guys!  For those of you we’re just meeting, my sister, Heath, and I blog over at Southland Avenue.  We’ve been working this summer on renovating our existing garage/shed in our (Mary Keller’s) backyard, and finally have after images to share.  (Here’s a quick recap on where we started and progress we made along the way.)

When we first bought our home, the yard was SO tiny and the home’s original garage took over the entire backyard.  We wanted to gain a little more yard and add a pretty fireplace too.  Keep in mind when you see these pictures below, just the garage/shed renovation is complete.  There’s always more work in the backyard to do – fence needs to go up, new gate, landscaping, you know, the list goes on… :)

We’re really so pleased with the end result.  It is such a dramatic improvement.  We seriously almost didn’t buy this house because of the yard, and now I feel like the yard is an extension of the home and will be a selling point.  No, the yard still isn’t huge, but yards around our neighborhood are typically small anyway.  We salvaged all of the old wood from the home’s original garage to use on the renovation.  We wanted the newly renovated shed to still have an authentic, older feel.  We bought two old doors at a local salvage yard and picked up two simple lanterns from Lowe’s.

Next up is a new gate to close off that gap between the shed and the fence in the back.  (The gap used to be taken up by the existing garage.  When we shaved 3′ off of the existing garage, we knew it would leave this gap.)  We’re currently waiting on the patio cushions that we’ve ordered from Cushion Source.  We plan to replace the chain link fence between our house an our neighbors, and then add landscaping and sod in the fall too.  Last step will be to add pavers in front of the fireplace to create a patio look, similar to some of our inspiration pictures here.  Slowly but surely we’re getting there!

Quick question on the fireplace – would you leave the brick as is or paint it white?  Our original plan and our inspiration pics all have a white fireplaces.  We love white brick, but now that the fireplace is up we can’t decide!  Paint it or leave it?  We’d love to hear!

Thanks again for having us Sarah.  We loved sharing this with you guys and hope you’ll join us back over at Southland Avenue!

~Mary Keller

p.s. Our original ideas for furniture and pillows for the patio and our front porch here.  We’ve decided on a look combining looks 2 & 3.  When the cushions arrive in August we’ll share more pics then too.