Before and After: Outdoor Living Spaces Transform 4 Yards
Outdoor rooms with inviting lounges, fire features and dining areas take these yards to the next level
Looking to get more out of your backyard? With the right design, outdoor spaces of any shape or size can feel like extensions of the home, with seating areas and dining spaces just as comfortable as those inside. The following four transformations all feature multiple areas for outdoor living and offer inspiring ideas for bringing everyday life outside.
After: DeGrush retained the original shade pergola, integrating the new bar area around one of the posts. The outdoor kitchen lines up with the other pergola posts and anchors the left side of the patio. He replaced the original pavers with a smooth poured-in-place concrete patio, using gaps filled with Mexican river rocks to delineate zones.
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A pair of chairs and an outdoor sofa flank a natural-gas-burning fire feature. From this view, looking back across the yard, you can see how the backyard functions as an open-plan outdoor living area with subtle demarcations between areas defined by the pergola and floor patterns.
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2. Front Yard Substitutes for a Backyard
Location: Orange County, California
Designer: Catherine Bosler of Bosler Earth Design
Size: 560 square feet (52 square meters)
Before: Faced with very limited backyard space, the owners of this coastal home in Orange County, California, turned to their front yard for adding an outdoor living area. Landscape designer Catherine Bosler helped them turn their dream of an outdoor room into a reality.
Location: Orange County, California
Designer: Catherine Bosler of Bosler Earth Design
Size: 560 square feet (52 square meters)
Before: Faced with very limited backyard space, the owners of this coastal home in Orange County, California, turned to their front yard for adding an outdoor living area. Landscape designer Catherine Bosler helped them turn their dream of an outdoor room into a reality.
After: Bosler started by building a new retaining wall with brick to match the existing brickwork on the front of the home. This brought the sloped front yard up to a single, much more usable level. The new outdoor living space can be accessed from the exterior through a gate adjacent to the house, seen here. Dense evergreen hedges provide privacy.
Surrounded by greenery, the new deck area feels completely secluded. An L-shaped bench seat joins a gas-burning fire feature next to an outdoor kitchen with a grill. A table for four, shaded by an umbrella, provides a spot for the homeowners to eat meals outside while listening to the subtle trickle of water from a side yard fountain.
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3. Woodsy Backyard Transformed Into Shaded Outdoor Living Space
Location: Naperville, Illinois
Design-build team: John Algozzini and Kevin Manning (who is also the homeowner) of K&D Landscape Management
Size: Dining space: 224 square feet (21 square meters); social space: 336 square feet (31 square meters)
Before: A grove of mature hickory, oak, and hemlock trees made the backyard of this Midwest home too shady for a lawn to thrive. Plus, the existing design did little to excite the garden design-savvy homeowners. (Homeowner Kevin Manning is a horticulturalist and the owner of K&D Landscape Management design-build landscape firm.)
Location: Naperville, Illinois
Design-build team: John Algozzini and Kevin Manning (who is also the homeowner) of K&D Landscape Management
Size: Dining space: 224 square feet (21 square meters); social space: 336 square feet (31 square meters)
Before: A grove of mature hickory, oak, and hemlock trees made the backyard of this Midwest home too shady for a lawn to thrive. Plus, the existing design did little to excite the garden design-savvy homeowners. (Homeowner Kevin Manning is a horticulturalist and the owner of K&D Landscape Management design-build landscape firm.)
After: Manning worked with his colleague John Algozzini to come up with a new backyard layout designed to work with the existing trees and better suit his desire for outdoor living spaces. Now, two generous patios of thermal blue Pennsylvania bluestone offer areas for outdoor cooking, dining and lounging, with the canopies of the trees providing dappled shade throughout.
Two pathways snake below the existing trees — which were all saved during construction, with the exception of one unhealthy tree — to connect the cooking and dining patio with the lounge, which sits under a double pergola. Shade-loving perennials and ground covers — including dwarf astilbe, hosta and panicled hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata) — fill in the borders and soften the pathway edges.
The pergola, rigged with lights overhead and swings mounted to one side, gives definition to the second seating area and serves as a spot for hosting larger groups.
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4. Twin Patios Align in Japanese-Influenced Backyard
Location: Northern Virginia
Designer: Joseph Richardson
Size: About 6,000 square feet (557 square meters)
This new-build home, which belongs to the owner of a design-build firm and his wife, was designed to draw the owners out to the backyard. However, the sloped backyard presented no obvious areas for outdoor living spaces. Landscape architect Joseph Richardson came up with a plan to carve tiers into the slope.
Location: Northern Virginia
Designer: Joseph Richardson
Size: About 6,000 square feet (557 square meters)
This new-build home, which belongs to the owner of a design-build firm and his wife, was designed to draw the owners out to the backyard. However, the sloped backyard presented no obvious areas for outdoor living spaces. Landscape architect Joseph Richardson came up with a plan to carve tiers into the slope.
The lowest tier, closest to the house, accommodates two patios — one is used as a fire pit lounge, and the other as an outdoor kitchen and dining area — connected by a steppingstone path and Japanese-inspired garden. The second tier, one level up, is a grassy play area for the couple’s children.
In the fire pit lounge area, Richardson built the hearth into the retaining wall that holds back the slope. Oversize lounge chairs can be drawn up close to the fireplace for warmth on cool evenings.
In the fire pit lounge area, Richardson built the hearth into the retaining wall that holds back the slope. Oversize lounge chairs can be drawn up close to the fireplace for warmth on cool evenings.
At the other end of the pathway, a matching bluestone patio anchors the outdoor kitchen and dining area. The family enjoys cooking meals outside on the wood charcoal Kamado grill and adjacent gas grill.
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Before and After: 4 Yards Transformed by Decks and Patios
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Before and After: 4 Yards Transformed by Decks and Patios
Browse thousands of patio photos
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Location: Denver
Designer: Dan DeGrush of Lifescape Colorado
Size: About 1,000 square feet (93 square meters)
Before: The backyard and the promise of outdoor living were the main draw for a couple who relocated from an urban apartment to a ranch-style home in Denver. But the original patio was uneven and did little to encourage them to get outside. Landscape architect Dan DeGrush designed a more inviting patio with designated areas for an outdoor kitchen, a dining table, a bar and a lounge centered around a fire pit.