More than just a Backyard Makeover | GARDEN | Great Home Ideas

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well right around the country families are getting ready to celebrate their dads but for some people Father’s Day can be a really tough time it might be your first year without your dad or you could be separated due to unforeseeable circumstances well recently a viewer contacted us to tell us about a friend story of unimaginable loss Scott and Jenny had spent the last four years hoping their 20-year-old daughter Ellie fight cancer when the unthinkable happened their 17-year-old son Zach died suddenly from an infection then 6 months later their daughter Ellie lost her long battle with cancer Scott Jenny and their two other daughters were left completely heartbroken so Charlie Adam Ed and I are pulling our resources to try and bring a little bit of love and hope this Father’s [Music] Day so Sally tell me a little bit about why you cont Ed Better Homes and Gardens um so this family the E family have had a very tough 16 months um and Ellie was my best friend and we lost Ellie this year in January Ellie was diagnosed in October 2016 um and she was only given 9 months to live and she went on to live another 5 [Music] years what was Ellie like to her battle with it so strong so amazing and most of all she was so happy like just the happiest person ever and then to have the incredible Misfortune of of Z last year Zach um was going to the doctors for the sinus infection he had and then yeah I remember receiving a message from I saying please pray for Zach is’s going in an ambulance to the hospital and then within 5 days six days yeah they he was on life support and it was just [Music] horrible Leah and Zoe obviously there’s still two gorgeous daughters I’m sure you’ve all rallied and and tried to be a great support for them yeah so the school Community have been amazing for the family as well over the past year even like last year SC will tell you like he was almost going to go buy another freeer for all these meals that the families would bring over tell a little bit about Scott because it’s really knocked him hasn’t it yeah Scott has struggled a lot and I guess he’s trying to be there for his family but he’s also struggling so Jenny’s told the girls what we’ve got planned but it’s still a surprise for Scott so we actually need to rope you and if that’s okay to get Scott to bring him to the backyard Y is that right brilliant sounds like a plan H can you come sit down with we need to show you something all right let’s watch [Applause] this hello Scott it’s join GRE from Better Homes and Gardens here sorry to take over your TV like this now your gorgeous family and friends got in touch to tell us about the incredibly painful loss of your two beautiful children Ellie and Zach I can’t even begin to imagine what that feels like and the strength that it takes to navigate something so devastating I know you’ve been doing it tough so I’ve got a couple of mates with me who want to help you with a few of those things that have been on your Todo list so it’s okay why don’t you come on outside we’d love to meet you come on Scott you hear that hello Scott hello I’m John nice to meet you I’m good com on out I think you might like to meet Adam and Charlie you hello every how are you nice to meet you nice to meet you too so Scott wow are you surprised I am now we obviously know that this is your pride and joy out here in this backyard but we we figured that we actually might be able to help you out with a few a few jobs around the place okay what do you think would that sound good Scott that sounds fantastic beautiful well now obviously this deck here served this purpose so what do you think about maybe extending this deck so it’s a more usable area and does this granny flake get used yeah Leah my oldest daughter lives in the granny flat some we might be able to join the two areas up that sounds fantastic I’ve heard you’re a little bit of a gardener I can see you’re a bit of a gardener as well is this your in the garden yeah is there anything out here that you would really like to see done um I’m happy with anything you guys would like to do cuz I think you really need like a nice little seating area out here because you’ve done such a great job on the garden maybe a nice little seating area we can do out here do a few jobs like sorting out the side of the garage those sorts of things yeah yeah awesome and are you prepared to get your hands dirty would you want to help us out I always get my all we needed to hear brilliant well well ladies it’s time for you guys to relax because we’re going to rip into the [Laughter] work this should be [Music] come so Scott can you remember when you actually had this deck put in uh about 10 years ago 10 years ago 10 years ago when we did the renovations yeah right well it’s obviously you know it’s done bit yeah it’s served us purpose yeah I mean I think you need to have a bigger deck to say oh every man needs a bigger deck every man does need a bigger deck you took the words right out of me did you know that you were working with our two Manchild of the