Photo of an expansive country backyard full sun garden for summer in Denver with a fire feature and natural stone pavers.

Lauren Keller | Luxury Real Estate Services, LLC
Expansive country backyard full sun garden in Austin with a fire feature and natural stone pavers.

Design ideas for an expansive contemporary backyard full sun xeriscape in Denver with a fire feature, natural stone pavers and a metal fence.

When you make the decision to install a Sport Court basketball or multipurpose game court in the backyard of your home, we understand you have a lot of choices to make. Sport Court game courts come in six different sizes, with endless variations as to color, design, sport and court elements such as a light system, rebounder and optional fence. Sport Court Powergame in Green and Dark Blue with White Basketball Lines and Black Multi-Sport Game Lines

Western Pavers can help make you patio a natural extension from indoors to your outdoor living environment. Borders in different paver styles and colors help define the area and shape of your patio and make smaller spaces seem larger.

When you open the back doors of the home of Nancy and Jeremy Campbell in Granville, you don’t just step out onto a patio. You enter an extension of a modern living space that just happens to be outdoors. Their patio’s unique design and setting provides the comfort and style of indoors while enjoying the natural beauty and fresh air of outdoors. It all started with a rather desolate back yard. “It was completely blank, there was nothing back there,” Nancy remembers of the patio space of this 1972 split-level house they bought five years ago. With a blank slate to work with, the Campbells knew the key elements of what they wanted for their new outdoor space when they sat down with Travis Ketron of Ketron Custom Builders to design it. “We knew we wanted something covered so we could use it in the rain, and in the winter, and we knew we wanted a stone fireplace,” Nancy recalls. Travis translated the Campbells’ vision into a design to satisfy outdoor entertaining and relaxing desires in all seasons. The new outdoor space is reminiscent of a vast, rustic great room complete with a stone fireplace, a vaulted ceiling, skylights, and ceiling fans, yet no walls. The space is completely open to the elements without any glass or doors on any of the sides, except from the house. Furnished like a great room, with a built-in music system as well, it’s truly an extension of indoor living and entertaining space, and one that is unaffected by rain. Jeremy comments, “We haven’t had to cover the furniture yet. It would have to be a pretty strong wind to get wet.” Just outside the covered patio is a quartet of outdoor chairs adorned with plush cushions and colorful pillows, positioned perfectly for users to bask in the sun. In the design process, the fireplace emerged as the anchor of the space and set the stage for the outdoor space both aesthetically and functionally. “We didn’t want it to block the view. Then designing the space with Travis, the fireplace became the center,” remembers Jeremy. Placed directly across from the two sets of French doors leading out from the house, a Rumford fireplace and extended hearth of stone in neutral earth tones is the focal point of this outdoor living room. Seating for entertaining and lounging falls easily into place around it providing optimal viewing of the private, wooded back yard. When temperatures cool off, the fireplace provides ample warmth and a cozy setting to experience the change of seasons. “It’s a great fireplace for the space,” Jeremy says of the unique design of a Rumford style fireplace. “The way you stack the wood in the fireplace is different so as to get more heat. It has a shallower box, burns hotter and puts off more heat. Wood is placed in it vertically, not stacked.” Just in case the fireplace doesn’t provide enough light for late-night soirees, there is additional outdoor lighting mounted from the ceiling to make sure the party always goes on. Travis brought the idea of the Rumford outdoor fireplace to the Campbells. “I learned about it a few years back from some masons, and I was intrigued by the idea then,” he says. “We like to do stuff that’s out of the norm, and this fireplace fits the space and function very well.” Travis adds, “People want unique things that are designed for them. That’s our style to do that for them.” The patio also extends out to an uncovered area set up with patio tables for grilling and dining. Gray pavers flow throughout from the covered space to the open-air area. Their continuous flow mimics the feel of flooring that extends from a living room into a dining room inside a home. Also, the earth tone colors throughout the space on the pavers, fireplace and furnishings help the entire space mesh nicely with its natural surroundings. A little ways off from both the covered and uncovered patio area is a stone fire pit ring. Removed by just the right distance, it provides a separate place for young adults to gather and enjoy the night. Adirondack chairs and matching tables surround the outdoor fire pit, offering seating for anyone who doesn’t wish to stand and a place to set down ingredients for yummy fireside treats like s’mores. Padded chairs outside the reach of the pavilion and the nearby umbrella the perfect place to kick back and relax in the sun. The colorful throw pillows and outdoor furniture cushions add some needed color and a touch of personality. Enjoying the comforts of indoors while being outdoors is exactly what the Campbells are doing now, particularly when lounging on the comfortable wicker furniture that dominate most of the area. “My favorite part of the whole thing is the fireplace,” Nancy says. Jeremy concludes, “There is no television, it would destroy the ambiance out there. We just enjoy listening to music and watching the fire.”

