A 16-week transformation that turned an oversized underused lawn into a true entertainment property — covered cabana with outdoor TV, fibreglass plunge pool with sun shelf, full outdoor kitchen with bar seating, gas masonry fireplace, and an integrated 3-hole putting green.
The Roseland property had everything a Burlington backyard could ask for — a generous lot, mature trees, established neighborhood, and a sun-soaked rear exposure. What it didn't have was any reason to actually be in the backyard. The clients had hosted exactly one outdoor gathering in their seven years of ownership, and they hosted constantly. The brief was straightforward: make this property as good for hosting outside as the interior was for hosting inside.
The clients were a couple in their early 50s, both successful professionals with grown children who frequently visit with extended family. They host. They love sports — both watching and casually playing. Their indoor entertaining setup was meticulous: a finished basement bar, a media room, a chef's kitchen with island seating. The backyard had none of the equivalent infrastructure, and as a result every party migrated indoors before the food was on the table.
The brief covered five priorities:
The original pool — installed when the home was built in 1995 — was structurally sound but visually exhausted. Kidney-shaped 16 × 32 ft with a heavy concrete deck, the vinyl liner had been replaced twice over the years and was due for a third. The clients had stopped using the pool roughly four summers prior. Full removal was clearly the right call.
Roughly 900 sq ft of 1990s poured concrete around the pool. Significant cracking, salt damage from years of winter de-icing, and a deck width that maxed out at 6 feet on three sides — far too narrow for the kind of poolside entertaining the clients wanted to host.
The property's roughly 5,200 sq ft of usable backyard was almost entirely lawn behind the pool deck. Functionally, none of it was being used — the kids were grown, no one played sports there, and the maintenance was significant. The lawn was a placeholder, not a feature.
The lot's southwest rear exposure made the entire backyard a heat trap from 1pm to 7pm in summer. There were no trees of any consequence in the rear half of the lot, and the existing pool deck had no covered area. Summer afternoon use of the backyard was essentially impossible.
The only outdoor electrical was a single GFCI outlet by the rear door. No gas line beyond the home connection. No water beyond a single garden tap. Building a real entertainment setup meant running all of the utilities — gas, electrical, water — across the entire backyard from scratch.
The design phase took six weeks. The complexity wasn't a single feature — it was sequencing six distinct major elements (cabana, pool, kitchen, fireplace, putting green, drainage) into a coherent layout that didn't read as a feature checklist.
Five defined zones organized the master plan:
Standard pergolas wouldn't deliver what the clients needed — the requirement was a fully-roofed structure with weatherproof walls on two sides to make outdoor TV viewing work in light rain and shoulder-season conditions. We designed a custom cabana with a solid roof, two enclosed walls, integrated electrical for the TV and speakers, ceiling fans for summer cooling, and an overhead infrared heater for spring/fall use. Specified in cedar timber framing with a steel standing-seam metal roof to match the home's architectural details.
Warmer than the typical modern grey palette — the clients wanted something that read as residential and inviting rather than minimalist. We landed on Unilock Beacon Hill Flagstone in Coastal Slate (warm grey-brown blend) for the main hardscape, with natural Wiarton flagstone accents at key transitions and around the pool coping. Cedar timber on the cabana and bar facing pulled the warmth through the vertical elements. The fireplace was built in random-coursed limestone veneer to match the cabana's tonality.
