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Jul 4, 2009

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Words: Kate Griffith  •  Photographs: Joe Filshie
Diagram: Stephen Pollitt • Styling: Karen Duggan

Do up the kitchen | Do up the courtyard | Do up the deck |
Do up the entrance | Do up the living area | Do up the laundry |

Kate gets down and dirty (and a serious work-out!) transforming her boring backyard into a stylish garden retreat.

What started out as a simple garden tidy-up escalated into bigger and better things when we decided to tackle an entire courtyard in order to get some outdoor entertainment elbow-room.

Little did I know that I was about to embark on my first real physical DIY adventure, getting down and dirty with concrete trucks, cursing blisters from shovelling and discovering muscles I never knew I had!

If you don’t mind getting your heart rate pumping and enjoy a bit of good old manual labour, then I recommend taking on your own courtyard makeover DIY-style. Although your back may never be the same – putting your feet up in a cosy courtyard at the end of the day is certainly worth the effort!

Plan of Courtyard | Steps 1, 2, 3, 4 | Steps 5, 6, 7, 8 |
Steps 9, 10, 11, 12 | Steps 13, 14, 15, 16

Materials and costs | DOWNLOAD this project (PDF)


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