I have selected the above shots as the most dramatic before and afters for the back of the house.

This category is further subdivided by way of "BBQ", "garage" and "HiFi" in the menu bar above. As seen from the Home Beautiful article, the back court was the crowning glory of the renovation. On completion, on a summer day, one could sit under the pergola with sprawling grape vines and with the fountain bubbling away (replacing the Hills Hoist), feeling more like being in Tuscany than in the middle of a large city. The RHS shot was in fact in winter with no grapes, so please use your imagination.

The first job was to terrace the lot, so the BBQ was same level as house, with 3 steps up to court (backyard) and 3 more to garage. So the initial task was to build walls at the front and back of court and side walls, disguised as planter boxes and HiFi enclosures. The LHS shot is me building rear wall in ABBA jeans and RHS is Buttercup sitting on front wall I had built already (I think she was curing it? - or maybe watching her assets grow)

BLUE WARNING - at this point I will just counsel any bloke who is married or ever intends to - DO NOT RENOVATE A HOME. The reason is that when the property heist takes place in Family Court (and it WILL if you accumulate assets) the bricklaying etc is called "other than financial" contribution whereas the sitting, watching and waiting is called "homemaker" contribution. The current state of the art by parasites (aka lawyers) is to plead homemaker is worth about double hard slog work. Only possible saviour is High Court does not agree!