team I do now I think oh wait a minute Scott don’t pretend that you’re not a Manchild we’re all Manchild we’re all real it looks like Adam and Charlie may have found a kindred spirit and they’ve also come up with some great plans for this backyard hello Scott I’m with Adam and Charlie and we’re giving a tired back a facelift it’s all for the Egan family who’ve been through some tough times lately losing two of their children within the space of 6 months so we’re hoping this makeover will bring them some much needed Joy yeah Scott and Jenny like many Australian houses this uh circumstances change the property changes so what are some of the things you’ve done back here we put the granny flat in um just the small dick Gardens and what you find is when you do those small jobs by themselves sometimes they’re as cohesive as you’d like so the easiest way to fix that is with a liqu of paint you can handle the granny and as I’m the green one I’ll take this wall all right well for that I’ll take Scott with me okay let’s go [Music] right so Jenny I know the garden isn’t really your domain but do you think Scott’s going to be happy if we take all this down I think so yes so my plan here is once we’ve painted the wall rather than having lots of little pots have a really nice big feature and and a garden bed at the base for planting to stand up against the new paint yep sounds beautiful [Music] perfect so Scott were you part of this build when this granny plate went up did you paint it back then we yeah we give it a coat of stain when it first went up hasn’t been touched since hasn’t been touch s well that’s a good thing for us in air cuz it’s going to be easier to prep if was if I had a stain on it more recently we’ probably have to put a stain Blocker on cuz it’s 21 years old basically we’ll go over it with a high pressure cleaner [Music] I’m going to have a sweeping bed that runs through here so I can get rid of all of this grass and use it as a utility area it’s not awkward to mow we’ll have a washing line some stepping stones to it and it’s out of sight out of mind I’ll then continue this bed all the way up to the top of the [Applause] garden I’m just bringing this garden bed out a bit so we can get some more planting in front of what’s existing to give us a more layered look but up in this top area I really want to create a secluded seating area I’m doing a circle of Paving once I’ve marked this out I’m then going to Mark out a secondary Circle to have a sunken Pond which is going to be a really nice reflection spot what we’re doing for the Egan family can’t possibly compare with what they’ve been through however they continue to gain strength from their incredible [Music] children was amazing she was so good that she made us it she made it easy for us you know she made it she accepted [Music] it that first year was really really tough I know this is such a cliche and people say it all the time but she never ever said why [Music] me where did she get that strength from I mean that’s amazing yeah I I think she’s she was pretty resilient from the start you know and and her faith her faith she had she had beautiful Faith already she trusted God um with it and she just you know um she just lent on that how’s Scott been going then Scott is good yeah he he struggles a lot you know um it’s get help some grief counseling and things like that there’s so much there’s so much out there it’s not a long time ago that this happened no and I mean we were we we were able to prepare for Ellie Zachy being so sudden like for Scott just having his only son you know just like you can’t even you can’t imagine it actually what we’re going to do in the backyard is so insignificant but I hope I don’t know I hope it can can be a part of a fresh start for a chapter that’s not as just oh it’ll be it’s amazing I think it’ll help Scott want to get out there barbecue again you know and have some CL [Music] it all right so Scott the idea we’re going to pick that line of the granny flat and that comes through at about 26 and then the boards that we’re getting are 54 long so so if you hold that there and we come across here that means that we’re going to be going out to about there the delivery of goodies for our father’s day gift for Scott has arrived from bunnies so it’s time to get [Music] cutting I’m digging out for our Paving I’m going about 150 mil thick that way we can get road base some sand and I’ll Paving but then where the pond goes I’m going down to 300 mil [Music] deep sometimes it’s like you don’t exist you stood inside all right Scott let’s get into it this is exciting have you done much carpentry uh not for a long time oh but you have a little bit dabbled a little bit in the old yeah yeah oh you doubl in carpentry yeah I was a former Carpenter in a previous life oh wow I like it so you’ve used a nail gun before never never oh you back in the 1920s I was all full of their nails no no nail guns in those days let’s get into it let’s do it [Music] yeah don’t worry about the hammer this what we want to use yeah yes I do you got golden o Nails in there okay you wonder how you live without it mate oh what a