Planning The Hygge Ranch Backyard Resort
It's the most wonderful time of the year!
I mean not really lol however, we have been super excited for the spring & the summer season because we've been looking forward to finally hopefully tackling our outdoor spaces. Yes, it's already July and almost August, but after nearly a year of planning a full scale in person conference + a reno (coming soon), it's never too late for some outdoor r&r at our very own budget resort.
What's the plan for designing our backyard resort?
If you've been around since we first purchased #thehyggeranch, then you know that part of the decision to buy a home was to create a home that we wouldn't want or need to leave for simple luxuries - the media room, the kitchen cafe, and now...our outdoor hygge resort. With this as our guide, all of the planning has been around what we would need to feel at home... when we're outside.
After living with our backyard for a little under two (2) years, we've experienced all four seasons at least once, which gave us time to really think about what works & doesn't work. We've spent the better part of these two (2) years daydream planning our backyard and this year, we expanded our daydreaming to include our front yard. P.S. the front yard requires a lot let work which is why it's not as much of a priority - it just needs some more TLC for more curb appeal. My original iteration for the backyard design plan included a lot of the original design elements of the space. Now, a year later, a lot of the yard has changed... and so have our design priorities -
after a year of only having a wire fence, we got a back fence installed
with the help of a local master gardener, we identified all of the plants & flowers around our property & removed all the ones that were dead, dying, diseased, or just not in alignment with our ethos
we removed the water feature - it was very zen & pretty, however it attracted a lot of critters & was more maintenance than we cared to deal with
we began the removal of the previous 12' x 16' garden bed on our property
Taking care of these tasks allowed us to have a relatively clean slate and a sense of clarity for our next steps. After wrapping The Meridian Experience, while taking a necessary mental & social respite, I spent a ton of time outside and planned out the necessary phases for our yard -
Complete Raised Garden Bed Removal
The previous garden bed was MASSIVE & even though it yielded some really decent fruit our first summer here, we knew we'd be getting rid of it. The size wasn't realistic for us, the wood was extremely weather damaged, and the location wouldn't have been our first choice. How do you get rid of a 12' x 16' x 2' raised garden bed? Over the course of a lot of months & with a lot of patience. Fortunately for us, our neighbors needed soil so little by little, they'd been coming over and hauling away wheelbarrows of coil for their projects. Once this area of land is clear, we can completely clear our the remaining dead grass & relocate our storage sheds to this area.
Clean Up Debris From Other Projects
We've demo'd the water feature, which created a ton of mess, in addition to the remaining pieces of wood from the garden bed. There's other debris thats accumulated from miscellaneous projects and its all just been hiding behind one of our sheds. It's time to get rid of all of it, and this includes a
half fence that we can finally remove. We're pretty confident this can all be done in a weekend.
Design Backyard Zones with Yardzen
Y'all know my beginnings in the design space were as an e-designer & with that, I have a strong affinity for conceptual renderings. Try as I might, however, this doesn't translate to landscape design. Because I don't know anything about, well, landscaping, any exterior design plan I come up with would be extremely superficial. Our plans are more than just furnishing. We know what we want, however, we don't know if it's at all feasible or even where to actually begin once we're out of clean up, so having Yardzen takeover the design will give us the confidence to execute next steps.
Plan New Garden with Heirloom Potager
Part of why we want to get all of the aforementioned taken care of is so we can clearly see our land & assess the best spots for our new edible garden & tea garden... and by "we" I mean mean Ashley of Heirloom Potager. I met Ashley on Instagram & then we met in real life at Meridian, and she's insanely talented. Our hope is to have her provide us with a garden design, then plan that we can takeover & execute. Paired with the design plans from Yardzen, we'll know exactly how to breakdown the remaining phases of our yard.
Research & Plan Deck, Pergola, and Fencing
Since moving into the house we've had the dilemma of what to do about our deck - preserve it for as long as possible with staining & minor repairs, or to just replace it with the composite deck we really want. With either option, there's time & money to take into consideration. Then there's our side fencing - both of which are shared with neighbors - that need replacing and we'd, ideally, also switch those to composite. Again I say... time & money. Lastly, because there's no covering outside, we have no shaded areas. We'd love to add a pergola for practical (and aesthetic) purposes, which always brings us back to the deck decisions - if we're replacing the deck, might as well wait to add the pergola afterwards... IF we're replacing the deck. And round round we go.
Window Shopping For Each Zone
This is me totally skipping ahead, however I treat my digital shopping like another form of collecting inspiration - the other being Pinterest. The more we browse my fav retailers for ideas, the more we hone in on what we like, love, hate, and wanna live with. There are a lot of things I can oooh & aaah over when shopping just to realize it's not a good fit for our lifestyle. For example, we're not designing our spaces for the purposes of entertaining. That's not a priority for us, so while we may love to look at long dining tables & having multiple seating areas, we also know we don't need em. We have designated zones for "living" "lounging" and "dining" as it relates to furniture, so I window shop for those areas & how I envision us using them.
The takeaway from the inspiration photos is the layout, furniture style, color scheme, etc. that I may not have considered on my own.
The phases aren't set to any timeline, so much as it's about helping us breakdown what needs to be done so that we don't get ahead of ourselves.
The last thing we want is to run out and buy furniture without having a plan for where everything is going to live, only to force shuffle em around the yard and still feel like the area is incomplete. This is our home that we own, so there's no rush to complete & it's okay if we take our time so that we can, hopefully, do it once & do it right.
By the end of this summer season, if nothing else, we're working towards having the yard clean & furnished, having the beginnings of a garden, and having a solid game plan for our decking & fencing. We're both pretty confident we can get to a place where we can confidently furnish the yard, and personally, I'm just tired of sitting out there on a folding chair. They're nice folding chairs & it's such a first world problem to have, however, I want to comfortably relax & lounge when I'm outside or I might as well stay in the house & just open a window.
A resort is literally defined as a popular destination for retreat, recreation, and relaxation. Our home is our own personal resort... and our yard has the potential to be an oasis. Where other people go on vacation to escape & relax - which in many cases will include lounging about outside & under the sky - I wanna do that right here at home.
Over on IG I've been sharing my mental process as we settle into the design plans. Even though there are quite a few moving parts, I feel confident on the pieces that are within our control.