Flipping through a home and garden magazine six months ago I stumbled across a beautiful outdoor room in the middle of a garden. This retreat was almost completely built from recycled or repurposed materials (ie: craigslist, freecycle.org). How people find the perfect things to do a project like this escapes me. It would take me years to find the right stuff! On a side note, I learned from this article that Habitat for Humanity has what they call ReStores where they sell donated home improvement materials at 30%-75% less than retail to help fund their projects. You can check habitat.org for a location near you.
So this outdoor room was so inspiring that I shared it with my husband, who said, “We could do that.” He suggested an area at the back of our backyard, which would require digging into a small slope. So here we are, 6 months later and the project is underway.
I’m not a fan of taking out trees when not necessary, but one was sacrificed for the project. Here is the before:
And the progress (the tree on the left in the above picture is still there, it’s just not pictured below):
The soil is all DG (decomposed granite), which requires an iron bar and a lot of time and muscle. You can see the scrape marks from the iron bar. My husband is doing it all himself!
So much dirt! The idea is that the slope will be level with the grass in this 14×14 area. A retaining wall will be installed at the back and if all goes well, an outdoor fireplace will make up part of the wall. The rest of the area will be covered by an outdoor canopy/gazebo, under which a comfortable seating area will reside with chairs, a love seat and a table.
A set I liked at Home Depot.
The flooring will probably be some sort of pavestone. Ideally this will be a place where our family and friends can spend talking around the fire and a quiet space for alone time as well. It is quite the undertaking but we are very excited. Updates to come.
Bountiful Backyard 
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