great tool yes good Stu even if you’re Paving a small area like this you want to make sure the base is right and I’m using road base cuz it’s quite flexible around this big tree now because it’s a small paved area we’re going to about 75 mil thick we’re going to compact that sand on top and then we’ll get on to the paving [Music] on top of our road base we’re just using a river sand now the road base gives us a nice Solid Ground to work to but the river sand is much more flexible so we can get a nice even fall on it and our Paving goes on top whatever we create here will then carry through to the top of our [Music] [Applause] Pagan all right that’s looking great isn’t it Scott yeah looks fantastic happy with it love it now I don’t know if you’re a fan of uh painting but the good news is my mate here looks like he’s just finished as well he’s a great painter I’ve got a really good idea what’s that you guys starting the painting yeah I’m going to call a mate mine who is a good painter so he’s a genius he’s a genius is yeah tell you what’s got you’ve done a great job with the pressure cleaning now everything’s dry we just need to use a good quality external paint give it to CES is it bringing back memories Scott yeah bad memories Adam the first one 21 years ago mate yeah hey it’s due for a Fresh coat isn’t it yeah well it looks like this is going to take a little while you might want to uh go get yourself a c it’s full steam ahead on our Father’s Day makeover and there’s loads of ideas for you to try at home with your dad and now it is time to put the finishing touches to our plan obviously we’re doing a bit of Paving Scott have you ever done any Paving before no not the answer I wanted to hear but that’s fine I’m sure you can help out we’re obviously doing a circular bit of Paving and we can do some different designs in there we’ve got basket weave well suited to sort of a rustic garden we’ve got the Herring bone which be good in a formal Garden or we’ve got the stretch bond which is perfect for paths the trickiest part with circular Paving is cutting this Edge okay so I’m doing a pattern which I’ve sort of coined as the the starburst pattern and it’s going to give us a really nice bespoke finish and a lovely area to come when it’s all planted out through the come and relax [Music] in with all our full ones laid we’re now moving on to the 100,000 cuts and you want to start from the outside and work in because you want a full pav Edge to line up with one of your full pavers you just place it on top like this then use a straight line put both your lines on that you’re going to cut to and then work your way into the center the Scott I’ll line them up if you’re happy to cut them you can hire bricks like this from Bunnings they look pretty scary but they’re not actually that difficult to use I guess with the tip is you never cross the blade obviously I like to line them up blade when it’s not turned on make sure we’re sort of happy with that and then pressure on this side and let the blade do the work [Music] yeah Charlie thank you another [Music] [Applause] one so Scott do you hate me for putting you on the brick S no no it was a good experience it’s a good experience this looks I mean it was a lot of work there was a lot of cuts in this but it looks so much better than just a standard pattern doesn’t it I love it once we’ve got these final few Cuts in all we need to do is get a little bit of PVE lock sand to go in between the gaps that sets it all together [Music] how good does it look all swept and nicely finished yeah looks great we love it last thing we need to do is just give it a Mist but we need to give it a really good soak so we need all the water to get through that sand and set it so hey je not many Cuts in here I thought you’re going to hose me down mate oh look there is a few Cuts but doesn’t it look good it looks fantastic you might he made you do all the cuts in he every cut yeah yeah that’s why it’s worth it cuz I didn’t do it exactly do you want play some decking boards with me right yeah let’s do that you’re working hard on this you got you’re working Scott how good is this deck frame looking yeah it looks great doesn’t it it does and it’s going to look even better once these decking boards are down now remember your old deck they used to have the boards just running long ways we’ve decided to give this one a bit of detail we’re going to pitch a frame it first and that’s why just added these Timbers here that’ll allow this board to sit there and then the other ones are going to run in and support on this Timber yeah so the first thing we’ll do is get this board on and the other one running down this end we’re going to top fix these boards [Music] in Happ I’m [Music] Happ well Scott with the perimeter boards down for the main boards we’re going to be using hidden fixing so these ones here they’re our spacers and basically the screw is going to go in the middle and then you just need to make sure that in every run we have one of these they’ve got teeth on them and that just holds a board in place and it will stop it from sliding back and forth okay the boards we’ve chosen