Here are a few suggestions:

I agree with Dig Doug’s idea of placing it in the upper right corner. You don’t need to pave beneath it. You can have a level spot with gravel beneath it. Consider running electricity to your shed. Don’t know how you will use it, but it could be a cool feature/party house. You can make it a focal point!

Thanks for the feedback @ptreckel and the mock-up @Dig Doug's Designs! The only concern with the upper right hand area is that there were a couple of decent sized ficus trees there before that we had cut down and the stumps partially ground down... there are still a good amount of the stumps and roots left behind. Getting them out is going to be a huge PITA since a lot of it is buried :( Any suggestions on how to tackle that part? I've already hired a company to come through and excavate back there - I didn't fully know what I wanted and ended up spending a pretty penny and having them not excavate *enough* so I'm avoiding bringing another landscaper back in and double-paying :(

Good call on 'expanding' the flagstone and/or gravel pad to the far right corner though. I think we will probably do something like that - in my case, I'll probably do a small flagstone area and surround it on the outside with a crushed rock path and pad that wraps around enough to provision for the shed. I was thinking about possibly extending off the shed and building cheapi'ish shanty pergola to setup a BBQ shack (maybe with a kitchen so could have water and gas lines extended there) but I dunno.

Electricity would sure be nice but all of that would likely involve additional permitting. I'm not sure how hard (or easy) that is but they do say that anything 120sq ft or under can be built without involving permits. Once you involve any sort of utility(ies) I would think permitting becomes an issue though, no?

What do you intend to do with the shed? Have you investigated a small addition to the side of your house, opening to the back yard?

We ended up tucking two smaller sheds into different areas.

@latifolia I plan to store primarily garden tools, outside toys, bikes, etc in it. Originally, I thought it would be nice to have a "he-shed" but I don't think we practically have room for that. If I were to extend the shed out with a pergola, the covered but open space I would want to use as an outdoor/covered grilling area and to store my grill. I may consider adding a sink and extending an NG hookup there to add a gas grill at a later time but not 100% sure.

Adding onto the house would be quite expensive if I had to guess but aside from that I don't know that we would have any space to legally do that within city ordinances. We could add an ADU to the front of our residence but that would be very expensive and I think we would only consider doing that if we were intending to have my parents or my in-laws eventually move into it (and I'm not sure that we'd necessarily want to build one just so we can rent it out...)

@mrykbee it would be nice to do something like that but I don't know that we have the space to, realistically and based on city ordinances (the only viable place with space would be the enclosed front courtyard area but the city says any sheds have to be erected in the back yard)

The upper right hand corner does seem like the obvious spot to put the shed. But I would be curious to know what views you are wanting to preserve (from the house and/or patio area), how your house is laid out on the back side, and ideally the shed could help you with the privacy screening you are wanting as well. For instance, if the left-hand part of your house (where the triangle squeezes in towards house) doesn’t have many windows or outdoor uses, then you may want to consider wedging the shed into that area, but you would want to coordinate the shed with your home’s architecture and integrate it into the landscape with some nice plantings and/or patio area around it. For instance, if your home’s backyard-facing public areas are on the right, this would allow you to preserve the largest expanse of your yard (on the right-hand side) for your fire pit/other uses while keeping the views across the yard from feeling cluttered. So a picture of the back of your house and existing patio areas might be helpful in this regard.

@P.D Schlitz, I was measuring out the area on the left corner and I think it would just be really tight at least for an 8x10 shed. *Maybe* I could consider putting something smaller and 'box' shaped over there though. It would be tough trying to match a shed with our existing architecture (Spanish clay tile roof + Stucco siding) so I'm not sure I'll really have many options other than trying to match the paint/colors. We are backed up against a hill, so there's no view or anything. We don't have neighbors on one side of us so only share fence line with one neighbor. It would be nice to have a bit of a 'hedge' around all sides of the yard for that matter. The neighbor next door has a partial view into our yard from her second floor windows and the neighbors up the hill all have views into the yard. I think a big priority would be having some sort of hedging/privacy from all around or as much as possible. I'll try to add more pictures with different views of the yard tomorrow.

