My birthday present from Chris was about 3-4 days of hard labor. When we moved into our house, we somehow neglected to notice just how hideous part of the backyard was. The area behind the garage was gravel instead of grass, and not having much space in the backyard to begin with, I knew that I wanted to expand the green space to the hidden area. It was a lot more work than I thought that it would be.

Here you see the gravel, the overhanging tree from the neighbor, and the half of the tree trunks (the ones that Chris couldn't lift on his own) that the previous owners so graciously left us:


We began by piling up all of the gravel into the corner so we could prepare the area for grass and plants. The rest was put off for a few weeks, so then we had to deal with some nasty weeds that started growing all over the place.


We tried to recycle as much as we could. We kept about half of the gravel to use as the base for the furniture area and the rest was hauled away by a Craigslist-er. We also had quite a bit of mulch left from when we had three tree stumps removed from the yard, so we used that for the plants. Lastly, the odd square concrete piece in the picture above was transformed into the base of our Young House Love inspired firepit. A clearance furniture set, a few battery operated lights (there's no electricity back there), trimming of the tree branches, and more than a few trips to Lowe's left us with one of my favorite places at our whole house:


It's quickly becoming one of Lola's favorite spots too, as she always brings her toys over to that area instead of on the patio like before. I love the extra green, the warm fire, as well the country-like feeling you get when you're sitting back there at night and shut off from the rest of the world. Plus, how can you beat S'mores on your birthday? Best gift ever? I think so!