Creating the Ultimate Outdoor Living Space | Great Home Ideas

So Adam, you've got to love summer. The longer days, the desire, all of a sudden to get outdoors. I mean, look where we are here. This is a classic example. Oh, this is beautiful here, Grigsy. You know what? I just feel that warmer weather. It just makes you more happy. Yeah, it certainly does. But I mean, I guess a lot of people don't necessarily have the ideal space in their own homes to be able to get outdoors and really enjoy them. No, definitely. I mean, everyone's got a vision of what they would love their backyard to look like. But let's be honest, a lot of the time you run out of time. Yeah. And tonight you're teaming up with Charlie and Melissa to help the backyard that probably, you'd have to say, need a little bit of work. Yeah, I like to say I'm teaming up with a couple of the best, Grigsy. But this one is great. Look, the bones are there and there's going to be a lot of projects that you'll be able to do at your place. And I have to say, the end result is pretty special. I love getting stuck into work in the new year. And what better way to kick it off than with a garden makeover? Come on, lads. The thing is, there's not too much wrong with this garden, but it's incredibly lacklustre. You see what I mean? This place just needs a little bit of love. What are you up to, mate? Charlie, what have you turned me into, mate? You're helping with the removals. I can tell that. By the look of it, we've got some young female that lives here. What's going on? Absolutely right. This is the house of Jeremy, Lauren, James and Zara. And they've just moved from an apartment, so this is their first house and their first back garden. It's a great area. It's a good size, but it's typical of, you know, first home buyers. There's not much going on, is there? We've got to really give it... Give it a bit of a lift. But I think the bones are definitely here, yeah? Absolutely, they're there. So you're going to help me, Charlie? Yeah, I will. This way, Jeremy? Thanks, mate. Hey guys, there's a bit more that needs to be cleared out here. The afternoon shift's here. Yes, the work really starts now. No, it ain't. Easy, easy start. Go next. I'll take the big one, Charlie. Hey guys, how are you going? Hey, Charlie. How are you? Yeah, I'm good. You impressed with all the stuff we've done? Oh, you guys have done so much. It's amazing already. Really different. So what was working for you out here? What's not working for you? We really wanted to have a place for the kids to have a lot of fun and be able to run around and enjoy themselves. We're out here every day. The bikes get a bit of a workout, as you can see. Good job, mate. You've got two sheds that are full, right? It's a bit hard getting the boogie boards out sometimes and some of the things just don't fit in there at the moment. Okay, so storage is important. Absolutely. So are you happy to just let me go on all of this stuff? We'd love it. Absolutely. Free reign. Oh, good timing, guys. This is ready to come off, is it? It is. It should be. All right, there we go. Good start. You got that? It's not really big. Perfect timing. It's quite a lot smaller than me. All right, gentlemen, let's have a chat. Whatever it is, it was Charlie's fault. Sorry about that. You think you've done something wrong. I feel like I'm working with the men in black. It's just all style, yeah? What are we doing? Well, plants, plants, plants, I think. So hedging down this side, nice new planting down that side. But that star jasmine looks so good. I'm going to keep that. It does, doesn't it? I want to tackle this pergola area. It's what the family are viewing every day. So I want to make it a bit more of a green oasis, a place where they want to spend some time. Yeah, beautiful. It's fantastic because it's undercover. And so you want to create some privacy as well. So I was thinking of just building a screen across there. And then that shed, we saw how packed it was. There was so much that came out of it. We definitely need to build a bigger shed. Yeah, and we better take care of those gorgeous little kids with a bit of play equipment, maybe some kid-friendly plants. It's going to look awesome. Yeah. The kids are definitely going to have a lawn to play on. Just not this one. Now, there's a section here that is really wearing thin with the kids coming through it so much. But if you look back further at the rest of the lawn, you'll realize it's really, really compacted. And that's simply due to the amount of rain we've had. Now, the grass is only going to go backwards from here. So the easiest thing to do is rip it all up. We'll easily be able to put in our garden beds around the outside and then relay a new lawn, which is perfect for the kids. The old sheds were jam-packed, but let's be honest, they weren't the greatest-looking sheds. So we've cleared them out and we're going to be replacing them with one big shed. But not any ordinary shed. This shed is going to look fantastic and really complement the new garden. It's going to be cladded with these beautiful cedar weatherboards and also have these inviting barn-style doors. Now, I'm starting on the floor. I'm using some treated pine sleepers. I'm going to use the 100mm thick ones as bearers and then use the 50mm sleepers as the finished floor. Now, this is a great idea to even use in your backyard as a boardwalk or as a substitute for a decking. If you want to do one thing to really transform an area, then it's definitely paint. It really has an instant effect. So we're going to paint the fence, the pergola and the back of the house all in