are a duable composite material they still look like Timber but they’ll last much longer how good does it look that looks [Music] fantastic kiss the same place [Music] now Scott I’ll tell you what else you’re going to be happy about yep I saw the condition of your old deck and it didn’t look like you stained it much the average wasn’t it you know what you’re going to love about this what is it no staining needed you literally just hes it down a couple of times a year love it I me you be cooking on the Barbie more often exactly what I like well the boys are keeping Scott pretty busy and he keeps his cards close to his chest but the loss that he suffered isn’t far below the surface you ask him about his family though and that’s a man whose heart is full of Pride and [Music] love tell me about your four children Leah Ellie Zach and Zoe uh amazing kids three girls one boy um yeah just beautiful beautiful kids Ellie obviously had a horrible diagnosis in 2016 but she put up An Almighty battle Yeah she was uh a trooper from day one yeah yeah you know we hardly ever saw her cry um I’m pretty sure I cried more than she [Music] did up back take the lesson let the past be the past today’s a brand new describe him Zack for me Zach um great kid yeah yeah great beautiful son um yeah yeah just um I don’t know what to say about Zach my heart’s broken losing Zach yeah you know as as quickly as as it happened and never got to tell him all those things that you want to tell him um yeah just a beautiful boy yeah yeah my beautiful boy [Music] water features can be a great addition to any Garden but they can be quite complicated so try and keep them simple some of them do tend to leak so the easiest way to come around that is a lovely big poly tub like this the problem with that is it doesn’t look very attractive so I’m going to be using this C1 steel ring to tie them with our edging and I’m going to Mud that around the outside to smarten it up [Music] to get some movement in our pond we obviously need a pump and I’m placing mine up just on a couple of papers by lifting it up into the water of the reservoir you lessen the chance of the filter blocking up from any Gunk I’ve got a mediumsized pump cuz I want to get some decent height on this water to give us good sound and catch the light as well I’ve also put some other pavers in and around and that is to support the weight of the Pebbles that are going to sit on top of this great once that’s all set we can get the water flowing no fingers it works fingers don’t need to be crossed looks very [Music] nice is that your tummy rumbling yeah I’m pretty hry I could hear that from the garage mate looks like I’ve arrived just in time snack for you guys now Scott have you got them all under control how can we be halfhearted from time to time take me in check it’s all good now I’ve got a little snack for you it’s h pruned walnuts oldfashioned slice going to need a barbecue if we’re going to do some cooking uh we need to put it together I picked up one from Bunnings good little unit but you happy to put it together can I finish this no what I can’t understand you’re still eating he didn’t say no did um Charlie wants to know where his is oh I’m sorry that’s yours sir that’s yours there you go now you sir are coming with me we’ve got some cooking to do come on well the backyard makeover for the Egan family is coming along beautifully Scott’s gone with Ed inside they’re swapping barbecue tips speaking of barbecues Adam how’s this going gy is it a for B you’d love a flat pack and this gorgeous gagg girls are going to rip into the planning and before I give them a hand I just have to help Charlie with one final project well Charlie I’m excited about this is yeah look what I found in the back of the garden very impressive stag horn that’s gorgeous but it is mounted on a barbecue grill so not ideal for putting it up on a wall so we’re going to put it where we they had all the little pots across the ship so I’m thinking just one big feature is going to give us more impact than lots of little stuff okay so what do we got here then this is spum moss so we’re going to stick this on our board that’s going to hold on to moisture and then we can remount the stag horn on that and we’ll just cut this off the back oh there we go that’s easy than You’re Expecting so a stag Horn’s quite Hardy you need to try and recreate what they grow like in the wild so kind of a sheltered filtered light would be nice you can see the back of this so that’s where it hangs on to the tree Y and then the plant is going to grow out of this part so we want to protect this part that’s got it excellent that’s going to look fantastic had a feeling you’d always end up with a clothing line one day that’s right at least I’m not getting clothes lineing right beautiful put some water down here you can see it’s still getting the sunlight yeah no it’s gorgeous little part of the backyard I’d cut these bits of Timber y just to make sure we stay off the shed the same amount oh that’s a good idea just check that if you hold that right how we looking absolutely fantastic all good yeah if you just hold that till