In my part of the country (N.E. Ohio), we have plenty of companies who grind stumps. Google your area for them. They don’t usually cost a fortune and will grind down anything that will compromise the base for your shed.

Ditto the stump grinding. Don’t run electric out there, it would be a waste of money. There are plenty of battery operated lanterns and lights for the odd reason you would be going into the shed at night in the dark.

Add electricity to the shed to keep a regular charge on battery operated items like e-bikes, mowers, blowers, air pumps, etc. Add an outside outlet too. You will be surprised how handy it is to have electricity in and around a shed.

I think knowing a bit more about what the shed is for . Do you have a garage ? Have you looked a sheds thta are more like closet shape so just deep enough to hold the lawn mower but wider to run a long the fence where the privacy is an issue. I think the elcetricity is ideal but honestly I never need to go in my shed in the dark.

Would something like this work/ not be too awkward? I am assuming that far right-hand corner might be one of the most private areas in your yard (pre-hedge), so might be nice to have that be your fire pit area.

@ShadyWillowFarm and @ptreckel I'll inquire with landscaping companies on the stump grinding. Or maybe even inquire with a local gardener on it (although, I'm not sure if this is something where I should look to get a licensed/bonded/insured contractor as it seems kind of dangerous). Of course, another option is to rent a stump grinder myself but I'm not sure how difficult it would be to try to grind down and remove stumps and roots half-buried in the ground on my own.

@Cher Cl thanks for the suggestion - adding electricity sounds like a good idea. I'd be interested to know how much that would cost and what the process entails (including permitting etc). If it ends up sounding like we'd have to jump through hoops and ladders, it may not be as worth while after all. Adding solar panels to the roof was something else that crossed my mind but the question of permitting still comes up particularly in the case that we would consider running wiring and adding outlets. I suppose I could just mount panels up there and use a portable battery power station to provide some amount of power.

@Patricia Colwell Consulting I would intend to store bikes, garden tools (wheelbarrow, shovels, rakes, etc), gardening supplies, possibly grill(s), the kids' toys/balls, and things like that in the shed. We have a garage but it's a mess in there and many of the things that I listed out above are in the garage now, taking up space :) I have thought about those sheds that you can run along side a wall or fence but I don't think that is ideal either given the 3' setback requirement for sheds in our city. Electricity I'm on the fence about.

@P.D. Schlitz, I think it might be a little awkward. The far-right-hand corner is the end of the fence line with our neighbor and she can see right into our yard, including that area I'm almost certain, from her second floor window. Also, if you're standing at that corner, you can partially see into her yard as well (her yard sits lower than ours as we are technically 'uphill' of her property). I'm thinking the placement wouldn't be optimal there. If anything, we'd probably want to push the fire ring more towards the center of the yard and try to plant a hedge along the side (of course, even with this it'll probably take forever for a proper hedge to grow unless we transplant in some tall shrubs/trees right away). As far as placement of the shed itself, that area you outlined *may* work but it might be a little awkward/tight coming in from the side yard (trying to imagine it in my head, it may just look too awkward there. We also can't push it right up against the fenceline - needs to be 3ft from it, so that may not be as ideal there). I posted a larger context overhead picture of the yard layout which includes the side yard and front yard/courtyard areas.

Here are some more pics from ground level Keep in mind that these pictures were taken with a GoPro so the angle is wide and certain areas of the yard may *appear* to be more spacious than they actually are :)

Here are the same ideas from a different angle:

Thanks again @Dig Doug's Designs! That looks really nice :) I re-measured the area along that side of the fence line down to where the concrete is and with the [roughly] 3' setbacks from both fence/property lines, we would have about 17-18' to work with at least up the point of where the existing concrete is - that's not to say we can't extend the area to 'overlap' where the existing concrete is, which might be something to consider. But I do think an 8' wide (or long) shed would probably be the max that we'd want to put back there so that it doesn't start feeling *too* cramped. That said, if we wanted to have an extended patio/covered area to the right of an 8x10 shed, I think it would roughly end up being an 8x8 area - maybe that's worth considering pouring concrete for. Unfortunately, if the roof of the shed is extended over to form a patio, we would need permitting. Either way, if we plan to erect a patio, I think we'd need a permit regardless... and if that's the case, then we might as well go the full mile and bring electric, gas and water over lol.

