My dad’s house has a massive and very flat back yard. I was never a “Hey, let’s go play outside with the hot and the bugs and the dirt” kind of kid. But in retrospect, I wish I’d taken more advantage of the yard. It’s a great yard.
I’d always envisioned my own kids playing in a similar space. The house we’re renting* now doesn’t really have any playable yard space to speak of, though. The front “yard” is taken up mostly by a gravel driveway. The back has a good amount of space, but I’d have to give the kids climbing gear to play on it. It’s pretty steep, is what I’m saying. I’m of the opinion that we don’t need quite as much driveway as we have and that if we could reclaim some of that space as yard, it would give the kids a place to play.
And so, I have made a little diagram and I would like your opinion.** I’m not sure how you’d go about shrinking a driveway, but I’d imagine it would take a good bit of manual labor to remove the gravel. And then you’d have to put down grass seed or sod, I think, unless you wanted to give the kids a mud pit. Which I don’t want to do.
What do you think? Would this be possible? Or affordable? I don’t know how many landscaping experts are stopping by here these days, but I’d appreciate any input you may have.
*And yes, we’re renting. So this might all be hypothetical talk, depending on our landlord’s opinion on the topic.
**Said diagram was lost in a tragic domain transfer accident. Terribly sad. It was a doozy of a diagram.
There’s probably more gravel there than meets the eye. Like gravel under the gravel to support the gravel, and then more under that, etc. When my grandparents built their house (which my parents currently own and in which they reside), they put down a gravel road. For something like 30 years since, they’ve been dumping more gravel on that road every few years. I don’t know how long your driveway has been there, but I’m just sayin’.
Also, where would you put visitors?
And, your landlord might be more inclined to do such improvements as build in steps down the side of the house to access the back. It would probably improve the value of his rental property, and without cutting down on any of the already small parking space. I mean, small if you have friends over :).
This is what you do. Give Rockford shovel. Instruct Rockford to get rid of gravel. Tell Rockford to get some sod. Have Rockford put sod down. Make Rockford a batch of cookies. Job done.
Actually, I’ve no idea, but we’ve got a similarly unwieldy yard. We walk down to the park fairly frequently. Zach can spend a good hour throwing rocks into the creek. Easily entertained, that one.
A Free Man´s last blog post: “I’ll play and you sing“