Giving Purpose to an Unused Side Yard.

Amanda
by Amanda
3 Materials
$150
2 Weeks
Easy
When we bought our house, our side yard was boring with patchy grass and no real purpose. So we transformed it into a play area for our kids, and eliminated the need to weed eat and mow around the play sets.
Before
Here you can see where we are had drainage and erosion issues, so step one was addressing that. We added a drainage tube that connects from our downspout at the corner of the house to our neighbors drainage tube on the other side of the fence.
Next we built a retaining wall out of cinder blocks along the fence so we could level out the area. I put nicer retaining wall bricks at the front sonce those would be visible to the rest of the yard. We purchased a dump truck of fill dirt and hauled it over from where they dumped it in our driveway. We also decided to add another gate to the front yard on this side of the house.
After compacting the new dirt a bit, we added some mulch and moved all the play equipment over. Eventually we hope to put in a different ground cover, like rubber tiles or AstroTurf.
Finally, we added a fence to keep the kids in and the dogs (and doggy poo) out! We also added a gravel and paver pathway from our back patio around to the play gate. The best part is that this area is mostly shaded by our house in the afternoon!


It is a lot of physical labor to move the blocks and dirt, but if your side yard is already flat, you won’t have to mess with that! Another option would be to turn it into a garden area. Ours would not get enough sunlight for most of the plants we would grow, but if your side yard gets at least 6 hours of direct sun daily, a garden area would be perfect!
Suggested materials:
  • Fencing   (Home Depot)
  • Cinder blocks   (Home Depot)
  • Fill dirt   (Local landscaping company)
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