You just bought the perfect house – or you’re ready to make an offer on the perfect home – but the backyard leaves something to be desired. Sure, it has a pool and a hot tub, but the rest of it leaves you wanting more. Convert your backyard into an ultimate party area if you love to entertain.
Go through the backyard and clean up any brush, old plants you don’t want and remove any flower beds that you don’t want or plan on replacing. Once you have everything you don’t want out of the backyard, you have a working space. If you plan on refurbishing the decking and screen around the pool and hot tub, do that before you start the rest of the landscaping.
Before you even get started, take measurements and create a plan for your new backyard. If you start adding things as you go, you may find out that you’ll run out of room or may not like how they look once they are installed. Avoid wasting time with doing things over by creating a plan first.
Build a stage with a dance floor next to the pool or behind the pool. Keep in mind that you’ll probably want electricity out there to plug in speakers, amps and such. You might like lights around the dance floor. Either put this area close enough to the house to reach outlets or run underground electricity to a pole with a second breaker box. Run wiring for several outlets in the base of the stage and dance floor from the breaker box. Just be sure everything is rated for outdoor use, including the outlets. You can “hide” the pole by putting plants around it or building a wishing well or other decorative structure over the pole.
If no patio exists or the current one is too small or just looks bad, build a patio or a deck. If you want an outdoor kitchen, keep that in mind so that you plan the patio or deck appropriately. You may want to put the grill area under a gazebo built into the patio or deck, or you may want to have a covered deck to protect your outdoor kitchen from some of the elements.
When you design the outdoor kitchen, be sure to design a way to cover the grill and counter area in inclement weather, whether you have a hinged cover to protect the entire area or you cover the grill and counters with a large tarp designed for the area.
For those times when you want to entertain without a live band, add exterior speakers to the deck or patio. Build a waterproof housing for a stereo or have wires fed through the ceiling and/or walls from the sound system in your living room to external speakers out on the deck area.
With proper planning and accounting for the area of the country you live in, you will be able to create an outdoor living area for entertaining yourselves or your friends and family.
Susan Shuxian Hu has been a dedicated realtor serving in Silicon Valley since 2010. With great passion, outstanding negotiation skills and due diligence, she has helped many buyers and sellers in their real estate needs. Living in West San Jose for more than 14 years, she has broad knowledge in Cupertino, West San Jose, Los Altos and Saratoga. She has enormous patience working with buyers and never tired of showing all possible properties that may fit client’s needs. Clients appreciate her best service to their satisfaction. She specialized in luxurious real estate purchase in Los Altos, Cupertino, Saratoga and Palo Alto. She also helped friend and past client’s referral working in San Francisco, Foster City and far reached Bay Area.
Susan Shuxian Hu was graduated in East China Normal University in Shanghai with bachelor and master degrees in Bio science. She came to US in 1989 and earned her Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics in Texas A&M University in 1996. After one year of postdoc in Southern Florida University in Tampa, she moved back to Orlando with her family and started working in Lucent Technologies. In 2002, Susan moved to California, Silicon Valley joined a start-up company. Since then she worked in high tech Corporation till 2009. Driven by her dream job pursuing, she found her passion working in sales by helping people in real estate after one year of education in De Anza business and real estate law study. Since then, she has been serving many people in Bay Area for their real estate needs.
With bilingual advantage, she has been actively working with Chinese immigrants as well as local engineers and residents. With rich high tech background and connection with Chinese community, Susan has served in luxurious real estate in last a couple of years.