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The Front Yard

© Chris Arnold

I would like to pose a question to the readers of this site: What do you do with your front yard?

I am noticing a somewhat disturbing trend in new home building. A lot of these homes are being built with most of the lot in the front. The side yards are hardly enough to walk in and the backyards are ity-bity. So this made me wonder what most folks do with their front yards. Obviously these contractors think that people really use them a lot.

Now please realize that I am being a little bit sarcastic. I don't know why someone would build a home on a lot in such a way as to have more yard out front than in the back but I am sure there are reasons. The question that I have is what have you done with your front yard and why?

In homes in which I've lived in the past we did several things with our front yard. When living out in the country the front yard was pretty much viewed just like the backyard. In other words, we did whatever we liked. Toys could be out there, and left there. The dogs were out there, and there were no fences.

When we moved into town we did something that you don't see much anymore, we fenced it in. We had our backyard fenced mostly in privacy fence that was about 6 feet tall. This connected to the front yard with tall gates and then the front yard was fenced with a short, painted chain-link fence. There were gates in the front fence to get to the entrance doors, and those gates were never locked. For an interesting change for a chain-link fence you may consider painting it. Ours was white.

Another home that we lived in had a front yard that was mostly unfenced, but did have a fenced in courtyard. This was kind of nice because we had a rather plain front yard outside the courtyard which was completely covered in Ivy. The courtyard had a kind of stepping-stone floor and had a number of potted plants, a birdbath, and a flowing fountain with about 4 chairs. It was normally shaded by trees and the house and stayed cool most of the time. It was a very pleasant place.

Now what ideas are out there? Has anyone done some stuff with their front yard that invite people in? Has anyone completely fenced their front yard in and made it a more private place? Let us know what your front yard ideas are.

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