Building the entertainment infrastructure from scratch required a separate utility plan as part of the design. We mapped:
| Element | Product / Specification |
|---|---|
| Main hardscape pavers | Unilock Beacon Hill Flagstone, Coastal Slate |
| Accent stone | Natural Wiarton flagstone (random pattern at transitions) |
| Pool | Leisure Pools Pinnacle 7T fibreglass, 12 × 24 ft with built-in tanning shelf and bench |
| Pool coping | Natural Wiarton flagstone, 12" × 24" × 2" honed |
| Cabana structure | Custom cedar timber frame, 14 × 22 ft, standing-seam steel roof in Charcoal |
| Cabana TV | SunBriteTV Veranda Series, 55", weather-rated |
| Outdoor sound | Sonos Outdoor by Sonance, 4 zones, professional install |
| Outdoor kitchen counters | Honed Caesarstone Excava (matches home interior counters) |
| Grill | Napoleon Prestige Pro 825 with infrared side burner and rotisserie |
| Bar refrigeration | U-Line undercounter refrigerator + dedicated kegerator + ice maker |
| Fireplace | Custom-built gas masonry, 9 ft tall, limestone veneer with Wiarton hearth |
| Putting green | SYNLawn Premium Putt synthetic turf, 3 holes, 400 sq ft with chipping area |
| Base material | 10" compacted granular A on geotextile fabric |
| Drainage | French drains at rear corners + new catch basins + 4" PVC to municipal storm |
| Lighting | 38 low-voltage fixtures, FX Luminaire LX series with smart controller |
| Specimen plantings | 2× ivory silk lilac, 4× serviceberry, layered perennials around perimeter |
Phase 1 · Weeks 1–3
Removal of the 1995 vinyl-liner pool — full deck demolition, liner removal, structural break-up of the pool walls and floor, and disposal. The original concrete deck and 6-foot perimeter were demolished in the same sweep. Roughly 42 dump-truck loads of concrete and pool debris left the site. Care taken to protect the two existing 30-year-old maples at the front of the lot, which remained part of the master plan. Existing rear fence inspected and retained.
Phase 2 · Weeks 3–5
Bulk excavation for the new pool footprint (significantly different from the old kidney shape), regrading of the entire lot to a 2.5% drainage profile, and trenching for all underground utilities. Two new catch basins set at the rear corners, connected via 4" PVC to the municipal storm connection at the front of the property — required permits and a 60-ft directional bore under the home's service driveway. French drains installed along both side property lines. Geotextile fabric across the entire planned hardscape footprint.
Phase 3 · Weeks 5–7
Fibreglass pool installation moves faster than gunite — the pre-formed shell is craned in, set on a sand bed at engineered elevation, plumbed and backfilled simultaneously to maintain shell support during cure. The Leisure Pools Pinnacle 7T arrived with the integrated tanning shelf and bench molded in. Equipment pad set at the side yard with full plumbing connections to pool, heater, and future water features. From shell delivery to swim-ready: roughly 2.5 weeks vs the 4–6 weeks a comparable gunite would have required.
Phase 4 · Weeks 6–10
This phase ran in parallel with pool completion to compress the overall timeline. Cedar timber framing of the cabana assembled on-site over 8 days, with the steel standing-seam roof completed by a specialized metal roofing subcontractor. Two cabana walls enclosed with V-groove cedar planking; two sides left open for airflow and sightlines. Gas masonry fireplace built brick-by-brick over 12 days, with limestone veneer cladding completed by a stonemason. Both structures positioned and weatherproofed before any paver work began in their zones.
Phase 5 · Weeks 10–13
Base preparation in 2-inch compacted lifts of granular A, finishing at 10 inches total depth. Beacon Hill Flagstone laid in the random pattern characteristic of that product line, with Wiarton flagstone accents picking up the transition zones at the cabana edge, kitchen step, and pool coping. The pool coping itself — honed Wiarton flagstone — required precise cutting and miter joints at the curved pool perimeter. The putting green substrate (engineered base + shock pad) installed during this phase before paver edges were finalized.
Phase 6 · Weeks 13–15
Outdoor kitchen carcass built on-site with rigid foam and finished in cedar V-groove matching the cabana. Caesarstone counter slabs installed, appliances integrated (grill, side burner, refrigerator, kegerator, ice maker, sink). 14-foot bar counter with four stools added at the kitchen-facing side. New 200-amp sub-panel commissioned by our licensed electrician. All 38 lighting fixtures wired, aimed, and connected to the smart controller with three scene presets ("Pool Party," "Late Dinner," "Quiet Evening"). 55" outdoor TV installed in the cabana, four Sonos speaker zones tuned. Network drop installed for streaming.
