ArcaMax

Several days ago, I was on magical Mt. Desert Island in Maine. I was visiting my daughter and granddaughter. Seven years have passed since I helped build her quaint three-story home with an attached garage. I was the plumber, electrician, and radiant heat installer.

My daughter is very talented when it comes to design. She wrote an in-depth book about things you should consider both inside and outside your home. The book is titled "Meghan’s Method." She hand-drew all the illustrations.

Two years ago, she completed the exterior living spaces. You’re about to discover that separate spaces or rooms can be created in a very small outdoor area. She had never shared with me the proposed plan of what she had in mind. I was stunned when I arrived one day with my wife to see the finished product.

Her rear yard has 5 feet of fall from left to right as you look outdoors to the rear yard through a window. The slope was quite gradual. The overall end-to-end length of the house and attached garage foundation is 72 feet. My daughter took advantage of this tilted land, using it to help define separate spaces for adults or children to gather.

A circular fire pit area was created at the rear of the garage. This made sense for a host of reasons. First, the fire pit is not used all the time. The split firewood is stacked away from the rear left corner of the garage so it’s not visible.

You can sit in the comfortable Adirondack chairs that stand guard over the fire pit created with large blocks of granite. This space can be used with or without a fire. It’s a great place to read a book, relax, chat with someone, and listen to the donkey bray in the neighboring lot.

Next to the fire pit room is a 14-foot-by-14-foot space with a 4-foot-wide path running parallel to the house. Low bushes dot the ground on either side of the pathway. This minor visual detail acts much like a wall would inside a home. Should these bushes grow up to be 42 inches tall, the fire pit area will transform into a cocoon of privacy!

The pathway and fire pit are all at the same level. A 23-inch-tall granite-block retaining wall separates these two spaces from the next lower level. Walk down three steps, and you find yourself in a large 16-foot by 14-foot crushed-gravel space. A rectangular table is near the house, leaving a large area for a hammock stand near the forest.

A 40-inch-tall retaining wall of large, rounded boulders creates the final boundary between a lawn area used as a playground for my granddaughter and the outdoor dining room. Although there are no walls whatsoever, the use of small retaining walls, gravel, and landscape plants creates distinct boundaries between each of the outdoor rooms.

I’ve seen the same thing done on a much smaller scale while watching home improvement TV shows recorded in the UK. These clever homeowners and designers often have much smaller lots to work with, yet they create distinct spaces in a rear yard as small as 20 feet wide by 30 feet deep.

They achieve the same result as my daughter by blending different building and paving materials, plants, small trees, and water features. These materials and plants create separate zones of privacy and pleasure. It’s not hard at all to do when you stop and think about it.

I’m attracted to the use of the granite blocks for the retaining walls and steps, as well as the tiny pink granite chips used as the paving material. These are easy to maintain, and they require minimal installation skills.

You may not be able to visualize the finished design of your new rear yard. Many of my past customers lacked this ability. A simple hack to solve the problem is to stage your spaces using cardboard boxes, lawn chairs, garbage cans, or any other item as a placeholder.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you want to see how big a fire pit area should be. The outer diameter of a fire pit is usually 3 feet. Sprinkle some flour on your grass in a circle. Place the front of a lawn chair about 24 to 30 inches away from the flour. You never want to sit too close to a hot fire.

You’ll soon discover you need a minimum of a 12-foot by 12-foot area for the fire pit area. Do the same exercise for an eating area or a general seating area using lawn furniture.

You can also use the existing rooms in your home as your north star. You know which rooms are spacious and those that might be a little cramped. Don’t make a planning mistake when it takes so little time to determine how to create an ideal outdoor collection of rooms. Good luck!

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