That’s helpful. I could be misinterpreting, but it seems like your hedgerows would really only need to be placed on the side fence lines to screen neighbors’ views as you already look to have a fair amount of privacy on the back fence line area. Does your property line end at the back fence line? It’s too bad you can’t do some planting directly behind your fence to give some visual interest to your back yard’s views.

I personally would hesitate to add more non-permeable concrete into your backyard. Not sure what your climate is like, but do you have a plan for drainage of water runoff from that hillside, or have your ever had any water issues in or aroun your house? If you end up covering the majority of your back yard in concrete (which there may be code restrictions against) the water will have no where to drain, and there are plenty of non-permeable options (decorative gravel, permeable pavers, even just mulch) that would work just fine for a fire pit area. There would be other ways to potentially mitigate runoff if needed (ie French drain, etc).

@P.D. Schlitz - I think we need a decent hedge all the way around the yard if possible. I think I mentioned earlier but there are about half a dozen neighbors who live uphill of us. A couple of them can see directly into our yard from their backyards - they have those see-through iron fences like we do but are just at the top of the hill. Putting up tall hedges would be ideal if possible. I've sort of been on a California natives thing with plants so I picked up lemonade berry, coffee berry, and Toyon plants from a local nursery and was planning to plant those along the long fenceline to hopefully grow into a taller hedge. I had read somewhere that, technically, we're supposed to have 2-3' of extended property line behind the gate for access purposes. I should probably check this but I don't know if that would apply towards the 3' setback requirement for a shed/structure anyway. The previous owner had a TON of bamboo that he let grow out of control back there, and he also placed some pots of it on the other side of the fence - I've been using a combination ortho ground clear and manually digging up the rhizomes to eliminate them but it was such a pain in the rear to deal with starting out. It might be conceivable to plant directly behind our fence though - I just need to contact the city and see what is allowable :)

Part of the reason I have the yard excavated is to participate in a turf removal rebate program - we used to have grass back there so had it removed as well as in the front yard. The requirements to get your money back (which is only based on what you spent for the project up to the max of $4 per total sq footage of grass removed) is by installing permeable surfaces. We *can* pour concrete in a given area... it just won't be covered by the rebate. Thus, we are in fact incentivized to go with permeable surfaces (this is why I had initially mentioned flagstones + crushed rock). I am intending to pour a few inches of roadbase underneath all of it too, for a firmer foundation.

As far as drainage, that has historically been a challenge. We had a section of drains replaced and, after posting for advice online (I should start a thread here actually), I've deliberated pulling out the 3" triple-wall drain that runs parallel against the concrete patio and replacing with perforated 3" triple-wall surrounded by drainage rock instead. That would be a lot of effort but it would probably help encourage drainage. We had heavy rains this past season here in SoCal but I think that's relatively unusual. Supposedly it's an upcoming El Nino year though, so things could change.

This is what I was thinking for drainage initially (I haven't observed water from the hill come flooding down into our yard, as there is quite a lot of trees, vegetation, and a drainage channel that would absorb or carry away a majority of it):

- Blue lines/arrows indicate the outside of our property which is a hill and the *general* direction that water flows when it rains (there is also a drainage channel further up the hill and we haven't had issues with water coming up over the sides of the retaining wall and into our property... at least, not yet).
- Green lines/arrows indicate where existing drainage is (3" solid triple wall I believe).
- Yellow circles indicate where current surface area drains are.
- Orange circles indicate where I might consider adding additional surface area drains (if even necessary in conjunction with a french drain)
- Red lines/arrows indicate where I might consider adding french drainage (3" perforated triple-wall surrounded by crushed rock and fabric)

