Urban Courtyard 2 When landscape designer Rick Eckersley first saw the tiny backyard of this Melbourne home, he was confronted by two small patches of badly drained, half dead lawn. Undeterred, Rick set to work on his design, aiming to create an extension of indoor...
House Facelift The subject of our makeover was a red brick house with a very unattractive front garden, steps and balcony. Don thought the red bricks were very relentless, but decided he could work around them. However the colour of the trim on the woodwork, railings...
Window Cleaning Of all the irksome household chores, cleaning windows has to be right up there with the ironing. Commercial cleaners, soap and water, newspaper and other methods all work reasonably well, but there has to be a better way! Peter Valder recommends the...
House of Riverstones Don and the Burke’s Backyard team visited a fascinating house which was built thirty years ago using local riverstones, and extensively renovated by the present owners. The original exterior walls look particularly attractive with...
Kitchen Design Kitchens can cost anything between $12,000 and $50,000 to install or renovate. They are also the most used rooms in the house so you really want to get it right. The wrong decision can be costly both financially and structurally. There are some kitchen...
Metal Art Man Ten years ago when Tony Gray started buying up scrap metal, glass and bakelite, he had no intention of becoming an artist. He originally planned to resell the parts, but the more he looked at the various bits and pieces, the more he recognised their...
Mexican Artefacts One of the best things about designing a house or garden is the excitement and the satisfaction of creating a look that’s new and different. Tuscan, Santa Fe and Mexican styles are all wonderfully fresh and vibrant, but there is a problem. The...
Mexican Style An extra dimension can be added both to your garden and home by the introduction of interesting artefacts. However in the past the traditional garden gnomes, columns and Greek statues have not always suited the Australian garden. Now there is a range of...
Home-grown Australian styles are hard to find. There’s the Queenslander house with its wide verandahs and stilts, and further south the Federation house. But Noosa, on the Sunshine Coast, is the birthplace of what may become Australia’s first...
Painted Lanterns When Maria Semple migrated to Australia 10 years ago she never imagined that one day she would take on the mission of bringing the joyful colour of her homeland to suburban Australia. But after a visit home in 1996 she returned so inspired that she...