The Yard: Hill of weeds to resort living
This blog post is about the before, during and after remodel of our lake-house yard.
If you want to see more of the finished yard please check it out here, and just what it is like to live in it.
This special little lake-house had sat empty for fourteen years! The original owner had passed away and his family held onto the house before finally slowly flipping and selling it. When we moved in, the yard was a hill of untamed weeds (with some surprise piles of hidden cement underneath). When we purchased the house, I actually hadn’t thought too much about the yard, but upon moving in, it was a wild and hard to use space, and since we live outdoors as much as we can, this was our first priority.
Boathouses are no longer able to be built on our lake, so we were lucky to have one grandfathered in, and we knew we wanted to keep that. Besides that, I had no idea what I wanted to do with the yard. Being from Southern California I knew I wanted to create more of a beach style resort that was a little less Pacific Northwest than most of my neighbors. I sketched out ideas, looked at landscaping magazines, and thought about how our family would use the space. Since we have young kids, we wanted grass to run and play, and a “beach” to hang out and leave furniture on.
The main challenge would be getting heavy machinery down into our yard, but we were able to get some smaller equipment down through the side.
Terracing
I had decided on a two terraced yard with steps leading down. I knew we wanted a fence since we have small children, but a subsequent owner might not want a fence at all. After learning that a drop of five feet or more required fencing, we decided to add in a middle terrace, so that each level would have under five drops, and the fence could later be removed if wanted. The extra terrace became a bocce and corn hole court, and also been the home to several lakeside dinner parties.
Stone
The most critical decision was the stone, and the finished product turned out gorgeous. This stone option came with larger slabs that could be used as steps, we used these not only for the steps down, but we also added steps that go directly into the water, the perfect place to dangle feet.
Lighting
For our low voltage yard lighting, I really wanted a lantern style light that would come on every night on a timer. I could not find anything like this, so I made my own! I had low voltage wires run under the gravel by the contractors who did the yard work, then purchased lanterns at target, drilled holes in the bottom, wired in some lights. To make them appear as candles, I took apart some plastic candles, and put the plastic cover over the top. I love the look that was created and the serve as just the yard lighting I wanted.
A little while later we swapped out fences on both sides of our neighbors with a horizontal slat fencing that elevated the look further.
Patio
Our patio area is used a lot for grilling, eating and we often sit and watch the kids play in the grass area when it’s too cold to swim. After painting the house, re-doing the yard, and getting in new fencing, we finally painted the under decking wood black during covid and what a difference it made!
The bbq area was made by adding a cement board surround to a regular BBQ, and using a leftover cabinet we had from indoors and lifting it off the ground to prevent too much damage. Our local granite yard has many small remnant pieces at great prices and I was able to pick one up for the top. Scroll through below to see the before and afters.
Retaining fence?
Once our new fencing was put in on the east side of the house, the old stone retaining wall started to look out of place. Since my desire to cover it was purely aesthetic, my husband said, No Way Jose - do it yourself! So I dug the holes, poured the cement, and built the fence by myself and my sweet friend who volunteered to help me on one of our hottest summer days, but covering the wall made me happy and provides a sort of railing for people walking the gravel. Was it worth it, or a waste of time and money? Let me know in the comments.
Later we added a row of stone below to stop the gravel from spilling into the yard.
