When we moved into our Virginia home, we had to tear down a dying tree, a rotted shed, and a sidewalk leading to a neighbor’s house (long story), leaving us with a blank slate that we spent 3.5 years customizing to create this lovely space.

In 2024, we moved again (thanks Coast Guard!) and this time into a new construction home, so once again, we were starting with a blank slate. There may have been some tears shed over starting all over again, I’m not going to lie.

When we first moved in, half of the backyard was sodded and half was just seeded. While we knew we wanted another fence, swing set, shed and gardens, we also knew that we wouldn’t be able to do it all immediately. We had to prioritize.

Priority 1 – A Fence

With 3 small kids, a dog and a cat, we knew that a fence had to be the first order of business. Even though my husband built our fence in Virginia, we were not looking to do that again ourselves. So we did hire a company to install our fence – Hampstead Fence. They were able to schedule us within 3 weeks of our move in date, and then the install only took two days.

We did opt for gates on both sides of the house, one is a standard gate while the other is an 8ft gate, to allow my husband’s truck to drive into the backyard, as needed. There is also a final gate at the back of the yard, so we can fetch any stray balls or toys that end up tossed over in the woods.

Priority 2 – A Swing Set

This wasn’t actually going to be priority two, but our neighbors got a swing set, and our kids started wanting to go over to their yard a ton to play on it. To keep the peace, we decided we needed to invest in a swing set for our kids.

We opted for the Backyard Discovery, Skyfort II swing set off Amazon for a few reasons:

1. We were familiar with the brand, so we knew the quality we were getting into (remember, this is not our forever home and we won’t be able to take this with us)
2. With 3 kids, we wanted the ability to have 3 swings
3. The monkey bars will come in handy as our kids get older
4. The lookout tower is divine
5. They offered monthly payments for it

Priority 3 (2.5?) – Some Gardens

Once we had the swing set built, my husband quickly remembered how terrible it is to try and mow around the structure (and all the toys). For our house in Virginia, we had used playground mulch as a way of defining the space and keeping the mowing headaches to a minimum. We knew we wanted to do that again. And yes, the small amounts of mulch that gets tracked into the house is well worth it.

We started with creating the wood base, then covered the area with cardboard and soaked it with a hose to kill off the grass. We let that bake in the hot sun for a couple of days, before we covered the area with mulch. We weren’t able to find playground-specific mulch nearby, so we got the closest thing to it, but it’s definitely not the same.

Once the bordered mulch are was complete, we jumped into the discussion of gardens. We decided that we would create a flower bed along the edge of the swing set and put some bare bones plants—plus a crepe myrtle tree—in the ground to start us off. This made more sense to do now, since we could pull up and reuse some of the sod. Although, given the 95 degree temperatures, we quickly wished we hadn’t started it.

We added stepping stones to two locations where the kids most commonly walk through to the swing set, but we’re not real strict about using those.

Up Next

We have lots of big dreams for this backyard, although we’ll see what we actually do while we are here. Some of those dreams include a shed, expanding the patio and more gardens. Since we’re only here for 4 years, we have to make sure that what we’re putting into it is worth the time, effort and cost.

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