Design your dream backyard to be comfortable, fun, & safe

As much as we love sitting on the rocking chairs on the front porch, the back yard is where most of the summer is spent. In Wisconsin, we only have a few months of weather warm enough to spend outside, so we try to make every inch count so we can get the most out of it. We try to set it up to work in other seasons as well. It took time, but we were able to design our dream backyard. It is comfortable, fun, and safe for the adults and the kids.

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Comfortable

With the kids never coming inside, we wanted the backyard to be a place of comfort. Cushioned chairs, a patio table to eat at, shade and separate seating areas make it just that.

The wood patio furniture is from our local ReStore. I encourage you to check there and support Habitat for Humanity while helping your hard be comfortable as well.

We have wood whiskey barrels, but our next ones will be resin since the bottoms have rotted out of these twice.

We had our pergola custom built from cedar (stained with timberline stain). There are kits, but this was done by a hired handy man with his own cuts.

Our patio was here when we got here and we expanded it (under the pergola and the circle). Since it didn’t match, we stained it. The stain was not lasting as we intended so we went with the “Spray down” method Cool-Crete (based out of New London, WI) They sprayed a special cement and then laid a stencil for the brick pattern. We went against pavers on top because it would have been a step up from the grass and we didn’t want it to be tripping hazard, but would be a great alternative if you do not have cement laid yet.

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Fun

Like I mentioned, we spend a lot of time in the back yard in the months we get to. That is why our back yard had to be the ultimate fun place. Trampoline, roller coaster, swing set, sensory swing, and pool make it a fun place for kids.

We didn’t only want it to be fun for the kids though. We host a lot of parties in our back yard so we wanted it to be a fun place. Projector and screen, fire pit, pergola, and the seating areas make it a fun place to hang out.

We had to go with a yellow slide because there is little to no shade in our back yard and the green slide was too hot for our kids. If you have an open back yard I encourage you to look into yellow vs. green slide.

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Safe

Nolan is an eloper (escaper) so we needed our back hard to be safe. We have the fence installed with the help of the county. Because Nolan qualifies as “disabled,” he qualifies for a program that works with parents to meet goals. Nolan’s goal was safety, and the fence fit into that. Our fence was installed by Mi-T Fence. I highly recommend that company. To prevent him from just going through the garage, we purchased an auto locking pin pad door knob. We also have all of our seating areas situated in a way we can see all of the play areas.

We are also sure to put what ever we do not want Nolan to drum (and break) in our deck box storage: C clamp for holding hoses on slides, hose ends, sprinklers, lighters, etc.

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Shop the look

Many of the items in our yard we got second hand, on marketplace, or from family and friends. Our yard works for us, but we never broke the bank to get it set up this way