#homeandgarden #backyardreno #greenhouse #gardening #bcblogger #thefraservalley

Home and Garden Niche

Hey, Carrie here sharing today all about my experience this past year defining my blog into a niche. Last year I finally ‘Niched down’, if that is even a phrase?

Narrowing down my niche made a huge impact. Yes – 2020 people where online a whole lot more then they probably already where. So how is being in the Home and Garden Niche? How did I realize it was for me?

Why Home and Garden?

Answer this question: ‘What is my home filled with?’ , ‘Is there a recurring theme in your Décor?’. When I heard that question on the radio when I first got married in 2008 something clicked. I have something Nature related all around my rental home.

My blog for 3 years or more, had no real direction. I kind of shared random blog posts that I thought would be helpful. I’ve got lots of odd posts that have nothing to do with Home and Garden. BUT…BUT…I was already doing it without knowing it.

What is truly on your heart will come out in how you speak/write/talk. I spoke more about this on my blog post I wrote HERE.

What Changed with My Blog?

My subscribers became stable. People subscribe and unsubscribe all the time, I do that too. However, my numbers grew. Even the blog itself on it’s views DOUBLED.

I got to collaborate and be featured on another blog. Sharing about easy garden vegetables to grow.

I also got a discount on one of our reno’s to feature their logo and company on my blog.

Added Bonus – I get to live my life I normally do and share about my Home and Garden, which come easy to me. Home life being a stay at home mom makes it a challenge to keep up.

Blogging Challenges

I MUCH prefer being outside then creating content. I really love to get the message out to get OFF your screens. Writing a blog that’s Home and Garden, means I’m busy taking care of the HOME AND GARDEN. I make sure to remember to grab my camera. I’ll post this here shortly and walk away, because my garden is calling.

Being online is all about pictures. My house is a living house, not one that’s on display all the time and it’s not always perfectly clean. Most days I could care less to clean up and get that PERFECT shot. I much prefer to be REAL.

Lastly, it feels like from what I read about blogging. I should have AMAZING CONTENT and it should be INCREDIBLE all the time. Yah, nooo…life is life.

Time for me to get OFF the computer. Spend time with my kids and get outside.

Hope this blog post was helpful. I’ve had lots of other bloggers that have inspired me along the way.

Here’s a video to catch more pictures of what I do.

Garden/Backyard Planning

Garden_Backyard Planning Today I want to share with you about Garden/Backyard Planning. We bought our home in 2014. This is our journey snapshot of what we started with and where we are now.

If there is something you see that you want me to go deeper into explaining please comment below.

Here I’m going to show you how our gardening/backyard planning took shape. It would be great if we could have changed it all within that first year. BUT that costs A LOT of money.

To create a garden/backyard of your dreams it needs TIME.

When we bought this place we had one kid, now we have 3 and a puppy. Lots of changes. The most reno work we have done has been to the outside.

The previous owner had a GREAT garden already going. However things seemed to be in odd places and we had to re-work the yard how it fit for our dream for the property.

2014

Here’s the LARGE garden box and a side garden. This garden where the trees are was super overgrown and I’m still fighting an aggressive plant in that area.

Here’s the Greenhouse and the worn out old fence. I got to get a LOT of tomatoes out of that greenhouse. Sadly I still have lots of learning to do and how to grow plants in there. So far it’s been a starter house for me.

We redid the fence, it was awful.

Remember I mentioned Garden Planning taking time?

Summer 2019

The Wood was JUST getting weathered.

For our Daughters first birthday last year I tried doing a photo shoot. It shows the new fence and memorial garden that I added.

I really need to print and frame this one!

Here’s the current look at the Green House update we did. My husband broke one of the windows with the lawnmower and we didn’t want to keep replacing the glass so we worked hard to make it more user friendly and to save money.

PLUS everything we did here was re-purposed.

As you can see, we use it more for storage now. It’s tucked behind the house.

We still have more Garden/Backyard Planning to do. It takes time as I mentioned. The kids get right into it as well.

I know I didn’t share any tips on this post, but I hope seeing the before and after it gives you some inspiration to work on your own garden and backyard.

One last photo from last year. There’s a HUGE Reno, that is still happening. I’m hoping we get it DONE within the next 6 weeks and show you the reveal. It’s a huge change for us, We LOVE to entertain. This was when we served guests last year “in the garden”. That gives you a hint.

Have a great day and I would love to hear about your garden projects.