The direction the arrows are pointing either indicates where the water is currently flowing OR [in the case of the red lines/arrows] the direction/grade I'd want to achieve for the water to flow

But, after getting some feedback on that, I think it might be a bit overkill. It *might* be enough just to stick with the green line and just replacing with perforated triple wall and creating a french drain along the concrete area, especially if a majority if not all of the area in the yard is going to be permeable anyway. This may get into a debate about corrugated vs perforated too lol... that said, not sure if I'd need to add or provision for any kind of drainage around the shed....

Yeah it sounds like you’re pretty on top of the drainage planning LOL. If I had a yard already torn up at the bottom of a hillside, and was debating whether extra drainage might be overkill— I’d probably lean towards overkill as it’ll be much easier to do now than later and give some peace of mind.

Good on you for going native with your plant choices (I am doing the same here in MN). I would definitely inquire as to whether you could plant a good chunk of your hedge on the outside perimeter of your fence. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t plant natives in your backyard— you definitely should— but you have so little yard space that I would focus on native forbs/ grasses in your yard area and avoid planting really large, bulky shrubs on the inside of your fence line if you can avoid it (unless in an underused corner of the yard). What about native trees? Would some well placed trees allow you to keep your yard space at the ground level while providing canopies at the right height to effectively screen those hilltop neighbors beyond your back fence line? The other option— if needing to plant within fence line (but not ideal in terms of ecosystem benefits)— would be to look for pencil varieties of evergreen trees that could quickly grow tall but maintain a very thin radius. Classic California vibe but am not sure what would be available for ‘nativars’ to at least provide some wildlife benefits (assume there would be some hybrids of otherwise-native arborvitae or cypress?).

It’s fun project/ interesting challenge you’re tackling. Be sure to keep this thread updated with your progress!

Can’t figure out how to edit comments so would just add re: planting in the strip beyond your fence line (a space neither you or your neighbors will ever use): planting hedge there will elevate its starting height and allow you to preserve views of your stone/iron fence (an attractive feature). The roots of your hedge on that hillside would similarly help with overall drainage and soil retention/ erosion prevention.

Thanks @P.D. Schlitz - I just called the planning division to inquire about planting back there. I have a feeling they're going to say "no" but at the same time it would be in their best interest as a "preventative maintenance" that is no cost to them :) There's still bamboo leftover from the previous owner so maybe I can strike a deal with them and "do them a favor" to remove the remaining bamboo in exchange for letting me plant the natives back there ;) The only caveat with that is that in order to qualify for the turf removal rebate, I'm *supposed* to be planting native/drought resistant plants within the area of turf that was removed. I suppose I could just plant the plants I bought behind the fence and then get different natives (that won't grow as crazy) for inside of our fence line.

I don't feel like I have the drainage situation under control LOL. I've barely made any sort of progress on this project besides the heavy amount of manual excavation (which was a HUGE pain in the rear). Just the idea of thinking about digging more and replacing existing drainage and supplementing is daunting...let alone figuring out and executing on the correct grading and slope in the yard. On top of that, I have all the excavated dirt just piled up against the side of the retaining wall (you can see it in the ground level pic) - originally I was considering leaving it there as sort of a sloped area on which I'd plant but I think it's too much. So on top of all that, I'll have to work on removing or relocating a lot of that dirt...

If not for the high costs associated, I would have gone with a licensed landscape contractor to finish all of this up but it's super expensive.

In terms of native shrubs and trees that can grow tall and wide (and fill in as "hedges") the three I named earlier (and purchased) I believe would fit the bill: Lemonade berry, coffee berry and Toyon. Currently they're in small 1gal pots so it will take a while before they mature.

In lieu of a full-fledged landscape design-build firm, I know there are drainage contractors out there who will recommend & install drainage solutions and do the grading work for you— might be worth getting a quote or two even though I know you’re trying to avoid use of more contractors.

