Remodeling 101 – Reimagining Your Yard

When we bought our current home, it came with more than a few quirks, and a lot of character. We had a vision for our dream home, but we knew that any facelift would have to include the front and back yards. After all, with 300-plus sunny days a year in the Bay Area, we can – and should – spend more time outside!

As you can see, we inherited a 1970s-style party patio, complete with a kidney bean pool, palm tree, and pool shack. It was great for having fun with the kids, but it was desperately in need of a refresh.

With the kids all grown up and moved out – for now – we wanted more space for entertaining and relaxing.

So we started by filling in the aging pool. Not only does this help us meet our water conservation goals, it also saves us a ton of money on cleaning and maintenance.

After a pause to go through local permitting for all of our new house plans, both yards had gone to seed, so to speak, but this was just the calm before the storm. And as they say, the sky is always darkest before dawn...

I’ve mentioned before, but when you are building a new house, it’s important to document the process to make future fixes and/or upgrades less stressful.

As you can see, while we added floor space to the house, we also gained usable land from filling in the pool. A good trade, which is evident in pictures of the finished product:

Now we have a lovely outdoor space to enjoy that flows into our renovated indoor space! We also added drought resistant plants and brand new pavers out front to improve our curb appeal.

Want to learn more about this process? Send me a message to set up a conversation.