Phase 7 · Weeks 15–16
The 3-hole synthetic putting green installed with proper drainage substrate, premium SYNLawn surface, and integrated chipping area. Holes placed by a golf course design consultant to ensure varied putting challenge. Garden bed planting around the rear and side perimeters: 2 ivory silk lilac specimens flanking the fireplace zone, 4 serviceberry trees along the rear property line, and layered perennials throughout. New Kentucky bluegrass sod across the remaining lawn footprint (reduced significantly from the original). Final clean of all surfaces; first seal coat scheduled for the 90-day return visit.
The new sub-panel, gas extensions, water service, network drops, and underground drainage all had to be routed from the home to various zones across the backyard. The constraint was working around the two preserved maples at the front of the lot, which had root zones we couldn't disrupt. The solution was a directional bore — a horizontal drilling method that runs conduit underground without surface excavation — for the longest service runs. Cost premium for directional boring vs trenching was about $4,800 but it protected the trees and avoided weeks of restoration work.
The Pinnacle 7T shell arrived as a single 24-foot fibreglass unit on a tilt-bed trailer. Getting it from the street to the rear of the property required a specialized crane operation, temporary removal of one fence section (rebuilt the same week), and careful protection of the front lawn through the staging zone. The actual lift took 90 minutes once equipment was in place; the prep and post-work took the better part of two days.
The home's existing roofline was asphalt shingle in a traditional residential profile. The cabana's standing-seam steel roof in Charcoal had to read as an intentional contrast rather than an accidental mismatch. We pulled in the steel roof colour to match the home's existing accent fascia and selected a roof pitch that complemented (rather than directly mimicked) the home's main roofline. The result reads as a deliberate architectural choice — the cabana announces itself as a structure rather than trying to disappear into the home.
Outdoor sound is tricky — too loud in one zone is wrong, too quiet in another is wrong, and the GTA's typical lot proximity to neighbours requires careful tuning to avoid carrying sound off the property. We worked with a dedicated AV subcontractor to tune the four Sonos zones individually: cabana zone (highest priority for TV audio), pool zone (medium ambient), kitchen/bar zone (medium ambient), fireplace zone (lowest, intentionally cozy). The system can be unified or independently controlled. We did a final tuning pass at dusk on a still evening to confirm sound doesn't carry to neighbour properties at typical use volumes.
Synthetic turf gets significantly hotter than natural lawn in direct sun — uncomfortable to walk on barefoot in peak summer afternoons. The putting green location was chosen specifically for partial afternoon shade from one of the preserved maples, which keeps the surface usable through the hottest hours. We confirmed shade patterns at three times of day during the design site visits to validate the placement.
The backyard is now functionally indistinguishable in entertainment capability from the home's interior — and visually distinct from any other property on the street. The five zones each carry their own atmosphere, but they read as a single coherent space because the master plan organized them as such from day one.
What the clients have reported in the months since completion:
"We used to entertain inside because the backyard wasn't equipped for it. Now the only reason anyone goes inside during a party is to use the bathroom — and even that's getting close to changing."
— Homeowner, Roseland, BurlingtonBefore
Original 1995 kidney pool with cracked concrete deck — 6-foot perimeter walkway, oil-stained deck, no shade structure, and no nearby utility infrastructure.
After
New 12 × 24 ft fibreglass plunge pool with integrated tanning shelf, Wiarton flagstone coping, and 2,800 sq ft of premium Beacon Hill Flagstone hardscape around it.
Before
Oversized lawn occupying roughly 70% of the usable backyard, with no defined entertaining infrastructure beyond the pool deck and no covered area anywhere on the property.
