INVESTING IN BACKYARD RETREATS
Designer Sarah Keenleyside knows a thing or two about impressive builds
With housing prices at high levels in many parts of the country, there’s been increased interest in backyard design, says Toronto interior designer Sarah Keenleyside, co-host of HGTV’s new show
Backyard Builds. Instead of purchasing vacation homes or cottages — something that just isn’t realistic for many people these days — homeowners are looking at building getaways outback, Keenleyside says.
“To have that retreat in your own backyard is a better way to invest right now...,” she says.
In Backyard Builds, which airs on Thursdays nights, Keenleyside and her “total babe” of a co-host, contractor Brian McCourt, design and build creative indoor structures for homeowners in their outdoor spaces. (Season 1 is focused on backyards, but they have plans to expand this reach.)
Working with budgets that start at $20,000, the pair aim to use every square inch of homeowners’ backyards to make them as useful as possible. One example of this is the “postage stamp”-sized Toronto backyard — roughly 40 by 20 feet — that they turned into a cake decorating studio, soccer pitch and large entertaining deck.
“It blew their minds ,” Keen ley side says. “The homeowners were like ‘we did not think there was room for one of these things in this backyard, let alone three.’ ”
Keenleyside has been working as an interior designer in Toronto (Qanuk Interiors Inc.) for 15 years and says what she loves most about this show is that it’s not about “reinventing the kitchen one more time” or “redoing the bathroom one more way,” but instead creating something “brand new, every time” and travelling down a road neither she nor McCourt have been down.
“I think you discover more surprises in a backyard than you do in a home,” she says. “Like in a home, we’re so used to renovating old turn-of-the-century homes we can anticipate what’s behind a wall. You can’t always anticipate what’s going on in someone’s backyard so that was something that was really interesting.” McCourt says the show is called
Backyard Builds because it’s not focused on landscaping and decks; those come last. Rather, their focus is on building structures, such as the impressive tree-house village they built on a property where the owners had an acre of forest.
“The family has kind of a cool story,” McCourt says. “I guess they were both divorced and both had kids and bought this house together and moved in together and promised the kids they would build a tree house.”
The project came with a big ask, which they met, says Keenleyside, and included a yoga space for the mother; a tree house designed as both a family cabin and place the parents could use for a romantic getaway; a “kids-only cabin” and additional activities, like a zip line and climbing wall.
“We even ran electrical to that one,” McCourt says. “Which was like half an acre of trenching, so they could enjoy the tree houses at night.”
Though it was a challenging project, the pair say it was one of their favourites because it let them tap into their childhood fantasies of tree-house building.
“We weren’t allowed to use the words Ewok Village,” Keenleyside says. “But that’s what it felt like. It was this amazing escape in the backyard.” Taking it back to town, one of the
Backyard Builds episodes mirrors the growing popularity of using shipping containers in residential construction, with Keenleyside and McCourt installing one in a family’s backyard to serve as an office for a father.
“They have three kids and he works from home,” says McCourt. “So how awesome is it to have your own home office in your backyard? You walk out, go to your office, no commute, but also no kids screaming in the background. It’s kind of the best scenario.”