Hi everyone! I'd love some advice about how to improve the appearance and functionality of my little backyard. I live in a townhouse condo neighborhood and can do just about anything that doesn't alter the fence. I just had to take down a big climbing plant that a squirrel built a nest in, and will clear out all the brush from it ASAP.
I have two little kids and a medium size dog. We need this area to have:
– a potty spot for our dog
– any space at all for our kiddos to play with medium supervision
– storage for 2 adult bikes and 2 kid bikes
Here are our current problems:
– our backyard always smells like dog pee, even when I regularly hose down the gravel
– the tiles are all uneven, difficult to clean, and not a great surface for kids to play on
– there's so many ugly spots I want to hide. our BBQ is currently hiding the AC and gas pipes, and I'd love to have ivy or something to cover the drain pipe
We plan to sell our unit in the next few years, and don't mind investing a few thousand dollars in improving the space, especially if it can increase the value of our home.
I guess what I'm really wondering is:
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What's the best surface otpuon for reducing the dog pee smell? I don't mind training the dog to use a different spot in the yard if necessary.
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Should we get rid of the paver tiles? what should we have instead?
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How can we put lipstick on this pig?
thanks in advance!!
by Rainbowclaw27
6 Comments
A good pressure washing would go a long ways. For space you could mount both bikes on the fence. Plants placed all around in strategic ways will really help the smell
Bike rack, bleach, even out the dirt under the pavers. Accept that the ac unit is gonna be there unless you want to build a mini fence with a door on it. Piss smell is inevitable, it’ll continue unless the dog goes somewhere else, though i wouldnt suggest having your kids playing in the same area your dog uses the bathroom.
Gravel traps dog urine and hosing it just pushes the bacteria down into the soil where it stews. You need to shovel out all that tainted rock and soak the bare dirt with a yard enzyme cleaner. For the kids and the resale value pull up those sunken tiles immediately. They are uneven because whoever laid them skipped the compacted gravel base. Excavate it properly lay down a compacted crushed stone foundation and install modern large format concrete pavers to give the kids a smooth surface. Pick one back corner for the dog and fill it with cedar mulch which neutralizes odors naturally and is cheap to swap out twice a year.
Never plant ivy to cover your utility pipes because it will tear apart your masonry and take over the yard. The smartest move is building a freestanding slatted wood screen to hide the AC unit and the gas lines. Group your bike storage in a low profile horizontal shed right next to it. A good landscape needs clear structure so you want to consolidate all the ugly functional stuff into one zone instead of scattering it around the perimeter.
Before you drop a few thousand dollars on pavers take a picture of the yard and load it into the GardenDream web app. It is a solid design tool that lets you overlay different paver materials and test where that utility screen should go before you buy anything. Use it to build a visual blueprint so you know exactly what fits. Fix the base and organize the clutter and this space will easily add value when you sell.
depends on your taste and how much you want to spend but i see some pretty easy fixes here. step 1 clean up. any space looks/feels bad with a bunch of crap lying around. only leave things that you can absolutely justify, like if you bbq every weekend sure but if its just gathering dust there are cuter ways to hide the AC (see step 5). step 2 mount the bikes on the wall. step 3 decide where you absolutely need pavers for foot traffic and remove the rest. level the remaining ones. step 4 the dog pee always smells because theres no biome to process it. i would dig out any space that doesn’t have a paver on it, dump topsoil and plant creeping thyme. it smells amazing and is lower maintenance than grass. step 4 plant stuff in the corners and around the edges to break up the hard lines and make the space feel more cozy and natural. i would go with a lot of ferns, some shrubs and maybe a small tree. step 5 build a removable panel to cover that messy corner with the AC and meters and stuff. looks like it could extend diagonally from the right of that spigot to the right of the AC without interfering with the gate. i would use vertical planks the same grain and height as the fence but maybe thinner pieces nailed tightly together to give it a dynamic look. whatever you do, good luck!
You need to neutralise the urine , washing/power washing won’t work.
The stuff, if I remember contains non-ionic surfactants which neutralise the amonia
Whatever you do, no Ivy. It will destroy your fence, patio, and house.