Well y’all, the One Room Challenge is underway again for Spring 2017.
I joined in as a guest participant for the 1st time last Fall (2016) & had a great time working on a room that had been put on the back burner, our master bedroom. Â I really wanted to participate this time too & I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Â Since we updated our bedroom, I wanted to dive in and tackle the master bath.
It’s no small job since we want to move walls & possibly plumbing to accommodate his & her’s closets, consolidate vanities, & change the lighting.  I had been gearing up since November when we finished the last One Room Challenge & I was ready!
But then in February I broke my foot & didn’t realize it until 2 weeks after it happened. Â Fast forward 6 weeks & I am still in a boot using crutches, with at least another 2-4 weeks to go.
There goes my master bathroom makeover.
I have been thinking hard about whether I should tackle another smaller (less intensive) project, but kept coming up empty. Â Since I can’t put pressure on my foot, I’m not supposed to paint or build or lift or move anything. Â Doctor’s orders. Â (He really tried to be as specific as possible, not knowing that I’d painted a “room” {our garage entry} during that 1st 2 weeks I didn’t know I had a broken foot.)
Still I wanted to participate in this Spring’s One Room Challenge. Â Then it hit me… we have another project that we were planning to take on before our master bedroom & now is the perfect time to do it!
It’s our backyard!
It’s perfect because most of the things I need to do up front are more inactive. Also because it requires advance planning, needs to be done in stages, & requires the partial help skilled artisans in a specific field to help with.  Not to mention IT’S SPRING and I am so ready to get outside!
There are several things I can do that don’t require me to be on my feet & by the time we get to the items that do, I’ll {hopefully} have the thumbs up to put pressure on my foot again!
So I – meaning WE (this will be a Team Green Family effort) – am joining in the One Room Challenge as a guest participant again for the Spring 2017 round.
We’re doing a backyard makeover.
It will technically end up being more than 1 room (hopefully) but it still works for this purpose.
Here’s what we started with:
Not too shabby. Â It’s actually the reason my DH chose this house. Â As always, you find out how you really use a space after living in it for a while. Â Our backyard is no exception.
It’s not huge, but we have the advantage of having a pretty good view & “lake” access. Â Here’s what we plan to do with what we have:
- Remove the existing deck keeping as much wood as possible to use in other parts of the project
- We did this already knowing that we wanted to replace it at some point
- Some of the wood has already been used to build a planter box & a console/bar table
- Update existing seating. Â When we tore out the deck, we moved the benches to the patio for the time being
Patio and deck setup for a small party - Remove the existing baby oak trees which we believed to be suffering from some sort of fungus or disease.
- Create a garden with seating
- Use companion planting with vegetables, herbs, &Â flowers
- Add a fruit tree
- Incorporate my existing compost bin
- Add hardscape
- extend the existing patio
- Add lots of extras – under the circumstances, some of these may not get done on time, but the WILL. Get. Done.
- Build a mobile enclosure for the grill
- Build a mobile bar table
- Build a mobile enclosure for the fire pit
- Make a portable outdoor projector screen
Yes, I really want these extras to be mobile. Â No, it’s not because I want to take it all with me. Â It’s because I like having options. Â Having everything solidly built, but mobile, will make them more like in indoor room that I can change around at any time (like seasonally).
The Best Laid Plans
These drawings are what we brainstormed after I broke my foot.  We were sitting out on the patio talking about what we want, as we have so many times before.  This time I decided to “take notes”. These are the roughest, most old school drawings and I love it! They are definitely not drawn to scale, but they are a good a estimation of what we want.

And true to my green design philosophy, I plan to reuse as much as I can. Of course there are always adjustments along the way & hope you’ll follow along to see how we make it. Â Boot or no boot, we’ll get there!
I’m sorry to hear about your foot (what a bummer..) but take it easy, you don’t want to aggravate it. I know how it is to want to get stuff done, but sometimes things don’t always work out. Your backyard is really nice.. I can’t wait to see what you do with it.. Good luck and take it easy
Thank you Jamala. It is hard to just sit, but if I want to heal I have to. We are already off schedule, but I promised my DH when we started that I wouldn’t push or stress. So we are trying to focus on enjoying the process along the way.