When we bought our townhouse, one of the extra add-ons it had that was nice, but not required was a natural gas outlet for a barbeque on the back deck.

The next summer, we got a table set for it with an umbrella. The umbrella’s important because the deck faces south.A couple of years later, we got around to getting a barbeque.

The problem was, it was just too damn hot out there. It gets the sun all day long and it’s virtually unusable for anything, unless you were out there early in the morning or after the sun went down. So whoever was barbequing had to brave the elements.

This year, we asked our strata for permission to install a  retractable awning, colour to be approved by the strata council. They said no.

After stewing about this for a few weeks, we decided to get a canopy and put that on the deck. Last weekend my parents were down, and Canadian Tire was having a sale, so Darren and my dad trucked over there and picked one up for $80. I had originally wanted a red one or an orange one to really make the strata angry, but this was a good deal. And it’s slightly gold-coloured on the outside so it reflects the heat.

The problem is, it has to be secured or it’ll fly away in the wind. We’re not allowed to permanently attach it to the building in any way. The other problem is that it goes right up to the outside wall of the house, so if it rains, we’d get water damage and the strata wouldn’t like that.

So it’s kind of a ghetto result.

Yes, those are two bungee cords linked together to attach the canopy to the railing. It’s attached in all four corners with bungee cords.

But what makes this a really ghetto piece de resistance is the gutter we attached to it to avoid water damage to the walls.

Yes, those are zap straps holding it up. And they are TWO zap straps linked together because my dad bought the wrong size.

(In other news, my dad needed to shorten the plastic gutter and we don’t own a saw because, really? We shouldn’t be doing home improvement projects. I offered to go borrow one from the neighbours, but he took one of my good kitchen knives instead. He does this to my mother too. We shall speak no more of that).

But what good is a gutter if it’s got nowhere to drain?

Isn’t it lovely? And yes, more zap straps.

However ghetto it may be though, it’s great. We can use the deck all day now if we want and it’s quite lovely out there now. And it meets all the requirements of the strata by not being permanently attached to the building and has drainage.