If you decide to do everything yourself— a dry river rock bed with french drain underneath is a project I’ve DIYed before that worked well in our situation. Essentially you would have it start at a high point and gradually slope down to your front yard & towards the street, catching and diverting runoff before it hits your foundation. You would want to slope the grade away from your home/foundation into the dry river bed of course, and make sure the area in which water is coming into your yard (eg hillside) slopes into the bed as well. In our situation we installed this within 5 feet of the house’s foundation, but in general it’s probably best to have it further out in your yard/ away from house if it makes sense to do so grade-wise.

But deciding on your shed and patio locations is still your first step as you’ll assumedly want those areas to be level (and possibly at the same level as your existing patio), and work from there in terms of how to handle grading to divert water away from the house (and towards the street, if possible). Might not be the most helpful comment here but if you can slowly chunk things out into actionable steps it might help to keep from getting overwhelmed!

Consider shade when it comes to placement! We have a shed right next to our patio, and we love it because it provides a ton of shade in the summer, especially after we added an awning to it.

@P.D. Schlitz - I got a quote for some other drainage issues from a "drainage contractor" before. They are the only drainage specific contractor in the area so their prices were outrageous for what they wanted to do. I'll have to check to see if there are any more drainage specific contractors but I think they're few and far between here (understandably so since it's SoCal and generally tends to be moderate to warm/hot temps - so drainage solutions probably aren't a huge thing out this way).

In our case, I'm thinking about only have the "french drain" portion running along the concrete patio and still utilizing surface drains for a 'hybrid' solution. The current drain connects to the right hand side and runs all the way down the side yard through the front yard out to the street and there are surface drains along the way already. I'd essentially make the initial "capture point" of the drain system in the backyard and as a french drain or "hybrid" french drain as described. Not sure how well that would work

@User good point on shade! That area of the yard is in fact the side that probably gets the most sun so I think putting it there might make sense. I might even want to insulate the shed a bit (or at least paint the roof white, even if it mismatches the house lol)

I would put a 4-5 foot deep shed against your house from the window to the end of the patio. Door facing neighbor, back to you. You can even expand the pergola to meet it. Use this shed to hide lawn mower etc. and keep kids bikes etc in the garage or more convenient to where they will ride them. It’s a PIA to have to move bikes to get the lawn mower etc and vice versa and if your garage is a mess the shed will be even worse unless you separate them. This placement shelters your eating area from the neighbor instantly and you can use the back of it to hang a tv, art, a fountain, a trellis etc. Plant it up cute. Use the bulk of the yard for living space. Sorry for the terrible finger painting. I hope you can see what I mean.

@mrykbee it sounds like you're suggesting to build an 'enclosed' patio of sorts via pseudo-extending the wall of our house using the shed. I'm not quite sure this would work out as well because it sort of 'interrupts the flow' of the walkway (if I'm understanding your suggestion correctly). I think it might be a bit awkward there but I do understand one of the big intentions is to shield us from the neighbor's view. I'm actually not *as* concerned about privacy in that particular area. The areas where our neighbor can see into the yard (from their second floor window) are more the areas where there currently is dirt. The concrete/patio area we will likely keep as is. If I were to put a shed up along the fence line as well as an extended covered patio/bbq area next to it, that would fill in and create some additional height to shield their view. I'm not sure if I'd need to plant anything between the shed and fence (I probably won't because we eventually will need to rebuild that fence hopefully 50/50 with the neighbor) and I'd probably also add some height to the fence as well. If I were to undertake building the shed/patio myself, I may consider just rebuilding the fence and having them pay for materials (all or most of the cost). These are things I'm definitely open to DIYing but it's definitely a time sink and I feel like I would need some hands-on guidance as well or it'll take me forever.

As far as the shed is concerned and lawn tools, we don't have lawn mower which is a relief :) We do have a children's drivable toy car however, which is almost the same lol

how about a triangular shed to fit that back/upper right corner? won't waste space using the same shape.