Home Renovations Part 2: Backyard
Plans and inspiration for our yard, garden, patio, shed, and more.
Our backyard has, hands down, been our biggest labor of love.
If you haven't read the first part of our home renovation series, do yourself a favor and start there. It'll give you a sense of just how wrecked this place was when we bought it. We scored a killer location: walking distance to the farmers market, downtown spots for good food and better drinks, right next to a lovely school with even lovelier neighbors. Safe, quiet, and full of potential, but the house was a disaster.
Rusted walls, mystery stains, and busted appliances. Not a single square inch was worth saving. So we ripped everything out to gut her to the studs and started from scratch. After a year of elbow grease (only made bearable through several cathartic breakdowns), we made her livable and finally moved in with nothing but a blank canvas ahead.
Next Up Interior: The Kitchen
Two years later, there's still a long list. We're planning to finish the kitchen with a fresh backsplash, new countertops, a custom range hood, and open shelving for our curated collection of handmade ceramics and glassware. After that, we'll swap out the carport door and give the office a facelift with features like front doors, built-ins, and the whole deal. But all that will come when life slows down a bit.
Exterior Stucco, Paint, New Walls, and Gates
Our backyard is a whole different beast. It's taken us twice as long to make something meaningful out there. Before we could even daydream about landscaping, we had to knock out the big-ticket stuff like new gates, a new wall, fresh stucco, and a clean coat of white paint across the entire property line. Not cheap.
So, throughout my pregnancy and first year of parenthood, we funneled every extra dollar outside of bills and savings into getting that exterior looking halfway decent.
Getting the Soil Ready
Reviving dead land isn't a quick weekend project. It's an arduous, full-bodied workout season after season. My husband, bless him, spent the better part of a year breaking through layers of compacted, sickly earth, turning what was essentially dried-out concrete into soil that could actually support our dream of a mini orchard. It took patience, sweat, and a lot of digging, but it's the type of grunt work we'd rather do ourselves than hire out.
When we first bought the property, the southwest corner of the sideyard was particularly overrun with invasive cheese mallow. We had to smother it with cardboard for an entire summer's length to choke it out. We then shoveled in a truckbed of wood chips from a local farm to blanket the surface where we planned to plant. This was to feed the top layer, let the ground breathe again, and give the roots something to grab onto for future harvests.
Regeneration takes time. Truthfully, our yard has lived in that awkward, unfinished middle for the better part of three years. Starting from scratch is ideal when you have a vision, especially if you’re excited about designing something that feels intentional and yours. Though, it's process is more messy than linear and requires more patience than I'm naturally willing to give.
Now that the soil’s finally come back to life with its rich, dark, nutritious bed for newfound ladybugs, we’re focusing on what comes next. We still need a garden shed big enough to hold the tools, the junk, and the overflow currently scattered across our back patio (a whole other beast).
Backyard Shed
We keep bouncing between building our own adobe shed (but honestly, just typing that out loud confirms how wildly overambitious we are), buying a prefab one from a local maker, or even just grabbing this one we found at Lowe’s. And before we purchase, it's a matter of precisely configuring where it'll live. It needs to make sense spatially but also blend in with the overall design we’ve been shaping for the rest of the yard. The dance has formed into a constant tug-of-war between practicality and aesthetics.
Back Patio
The patio will likely be the final piece of the most expensive backyard renovation, so we want to be sure about every detail before fully committing. We’re preparing to replace the awning entirely, but we’ve also realized we’ll probably need to jackhammer the existing concrete slab and install pavers ourselves. We don’t want to rush into something mediocre and regret it, so our plans remain pending.
Entertaining, Hosting, & Furniture
As soon as Arizona's sunshine and good weather spoil me, my mind immediately lusts over hosting karaoke sing-alongs and backyard dinner soirées. As our landscaping slowly took shape, I wanted a place for people to sit and mingle, even if the yard was still in progress. This past year, our friend group has become a regular crew for watch parties and shared meals almost weekly. But until recently, I didn’t have a proper outdoor space where guests could hang out and enjoy a glass of wine by the Mulberry trees.
Fortunately, I partnered with Article and brought beautiful outdoor furniture for our future fire pit area. One day, we’ll finish the space with pea gravel and maybe a gazebo, but for now, it’s already my favorite vignette in the yard. I had some photography projects in the works and was able to exchange a few images for the stunning Rosa collection, which now anchors the space when friends come over.
New Harden Beds + In-Ground Row
I always joke that my husband never buys me flowers; instead, he builds me a thriving garden that feeds our family. And, honestly, that's way sexier. This season, he replaced our old batten wood garden beds with beautiful new ones from Vego Garden and installed a custom in-ground irrigation system by hand.
Now, we’re starting the early stages of what we’re calling our “monsoon garden,” with rows of pumpkins, watermelons, and native beans. I’ve been learning everything from him about which plants grow best together. We’ll see how it goes; check back in the Fall to see if it all comes to life.
Patience, Patience, Patience
Give me a stretch of good soil and a double row of desert marigolds, and you can keep the Italian leather sofas. We live in a plain-spoken 1970s ranch home built for slow mornings, screen-door gossip, and front-yard neighborly chats. Vaulted ceilings and “statement” cabinets weren’t ever on the wish list.
What mattered were tomato vines climbing skyward, room in the backyard to belt Dolly Parton come October, and a dining nook that fits a rowdy board-game crowd with big eight-foot sliders open so chuckles can drift out to the patio. The equity says we chose well, but it’s no multi-million-dollar Frank Lloyd Wright dream. I'm sure that someday we’ll will build that personalized showpiece, but for now, I’m making the most out of our Juniper abode.
Ongoing home projects are the kind of work that keeps the property alive.
A house isn’t finished when it’s flawless; it’s finished when it’s yours.