Monument, which is kind of like a dark grey-blue colour. It'll really make these gorgeous plants pop and tie the whole design together. ♪ To make it through the night ♪ But you're alright Now, I said this shed was going to be spectacular and you can see by the doors that I was not lying. Now, this doesn't just have to be a shed. You could use it for an art studio, a home office, even a music room. Now, I want to speed the process up a little bit so I do have a couple of installers helping me out. Got to go back to you, yeah? Yeah, nice. Nice. OK, screw it off. And you'll notice the last thing we're doing is screwing this shed to the floor. And that's a good tip to make sure that you get it all together first, get your doors on, make sure your gaps are even and then simply push the frame to where it has to be and fix it off. This is looking fantastic. Adam, your shed looks amazing, I have to say. Mate, look at this. Door's closed. You wouldn't call this a shed, would you? This is the ultimate man's shed. How good is it? Absolutely, it looks amazing. But everything is looking quite brown here so I'm looking forward to coming back a little bit later on and adding some green. I was wondering when you were going to do that. Yeah, not long, it's coming up. Some pots start rolling in, Charlie. How good is it? We are at Jeremy and Lauren's. They're a young couple with a growing family and they've just moved from an apartment into a house. And being first timers, we're giving them a helping hand to get the garden in better shape. I can't wait to get these in the ground. Who are you kidding? We've got plenty of work to do before we start on this. But the planting's the fun stuff. I know. Where are you at, Charlie? I'm starting to set up the garden beds and lawn. When people put a lawn in, they try and maximise the space. They think, I want it all grass and they bring grass right up to the fence line. And the problem with that is you never really use the space here. You never kick football around the edge. So I think get some plants in and make it feel a little bit bigger. Absolutely, because those fences are really quite dominant at the moment. Yeah, absolutely right. When you can cover this line where the fence meets the grass and where it all meets in the corner, if you can blur that, it's going to make the space feel bigger. Melissa, have you done much edging before? Yeah, we've got the weathering steel at home and it rusts really nicely. Yeah, it's such a good way to keep the grass from growing into your garden beds and vice versa. And it's super slimline as well. We can get a nice straight edge by using a string line. Yeah, and I love, like this is quite modern looking stuff. But I love that you can use different edging depending on what style of garden you've got. Brick for a nice cottage garden, maybe timber edge. But this is going to look fantastic. What are you up to, medium, small? Oh, beautiful. Yeah, so the pattern's medium, small, big. It's nice and simple, this screen. We've just put some timber battens on, treated pine and then we're using some Merbu decking. But the trick here is we're doing it with all different sizes. So it's different widths, but it's also different thicknesses as well, which is going to be a great illusion, yeah? Now, once you've done that, I want to show you what I'm doing with the pergola area. Here's what I've got in mind. See these two posts? I'm going to put some big narrow planters and I'm going to fill them with Chinese star jasmine, which is the same as what's on the fence. Then we're going to have some big clusters of pots. So some in the corner here, some all around here. That'll create some privacy, lots of lush greenery. All right, let's get back to it. What family garden doesn't have a trampoline in it? But they always look terrible underneath. The grass never grows and you normally let it get too long before you go and whip a snippet and then it's all dead. So to stop that from happening, I'm going to be using some gravel in a circle around the trampoline. I'm using the same edging as I'm using as the garden beds to stop it falling out onto the lawn. Now, I'm going to see what Mr. James might think of this. Come here, mister. Can I have a look at that? What is this? My watermelon ball. Your watermelon ball. Do you know what's going in here? The trampoline. The trampoline, that's right. Can you kick this as hard as possible towards me? You ready? I can kick. One more. Take a shot. That is a powerful leg. Look at all this greenery. It's going to make a huge difference to the space. The painting's already been done. It's looking fabulous. But before we do more in this area, take a look at this polycarbonate roofing before it flies off. It's looking manky and old, so we're going to rip it off and replace it with something better. So our Chinese star jasmine is in place, and we've just run a series of eyelets all the way along the frame here. We've got some stainless steel wire, our tensioner. I'm going to run it all the way through, and then at the end, we'll crimp it off so it's nice and taut. Now, it's just a matter of training this little beauty to go exactly where I want it to go. We're using clusters of big pots in the corner just to help to define the space, create privacy, and, of course, make it look more beautiful. And here's a tip for you. If you want instant lushness in a space, then pick a big palm like this. So this is the beautiful kentia palm, which is just a really nice, graceful choice. And you can see we're kind of going with a palette of white and green in this space because it's just so cooling. So I've got