BBQ AreaGetting Ready To Grill?

I am aware that I am suddenly swinging everyone outside on our house renovation journey.  But strangely enough, it looks like we are inching closer to finishing this space first?  We actually started in this area before we even bought the house because the bank was definitely on a slippery slide to meeting the Weber barbeque!  The small retaining wall that Paul built easily solved that problem.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any true “before” photos, but if you can imagine weeds as big as Christmas trees and a rusty old clothesline then you would be spot on!  Here is a photo of our former cat wandering through the wilderness.

In the end, we decided that the clothesline couldn’t have the best view of Eastbourne so we made the call to move it to a better covered spot.  See what I am talking about…..

Luckily the view distracts us from thinking about how much more work there is still to be done.  When I first looked at this shot I was slightly horrified seeing the state of the back of our house.  To say it mildly this house is definitely more shabby than chic right now.

However, things always seem better with some sun and a new brick wall.

The walls have now been rendered and I can finally see the space taking shape.

Thanks to Paul’s Dad we finished concreting the floor just a couple of weeks ago.

Sheesh I could have done a bit of weeding before I took these two photos! 🙂

All we Paul has to do is frame up the seats, paint the wall and finish off some planting.  Then we are ready to hang some string lights and roll out the margaritas!

Here is what I envisioned for our finished BBQ area:

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 We would like to lay some blue/grey slate tiles above, however I have tried every tile shop in Wellington city for something similar.  We haven’t yet solved this tile problem so if any of my readers have some ideas, I would be extremely grateful.

Cedar panel fencing will go up to cover the ugly retaining wall.  Paul is going to paint the rendered walls in white like below.

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Here is my fantasy outdoor fireplace, but is very unlikely that we can fit this beauty in.  A girl can only dream sometimes sighs….

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I will be purchasing some vintage rope lighting like below.

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We can’t wait for our next Kiwi summer so we can really celebrate one finished area with friends and family.  And boy are we going to celebrate!!