it’s set and we’ll be all good thanks H for your help gzy that’s [Music] awesome a really useful plant for shady spots is this blue star F now I absolutely love the color of the leaves and the texture that the foliage gives you’ll notice it’s quite shallow rooted though it’s not unusual for it to fall apart when it comes out of the pot that just means that when you do plant it in the ground it’s going to need a bit of extra water to keep it [Music] alive oh this smes me so happy this whole garden wouldn’t have happened without you and now we’re making you work for it are you having fun so much fun well they have it mate we are going to barue cuz I hear down the street all 50 homes worth by the way that you’re quite the chef on the Block right yeah what’s your favorite thing about cooking what do you do oh food tastes great and the family’s got to eat that’s a very good rationale indeed I thought we might do a little bit of barbecuing after all Adam is putting it together for us this is a beautiful bit of beef bit of rump and it goes really well on the uh on the barie have you ever done a bit of beef this big before not this big no all right well I’m going to give you a very sharp night to play with now when you’ve got beef rum like this you can see it’s got this big fat cap on top and we need to score that in order to allow it to caramelize beautifully a little idea this kind of part uh marinade part based um so this here is a microplan I’m going to need you to do all of that garlic for me meanwhile I’m going to grab a couple of lemons I mean the great thing about your backyard is that you had such great bones like obviously clearly your dad is seriously passionate about his gardening H he loves his garden how you he’s going in the kitchen with Ed oh good he’s um he’s the chef of the house he’s the chef who you reckon talking more ed this sort of a dish it’s all about I know getting those lovely Garden flavors together just like coming out the back of your place so you can choose whichever herbs you like I’ve got a selection for you all you got to do is chop them nice and finely [Music] okay now I want you to pop those herbs into this bowl because that’s all we need possibly the salt for our marinade but the real question is not so much the flavors at this point but how do we get the flavor in the be that needs some [Music] technique but you use a small knife and just creating these little pockets by putting it in and then giving it a Twist and then we’ll get that marinade on all right I’m going to put it on and you are going to get handy see what I did there off you [Music] go apparently we’re putting salt on this Ed is that right Oh you mean like when I said earlier on yeah I do occasionally forget things good thing I got my S Chef on board now the great thing about this it does need to sit for about 10 minutes or so not even quite just to get that flavor going but I’m going to show you how to make a really easy armad day olives I like it and this is how easy it is you got garlic and almonds vinegar sesame oil a little bit of extra version just go straight into the blender and puree it up sure you want a bit of lemon juice what lemon juice oh what would you like some lemon juice probably a very good idea mate you can squeeze them in there but this is just about done once it is smooth we’re just going to fold that through our mayonnaise and then you and I are ready to go cooking [Music] awesome smoke [Music] in so we will need to preheat the barbecue w oh Scot you have been busy look at that right I reckon I better take that off your hands you’ve got other things do this is incredible guys well done that’s a reaction we like come on Scott we’ll show you around it’s okay mate I got this it’s all good so how was it was it fun it was good oh that’s excellent what do you think when you look around now and you see your all dad it doesn’t look like my yard really yeah yeah it’s hundred times better than I could ever imagine do you like the little stag horn feature I love the storn yeah yeah looks [Music] fantastic and what about your deck I mean obviously now to be a to link oh that’s to the granny flatters I think that’s our favorite bit of everything I fell in love with this woman where [Music] so one of the other things I love is they’ve actually also given you some really beautiful spots in the garden where you can sit and enjoy and look back at it all [Music] e and we never thought our yard could be so beautiful well you what it’s a beautiful yard for a beautiful family I mean this is somewhere that’s tranqu cool that you can sit here and reflect on obviously the losses that you’ve had but also the loves that you still have because one thing Scott every single one of us that spent time with your family is so blown away by just the beautiful people that you have around you that just have so much care and compassion for you yeah we’re surrounded by so many beautiful people and so much love it’s yeah is the only thing that’s helped us get through this horrible mess I hope you love this Garden as well I think you will somehow yeah yeah I love it I love it oh that makes us happy [Music]