convert my backyard into an outdoor room

And the patio on the other side. It’s a west facing patio which means it gets REALLY HOT in the summer in So Cal.

Looking at the current patio area.

The current location of the garage. I took this from the driveway, the garage needs to be relocated to the left of this photo.

I had the old horrible wooden fence replaced with a block wall. It makes the yard appear a lot smaller but it also means I never have to worry about the fence again!

Now I would like the help of 43things people to design my yard. Here are some pictures of the space.

I will post a layout later. The backyard is 43 feet deep from the house to the block wall – not huge but certainly enough to do something nice with.

I would like to build an outdoor kitchen, have a nice shady patio for entertaining and some grass for my cats. The cat run will stay where it is for now (picture #3).

Any suggestion??

Thanks!

I should have marked this done 2 years ago ;-)

It’s time to re-attack it though. The outdoor area was looking lovely, but since then has started to show a lot of wear and tear, not to mention overgrowth of the gardens and habitation by about a million spiders and other creepy crawlies.

I won’t be able to do much on this one until after bub’s here, but I definitely want to get the area ship-shape again and able to be used as an outdoor play area.

Some of the smaller, easier tasks that need to be tackled to complete this:

- sweep / hose concrete area down
- prune hedges and tidy garden beds
- give potted palms and fig tree some TLC
- move the outdoor furniture back into place
- give the furniture and BBQ a good clean
- take down temporary clotheslines
- tidy up mirror ball and powercords
- tidy area under stairs
- mow grass and trim edges

The bigger or more costly tasks:

- get the pest man to spray the shed area for spiders and bugs
- put in a channel drain between the entertainment area and the house
- pave between the entertainment area and the house
- pave between the entertainment area and the rainwater tank
- pave pathway to clothesline

And a few finishing touches:

- candleabras
- new tablecloth/s
- new citronella candles
- throw rug for two seater

I’m sure there’s more tasks to add to these lists, will update as I think of them.

The electrican ran the wires, and hooked everything up to a switch. I just need to go buy 2 boxes and install the lights I bought off the Internet (a month ago). If things go well, I could stop by the hardware store tomorrow and buy the required items. I may even have some boxes in the garage.

I hope to have the lights hooked up by this weekend. That at least will add to the progress being made in the back yard. It’s getting cleaned up and looking better.

I still need to get the fences fixed and decide if I want to install the pond again.

There are very few plants in my yard that were here when I bought my house. Of the few left, the bougainvillea were original inhabitants. They were some giant variety that would send up huge new growth that could get 15 feet tall. The birds loved to perch on the tall branches, but the plants were so heavy that they kept tearing down the fence.

I had been trimming them on my side of the fence to try and get them contained. Then the neighbor cut them all back on her side of the fence 2 weekends ago. That was perfect since the roots were all on my side. I went crazy last weekend sawing out the huge branches and cutting everything up. All that is left now are the roots (lots of digging in my future to get rid of them) and a few thick branches I need to saw into smaller pieces.

I liked the flowers, which attracted hummingbirds. But the thorns were deadly and caused more than a few trips to the E.R. to get antibiotics when I was stabbed when pruning the plants.

Now I can fix the back fence and plant something more suitable for my yard. Dwarf bougainvillea should do well. It’s pretty and stays much smaller.

First off, there is too much junk in my backyard. I need to get rid of most of it since it’s not what I want in my yard. Clean it up, then I can focus on its potential.

I also need to get the fences replaced. Between termites and wind, my wooden fences are toast.

The entertainment area has really come together well. We’ve had a number of BBQ’s out there now and today I set up the laptop and used the area as an outdoor office. Very nice with the winter sun around me :)

We moved another table out there from under the house, it matches the one already there and when they’re pushed together they make a great 8 person dining setting.

We also scored some new plants today. There’s two palms and a ficcus. They’re all needing new pots, so the job for the weekend is to find some large blue pots that will match the house. Because they’re all large plants I’m going to sit them along one edge of the area to create a dividing wall.

My other plants are all doing well. I’ve got heaps of Bracyscome (Swan River Daisies) around the place and they’re flowering like crazy. They’re very cute and look very effective – the pale violet colour looks great against the house colours. I’m thinking of getting more to put in the front gardens. They seem to be very hardy and are native Australian plants, so should go great :)

I just want to put some finishing touches to the Entertainment area and I can mark this goal complete. The biggest thing is lighting. While it’s too cold at night still to spend much time out there after the sun goes down, as soon as spring arrives I can see it being a lovely area to relax in. I also want to get a power point put in so that I can hook up my mirror ball, it’s motor and a strobe light. Very cool for parties!

because the patio is too small for lots of plants and the table and chairs. And the plants suffer a lot during the summer. So, bye-bye plants and hello space. It will be better and I will add some plants to the ends of the patio since it is rather long and narrow.

I am thinking about moving the fountain to one end of the patio. It’s in the sun most of the day and it gets full of algae. On the patio it will be on a solid base, not be in full sun, and I can hear the water inside the house. I can always move it back later.