This is an example of an expansive backyard garden for summer in Seattle with a fire feature and concrete pavers.

With a lengthy list of ideas about how to transform their backyard, the clients were excited to see what we could do. Existing features on site needed to be updated and in-cooperated within the design. The view from each angle of the property was already outstanding and we didn't want the design to feel out of place. We had to make the grade changes work to our advantage, each separate space had to have a purpose. The client wanted to use the property for charity events, so a large flat turf area was constructed at the back of the property, perfect for setting up tables, chairs and a stage if needed. It also created the perfect look out point into the back of the property, dropping off into a ravine. A lot of focus throughout the project was the plant selection. With a large amount of garden beds, we wanted to maintain a clean and formal look, while still offering seasonal interest. We did this by edging the beds with boxwoods, adding white hydrangeas throughout the beds for constant colour, and subtle pops of purple and yellow. This along with the already breathtaking natural backdrop of the space, is more than enough to make this project stand out. Photographer: Jason Hartog Photography

The balance of adding a fire pit near a pond creates a cozy atmosphere for year round enjoyment.
Photo of an expansive country side yard garden in Salt Lake City with a fire feature and natural stone pavers.

New landscape remodel, include concrete, lighting, outdoor living space and drought resistant planting.
Photo of an expansive modern backyard full sun xeriscape for spring in San Francisco with a fire feature, decomposed granite and a wood fence.

Karen Bobotas
Expansive country backyard full sun formal garden in Boston with a fire feature and mulch for summer.

Santa Barbara Lifestyle. A Rustic Firepit with a couple of teak couches makes for enjoying your garden into the evening.
This is an example of an expansive country backyard partial sun garden in Santa Barbara with concrete pavers and a fire feature.

Fire pitt down by the dam, sleepers filled with river stone with custom made fire pitt and fallen down tree used for seating. Ginko tree planted ne3xt to area to give shade once grown.

Inspiration for an expansive sloped garden in Toronto with a fire feature and natural stone pavers.

REPIXS
This is an example of an expansive country backyard partial sun xeriscape in Portland with a fire feature and concrete pavers.

Kirk Bianchi created the design for this residential resort next to a desert preserve. The overhang of the homes patio suggested a pool with a sweeping curve shape. Kirk positioned a raised vanishing edge pool to work with the ascending terrain and to also capture the reflections of the scenery behind. The fire pit and bbq areas are situated to capture the best views of the superstition mountains, framed by the architectural pergola that creates a window to the vista beyond. A raised glass tile spa, capturing the colors of the desert context, serves as a jewel and centerpiece for the outdoor living space.

Inspiration for an expansive country backyard garden in Toronto with a fire feature and natural stone pavers.

The 5' wide Moon Gate by Phil Beck hides the view of the utility road that services the extensive property. He can be reached through the Fire Dragon Gallery in Cannon Beach, Oregon. The bed to the left is lushly planted with yuccas (in bloom), ornamental cabbages, daylilies, sedums, several conifers including dwarf Blue Star Junipers. Behind the yuccas is a variegated dogwood with bright red branches throughout the winder. The grasses are Orange Sedge.

Design ideas for an expansive traditional sloped partial sun garden in Seattle with a fire feature and natural stone pavers.