USA Garden Tour: A Family-Friendly Backyard Designed for All Ages
A family's backyard in Austin, USA is transformed with a contemporary entertaining patio and children’s play area
There’s something for everyone in this stylish, family-friendly backyard in Austin, USA. Sliding glass doors open from the home’s living room onto a new outdoor entertaining patio, which includes a generously sized outdoor kitchen and dining area. Cushioned bench seats wrap around the perimeter and beckon from across the lawn, where parents can kick back and relax – all while keeping an eye on children enjoying the slide and climbing wall built into the slope in the opposite corner.
Outdoor kitchen and dining area
A crisp outdoor palette of off-white and dark charcoal echoes the colours of the pale limestone veneer covering the home’s exterior and its dark roof overhead. The sloped roof structure over the patio was there before the renovation and previously covered a smaller outdoor patio. B Jane Gardens enlarged the patio to roughly 41 square metres.
Mimicking the lines of the roof and the proportion of the large sliding glass doors, the landscape designer poured the individual small concrete slabs in crisp, rectilinear shapes. Channels of dark river rock between the concrete slabs offer an elegant solution for drainage.
Landscape designer B Jane says the use of poured concrete, rather than cut stone, was a cost-saving measure that freed up more of the budget for the outdoor kitchen and alfresco ceiling fans. The combination of the overhead fans and a pair of wall-mounted outdoor heaters allows the family to comfortably use the outdoor space year-round.
Outdoor ceiling fans: Big Ass Fans
A crisp outdoor palette of off-white and dark charcoal echoes the colours of the pale limestone veneer covering the home’s exterior and its dark roof overhead. The sloped roof structure over the patio was there before the renovation and previously covered a smaller outdoor patio. B Jane Gardens enlarged the patio to roughly 41 square metres.
Mimicking the lines of the roof and the proportion of the large sliding glass doors, the landscape designer poured the individual small concrete slabs in crisp, rectilinear shapes. Channels of dark river rock between the concrete slabs offer an elegant solution for drainage.
Landscape designer B Jane says the use of poured concrete, rather than cut stone, was a cost-saving measure that freed up more of the budget for the outdoor kitchen and alfresco ceiling fans. The combination of the overhead fans and a pair of wall-mounted outdoor heaters allows the family to comfortably use the outdoor space year-round.
Outdoor ceiling fans: Big Ass Fans
A 3.6-metre-long outdoor kitchen runs the width of the patio, anchored by a 1.8-metre-tall wall covered in limestone veneer. A gas-powered barbecue sits in the centre of the dark granite benchtop with an outdoor fridge, storage drawers and a warming oven integrated below.
The close proximity of the outdoor kitchen to the home’s back door and the outdoor dining area shortens the number of steps needed to carry food outside or take hot barbecued dishes to the kitchen table inside.
Need to revive your outdoor area? Find a landscape designer or architect near you on Houzz to bring your vision to life
The close proximity of the outdoor kitchen to the home’s back door and the outdoor dining area shortens the number of steps needed to carry food outside or take hot barbecued dishes to the kitchen table inside.
Need to revive your outdoor area? Find a landscape designer or architect near you on Houzz to bring your vision to life
Built-in bench seating
Though not immediately apparent in images, the backyard slopes up and away from the home. B. Jane addressed the slope with two design solutions. First, she attached a built-in bench to a 900-millimetre-high retaining wall that runs along the back of the property. “We needed to retain the slope in order to expand the patio, so the bench provides a retaining wall as well as seating,” says B. Jane.
Her team constructed the L-shaped bench (3 x 6 metres) using Lueders limestone, and filled the planting bed behind it with a mix of evergreen and semitropical foliage plants. These include podocarpus, shell ginger (Alpinia zerumbet), loquat, yew (Taxus sp.) and variegated flax lily (Dianella tasmanica ‘Variegata’).
Four movable Adirondack-style chairs offer seating flexibility. Here, they’re drawn up around an outdoor fire pit.
Though not immediately apparent in images, the backyard slopes up and away from the home. B. Jane addressed the slope with two design solutions. First, she attached a built-in bench to a 900-millimetre-high retaining wall that runs along the back of the property. “We needed to retain the slope in order to expand the patio, so the bench provides a retaining wall as well as seating,” says B. Jane.
Her team constructed the L-shaped bench (3 x 6 metres) using Lueders limestone, and filled the planting bed behind it with a mix of evergreen and semitropical foliage plants. These include podocarpus, shell ginger (Alpinia zerumbet), loquat, yew (Taxus sp.) and variegated flax lily (Dianella tasmanica ‘Variegata’).
Four movable Adirondack-style chairs offer seating flexibility. Here, they’re drawn up around an outdoor fire pit.
Children’s play area
B. Jane also used the yard’s slope to her advantage in the children’s play area. Here, retaining walls made of limestone and Corten steel hold back the soil, while a new slide and custom-made climbing wall capitalise on the grade change. The upper section of the children’s play area consists of an open sandpit filled with fine-rounded gravel.
B. Jane also used the yard’s slope to her advantage in the children’s play area. Here, retaining walls made of limestone and Corten steel hold back the soil, while a new slide and custom-made climbing wall capitalise on the grade change. The upper section of the children’s play area consists of an open sandpit filled with fine-rounded gravel.
B. Jane finds gravel less messy than sand and says it’s less likely to be carried into the house or attract neighbourhood cats. A fence-mounted chalkboard provides a place for drawing.
The play area’s flexible design means it can transition into new spaces, such as a play house or second patio space, as the client’s daughter grows up.
For now, the homeowners say they enjoy their new backyard every day, whether they’re firing up the barbecue for dinner, hosting friends or watching their daughter and her friends come up with imaginative play. It’s a space that perfectly complements their home and lifestyle and a place where everyone feels welcome.
The play area’s flexible design means it can transition into new spaces, such as a play house or second patio space, as the client’s daughter grows up.
For now, the homeowners say they enjoy their new backyard every day, whether they’re firing up the barbecue for dinner, hosting friends or watching their daughter and her friends come up with imaginative play. It’s a space that perfectly complements their home and lifestyle and a place where everyone feels welcome.
Your turn
What do you like best about this backyard? Tell us in the Comments below, like this story, save the images for your own backyard inspiration, and join the conversation.
More
Missed last week’s Houzz Tour? Catch up here with this Houzz Tour: A Bright and Breezy Home Lets the Sun Shine in
What do you like best about this backyard? Tell us in the Comments below, like this story, save the images for your own backyard inspiration, and join the conversation.
More
Missed last week’s Houzz Tour? Catch up here with this Houzz Tour: A Bright and Breezy Home Lets the Sun Shine in
Garden at a Glance
Who lives here: A couple and their young daughter
Location: Austin, USA
Size: A 929-square-metre lot with an entertaining patio measuring 42 square metres
Designer: B Jane Gardens
The owners of this space hired landscape designer B Jane Gardens to reimagine the original backyard, which consisted of a lawn expanse and little else. They wanted an area that would foster indoor-outdoor living and better connect with their contemporary-style home.
The client’s wish list included an expanded outdoor living space with a kitchen and dining area, as well as a play area for their young daughter and her friends.