It really boils down to what you would use. I, personnally, would not sit outside during peak mosquito hours at a fire pit. On the other hand, I had a little seating area when I had a tiny backyard. I used it all the time. Lunch, afternoon read, etc. Your mileage might vary. If you don't want grass, there are loads of groundcovers or you could do a low-growing meadow.

Can we get your growing zone or can you tell us what big city/state you’re in? Helps determine weather for us.

debra

The more I look at that space, the more I think you need to do something soon or you will end up with a yard of weeds….much worse than grass. Think carefully about what you want out of that side of the yard as Sigrid said.

debra

The grass on the left does not look too happy either . Have you looked into fake grass . I think you need to do something easy to look after so for now just do gravel and big pots filled with flowers . I did that in my back yaed where big trees kep the grass from being nice . It is easy to look after and keeps the weeds out while you decide what else you wnat there . I fine the fire pit pretty keeps the mosquitos away if it is real wood pit. Maybe a nice patch of flagstone with a seating area

We're in Colorado. And we've already been fighting the weeds for two years 😂 which is why we'd like a game plan going into next spring!

What is the white fence for?

It was to keep our dog on one side of the yard for when we put in garden beds. But we're thinking we'll just do smaller raised beds along the sides since we don't garden as much as we thought we would

Don't worry about weeds. As long as your lawn is green, it's good. If you don't fuss, stuff that thrives in your environment will take over.

Hi casshax, you said you originally thought about putting in a garage on the right side, but the expense would be too much. Were you considering it for parking your vehicles, or just for storage of yard equipment? Taking up that concrete is a PITA, and paying extra to dispose of it in CO... ugh. Have you considered putting up a covered pergola in that area? It would be much cheaper than a garage, and you can keep the concrete you already have to drive on when you want to park the cars under it in the winter. Since you don't do a lot of gardening, you can put lattice on the sides of the pergola, and maybe put in some planting boxes in front of it--- you can grow tomatoes, cukes, herbs... maybe put in some morning glory plants and let them grow up the sides of the lattice. Concrete is expensive--and you need a permit to pour a concrete pad. So, instead of concrete, lay down pea gravel under the pergola. You can use the space under the pergola as an entertaining spot when you don't need to park your vehicles under it.

My husband has a vehicle that he likes to work on that currently takes up our one car garage. I figured if we did build a garage, we could store that vehicle in there so it would need to be fully enclosed unfortunately. I don't need a concrete driveway leading up to the garage, we could do gravel there, but we would need concrete for the garage

Maybe grass is different in Colorado, but I think I would have put the grass on the sunny side of the yard and left the shady side for a seating area.

Yeah, that would be a good idea but the grass tends to get baked in the sun. Our grass in the shade thrives WAY better than the parts of it that are in the shade. I'm sure if we watered it more it wouldn't do that but we don't want to use that much water to maintain a lawn like that

We had a empty patch in our front yard this year because a few small bushes died. My husband got a bunch of wild flowers sead packets, two different mixes, and raked them in. It turned out so beautiful. Some grew 3 feet tall, some very small. We had numerous people compliment, some even knocking on our door to tell us how much they loved the wild flowers.

Maybe get some native wildflower seeds and at least try it out. But I guess it depends on your area and soil you have. We did have to water it some because we didn't get much rain this spring.