Meanwhile, in the Upper Yard

July 28, 2011 | by Brooke Tansley

Take a trip down memory lane with me! When we bought The LOH the Upper Yard looked like this:

(See the nine months of concrete demo here.) Then we had many a bonfire on our dirt lawn.

Next, it became a construction war zone during the seven months of roof demo, reframing the top of the house, and roof construction. (See the seven months of the roof project here.)

So, this is where we stand today.

That’s where we burned the few scraps of wood that we had left. (See where all of our construction debris went and what it’ll become here.)

So here we are. What’s next? I’ll tell ya!

Phase 1 of Upper Yard Construction
- install French drain down by the retaining wall
- till, properly grade, and tamp our land
- construct our paver fire circle
- construct a cover for our fire
- add topsoil and plant our grass
- finish filling in masonry wall
- buy new straw bales
- make outdoor fabric straw bale slip covers
- make straw bale stands (for drainage – explanation of this later)
- party

Of course, once broken down, each of these items on the list come with a long list of its own. And we’ll break it down for ya as we get to each step.

Phases 2 and 3 of Upper Yard Construction
- extend the tall masonry wall up and over
- apply white smooth stucco to all masonry
- build a planter for star jasmine and getting it to join the vines on the side of the neighbor’s garage
- plant decorative plants
- buy a projector for outdoor movie nights
- build a slide on wire retractable awning for daytime shade
- accessorize

We don’t know when we’ll get to what and in what order, but as the plan materializes we’ll share it with ya!

2 Comments

Lauren
September 2, 2011 at 6:19 pm

Sorry, “outdoor fabric straw bale slip covers”? What on earth!? If I Google this, can you promise it won’t take me to a Rick Astley video?

Is the pink stuff bougainvillea? It’s gorgeous. Jealous of your climate!
Brooke Tansley
September 8, 2011 at 1:30 pm

Yeah, it must seem crazy! I promise to go into it more in a post of its own, but we found that folks that come over for bonfires love the straw bales (everyone kind of has their spot around the fire claimed and the bales do a nice job of keeping a comfortable butt print for you to sit in every time). I’d like to make slip covers for them so that they last longer and don’t scratch the folks who wear shorts.

You can totes google it, but you won’t find anything :) I promise! Actually, most of the stuff we plan on doing in the backyard isn’t google-able. I discovered this whilst trying to find inspiration photos of other folks’ projects online. It makes me feel like our backyard will be something very unique once we’re all done with it.

Here’s my Pinterest board for the Upper Yard:
http://pinterest.com/brooketansley/the-upper-yard/

I’ve got fabric ideas for the slipcovers there, and inspiration photos for the rest of the yard’s projects.

Yes, the pink stuff is bougainvillea. It’s gorgeous. The climate is amazing, and is the reason why we can do a lot of the things we’re planning on doing in the Upper Yard (outdoor movie nights, bonfires year ’round, etc). Our house, at 796 tiny square feet, doesn’t feel small to us since the outdoors is all livable space.