Under Deck Landscaping and Fenced Kids Play Area

Our yard backs up to a drainage area/man-made wetland. It's beautiful, we love all the birds, and that we don't have neighbors directly behind us, but it can be scary when you are a parent with two toddlers. Our yard is smaller and so fencing it off would mean making it feel even smaller, and fencing off the wetland area seems like it might be an eyesore.

So what is a person to do? After much perusing of Pinterest and seeing various ideas...we came up with our own mish-mash of Pinterest ideas. It took almost a solid day to do and it was hot...but we are loving the outcome. We can now PEACEFULLY play outside! Worth it! Playing in the backyard is now fun for us and them...they think it's a fun play area and we can actually sit down and no more chasing is involved.

BEFORE

As you can see it was lots of weeds, mud, random landscaping rock from the previous owner and our a few kids outdoor toys.

AFTER:

With help from my in-laws and even my 2.5 year old son. We managed to get everything torn out and done in one Saturday. We started at about 6:30am and we were done around 4pm. Not too bad considering it was a very hot day, we stopped for meals, and we had 2 little ones running around. So thankful for this home improvement now. We can actually sit while our kids play outside...a forign concept to us before! The word SIT was not in our vocabulary before with our boys outside. Best of all they LOVE it too.

How we made it happen: 

We cut down all the weeds, dug up sod and leveled out the area as best we could. Then we scattered out the landscaping rock we had back there so it was even. Meanwhile, my mother-in-law laid the stone edgers. Next, we laid down landscaping cloth and topped it off with a thick layer of black mulch. We took picket fence panels and attached them to the support beams of the deck, and where it was needed my father-in-law and husband put in posts and poured some cement to set it. The next day Dustin (my husband) used a gate kit to help build the gate for the fence and added a latch.