We live in an urban area of a small city. Our front yard is about a 10 x 25 foot area bordering the public sidewalk with a large Norway Maple that shades the house nicely in the Summer. Neighbors have taken their own approach with their mini-piece of land; from overgrown grasses to flower gardens a gnome house or cherry trees. Most people just leave it as is– a tiny piece of Earth covered sparsely with crabgrass. That’s what ours looked like a few days ago.
Seeing that we have a miniscule backyard (25 x 15 feet) and a very small indoor living space (750 sq/ft) we need to maximize space and use every inch efficiently. We’ve decided to make a Kid’s Kingdom in the front space. We rely on town parks and playground, and state forests for the kids to run free, but we want a small space for the kids to be able to play in safely, while we are spending time outside and around the house.
The first step was prepping the area for our hardscape. We chose the parameters and Stone dug out trenches with a little help from the rest of us. (Mostly we were cheering him on.)
Stone picked through the seconds pile at our local quarry to find giant pieces of bluestone curbing to outline the area.
We didn’t want to make a literal fence, but more of a conscious and visual reminder for the kids to stay within the safety parameters. We want to leave it open to the sidewalk, but have a stone edging on each of the bordering driveways and the busy road.
Stone asked a neighbor to help him move the giant pieces of rock, and in the end we had four men volunteer to help with the project.
It proved to be an exciting afternoons for the kids and the adults of the neighborhood. It always feels good when people pull together to help each other out.
This is what it looked like with the basic hardscape installed.
This is where the sandbox will be.
Now that we have installed the basic hardscape of the project, we are going to build off of it and finish the sandbox, install bordering flower beds, build a patio and picnic table, and some sort of child’s playhouse/tree house. We were planing on building a simple raised deck around the tree with a ladder and railing for the kids to have a treehouse fort, but when we started to dig the post holes, the tree roots were very large and close to the surface. I don’t think we could have dug past them and nor do we want to cause any unneeded trauma to our beautiful tree. We’re rethinking the play structure and are ready to design around what is possible for our space.
We have only completed the very first steps of the project, but it didn’t take long before the kids showed us just how meaningful a little intentional space setting can be. I can’t wait to see them spending time in the finished space.
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looks wonderful!
.-= Alisha´s last blog ..Elements of Style and a fantasy life =-.
How exicting. Can’t wait to see more photos as it comes along.
.-= Grace´s last blog ..Graceful Simplicity =-.
Peep walked up as I was reading this post and looked at the final picture. “I want to go there!” he said, even before he realized it was Sol in the picture. When I explained and showed him all the pictures, he was even more wanting to go.
So fun to watch you make the most of your space! Very lucky boys you have.
Thanks for all love ladies.
Z, we’d love to have you out and have Peep see the final product!
Sounds like a plan! I’ve been wanting to visit Super Awesome land!
That is awesome! Hey, where is this quarry and are the seconds free?
Miranda, I just emailed you :-)
I’m also wondering about the quarry, and its seconds.
Hi Katrina,
Stone says to be careful around the seconds pile. You can definitely pick around the edges and find some worthy stone, but you have to load it into your car/truck yourself. I think it’s definitely worth looking into. Maybe just don’t go climbing into it like he does–scary!!!
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