these gorgeous white hydrangeas, which, once that roof is on, will love this filtered light. Thank you. These new sheets are going to look fantastic. The problem with the old clear sheets is they let in too much sun, so it actually gets hotter under here in summer. With these new opal sheets, it reflects a lot more of that UV rays, so this is going to be so much more comfortable. But I tell you what, I better get on to screwing these sheets on. Now, the space may not look like much now, but we have done all the prep work, haven't we, Charlie? What do you mean it doesn't look like much? All the hard work's been done. It has been done. So we can't wait to show you later how this whole space really comes to life. Do you want a hand? Hey, guys, how good's my bushy hydrangea? Hydrangea? Yeah, that one. On that note, our brilliant backyard makeover is finally coming together. We're creating a beautiful, practical backyard that the whole family can enjoy. Yeah, but wait a minute. What's going on with this dust pit? I'm calling it a sand pit. It's a family garden. No, it's going to be a nice lawn. Oh, OK. But we've got to get on to getting these plants in the ground. Right about now, it's probably a good time to give our new homeowner, Jeremy, a little plant talk. Found another one, Charlie. Oh, yeah? Yeah, don't have enough here. This is crazy. Unbelievable. How are you feeling about all these plants? Overwhelmed. This is huge. Coming from an apartment, mate, what do we do? Yeah, so there's two things with this planting. Number one is I saw how hard James kicks a football. So all of this stuff is super hardy. You've already got the height of the jasmine here, which is really nice. So all of this stuff is kind of medium spacing stuff. Super low maintenance. The grasses, let them do their thing once a year. You just chop them down and then they come back again. It's all really drought tolerant stuff. So I've kept this in mind that it's low maintenance and can take a football being kicked into it. Perfect. So James will love that. James will love it. How are you on a shovel? Well, dad's got his new cubby. So it's only fitting that the kids get one too. So I've just picked up a flat pack one and I just need to screw it together. Hey, Ads, you're going to hate me. What? I want it back about a foot and to the left a little. All right. How's that? That is perfect. Thank you. Don't say I'll do nothing for you. Adam's screen has come up beautifully. So I'm just going to soften it with some wall hangers. And I've got a lovely trio of plants here. This is the spaghetti style Ripsalis. And I've got a couple of different types of ivy. The waterhousia has to be one of my favourite hedges. It's really versatile to what soil it can grow in. Because this is a low-maintenance garden, I'd suggest them keeping it at a height where they can comfortably trim it on the ladder. But what it does in this garden is balance out nicely the low-maintenance planting on the other side of the space. Melissa, one for you. Thank you. Yes, Charlie, we are continuing the theme with the waterhousias on this side too so that we can screen out the trampoline and just help to make our chill zone feel a bit more private and intimate. Lauren, what do you think of the cubby? I absolutely love it. It is so cute. As a mum, I always like trying to find ways for kids to be drawn out into the garden. So I've got lots of kid-friendly plants here for you. So the one you're planting is the beautiful lambs ears. Amazing. Pat that. The kids will come out and stroke it. The leaves are really soft. That's so lovely. And I've got this beautiful little wattle here. This is called Acacia Limelight. And again, it's just one of those plants you want to pat. But it forms this kind of cousin it shape. It's fantastic. Some seaside daisies. They're so sweet. I think they're going to have such a lovely time playing here. All right, let's get this area planted. Amazing. If you're after a hard-wearing grass that's good for kids and pets, you really can't go past TifTaf Hybrid Bermuda. This one also has a Smart Approved watermark, which basically means it's incredibly drought tolerant. So it's perfect for Aussie conditions. But really, I think it just looks unbelievable. Take a look at this grass. This nice fine leaf just looks fantastic in this garden. That lawn is looking fabulous. It's really transformed the space. And now I can put the finishing touches on my hanging garden. Thanks, Ethan. You're like a human ladder. All right. Yeah. So which way? This way? That way. This way. Not that way. Go, go, go. This is my favorite part when the design comes together. Look at that. Hey, guys. How you going? Wow. What do you think? Incredible. It looks amazing. It's unbelievable, mate. Unbelievable. All the planting. Yes, there is a lot of it. But don't be scared of it, honestly. It's low maintenance. Can you tell me your favorite part, Jamesy? Yeah. The plants and the grass and the new shed and the cubbyhole. So pretty much all of it, then? Yeah. All of it. Did someone call mine out? Have a look inside. Wow. This is insane. Oh, my God. It's crazy. Incredible. Smells great up here, guys. Welcome to your new outdoor entertaining space. This is amazing. This is incredible. So you've got your dining area over here. Nice little coffee nook or place to read. And then I'm just loving all the green. And that's a bit of a timber screen. Creates some privacy. What do you think, Zara? Did you like the screen? Remember, you came and helped. It is absolutely beautiful. Thank you so much, guys. I think it's time to kick the ball. What do you reckon, James?