After
14 × 22 ft covered cabana with outdoor TV, integrated sound, ceiling fans, and overhead infrared heater — the functional outdoor living room the property had been missing.
Before
Featureless rear corner with no anchor, no destination, and no reason for guests to migrate away from the immediate pool deck area during evening gatherings.
After
9-foot gas masonry fireplace with limestone veneer and curved L-shaped sitting wall — the natural anchor for late-evening conversation, shoulder-season warmth, and the property's photographic focal point.
Hero photo opportunity
Evening shot with fireplace lit, cabana TV on, pool lit underwater, putting green up-lit, and the integrated sound zones running — file: cs-burlington-hero.jpg
Most luxury backyard transformations focus on the visible features — hardscape, pool, structures. This project required equal attention to the invisible entertainment infrastructure: sub-panel, gas extensions, sound zones, network drops, conduit runs for AV. None of those show up in finished photographs, but every one of them is what makes the visible features actually function. Plan utilities like you plan hardscape — at the design stage, with the same level of detail.
For a luxury Burlington property, the default assumption would have been a custom gunite pool. The clients' actual use pattern — casual cooling-off, family gatherings, kids visiting — fit a fibreglass plunge pool perfectly. The trade-off was 4 weeks faster installation, $80,000 lower cost than a comparable gunite, lower lifetime maintenance, and no compromise on the actual pool experience. Matching pool format to use pattern is more important than matching pool format to price tier.
Of all the elements installed, the cabana with outdoor TV is what the clients reference most often. It transformed how they use the backyard from a fair-weather summer space into a year-round entertaining venue. For homeowners considering similar projects: a fully roofed covered structure is dramatically more functional than a louvered or open pergola in Ontario's climate. The cost premium is real ($55,000–$85,000 for the cabana vs $25,000–$40,000 for a louvered pergola), but the usable-time gain is substantial.
Project FAQs
Premium entertainment-focused transformations including a covered cabana, full outdoor kitchen with bar, fibreglass plunge pool, gas masonry fireplace, integrated AV, and putting green typically fall in the $400,000–$520,000 range in the GTA. Specific project costs are confidential to the client, but this range is realistic for a comparable build.
We installed a SunBriteTV Veranda Series outdoor-rated 55-inch television, designed for full year-round exposure to temperature swings, humidity, and precipitation. The cabana's covered roof and two enclosed walls add additional protection. SunBriteTV products are rated for use in conditions from -24°C to 50°C — well within Ontario's full annual range. The TV stays mounted year-round and the clients have reported zero issues across the first 14 months.
For this property's specific use pattern, fibreglass was the better fit. The clients are casual swimmers, not lap swimmers — their actual use is family gatherings, kids visiting, and entertaining. A 12 × 24 ft fibreglass plunge pool with built-in tanning shelf delivered that experience at meaningfully lower cost, with 4 weeks faster installation, and dramatically lower lifetime maintenance compared to a custom gunite of similar surface area.
Most backyards, with two main constraints. First, the area needs partial shade or full shade for portions of peak summer afternoon hours — synthetic turf gets significantly hotter than natural lawn in direct sun. Second, proper drainage matters; the synthetic substrate sits on an engineered base similar to hardscape and needs water to move through and away. For most GTA lots, both constraints are addressable. A 3-hole, 400 sq ft green like this one consumes less space than most homeowners assume.
Four independent Sonos Outdoor zones (cabana, pool, kitchen/bar, fireplace) each calibrated individually for appropriate volume relative to typical use. We do a final tuning pass at dusk on a still evening to confirm sound doesn't carry to neighbour properties at typical volumes. The system can be unified or independently controlled. For backyards in dense GTA neighbourhoods, this kind of zone-by-zone tuning is essential for getting sound coverage right without creating nuisance issues.
Free on-site consultation. We'll walk your property, listen to how you actually want to entertain, and design a space that fits your lifestyle — not a generic feature list.
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