Outdoor Rooms: Small Backyard, Big Living

By Michelle Medaris

The outdoor living room sits at the corner of the property line, it features a Blackwell fireplace, a hanging lantern pendant also by Blackwell and FX Luminaire line voltage pendants on a Douglas Fir wood patio cover. Photos courtesy of Dr. Eric Quinones and Geoff Guerrero

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Located in Redondo Beach, California, this small backyard presented Garden Builders with both an opportunity and a challenge to transform a small backyard into an outdoor living escape, complete with a Koi pond, kitchen and living room.

The Sam's residence, located in Redondo Beach, California had a big wish list for their 25 x 60 foot backyard, however this was not a problem for Garden Builders, a Los Angeles based landscape firm. The wish list included a Koi pond with a waterfall, fireplace, barbeque cook center with a counter-bar, re-designed landscape, lighting and patio covers to provide shade from the southern California sun.

 


The Koi pond is the centerpiece of the backyard, it is encompassed by an outdoor living room with a fireplace, a barbeque cook center, dining area and landscaped yard including three trees (two Birch and one Prunus) from the previous design.

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Koi Pond

The construction of the pond followed the same guidelines given to pools since the City of Torrance requires that anything deeper than 18 inches should do so. Other city ordinances required that the pond be built eight feet away from the two-story home and five feet in from the fence. These requirements cut the buildable area down from 25 x 60 feet to 12 x 50 feet. The pond dimensions are seven feet wide (at the widest part) by 23 feet in length with an average depth of two feet. As space became even more limited Hernandez designed the waterfall to be a vertical element.

The waterfall feature is a 32-inch backsplash-weeping wall, created with 80 square feet of Virginia Ledge stone. Because the pond was to be inhabited by Koi the stone was washed and double rinsed to remove any residual chemicals. It took two workers four weeks to construct the pond.

They used 1,500 square feet of liner and 1,000 square feet of underlayment, a FR 4900 self-priming pump with ???????(R)???? horsepower, an Ultima 2 4000 bio-tube filter with two-inch ports, Aqua Ultraviolet 57 watt UV stainless steel light, and two black bottom drains one with an aerator port. Pool Engineering of Yorba Linda provided the engineering plans and Davis Color provided the paving and treated concrete.

As space was limited in the Sam's backyard the waterfall feature became a backsplash-weeping wall, but with the chosen plant life (waterlilies, cyperus papyrus and chondrapetalum rush) the design perfects the elegance.

Barbeque Cook Area

The construction of the barbeque cook area is a combination of masonry, concrete, CMU block, stucco veneer and granite for the barbeque top. Many outdoor kitchens are built with a kit, but Hernandez' team built this one from scratch. The barbeque is a 42-inch Lynx Grill and rotisserie with built in ProSear natural gas and grill light. To fuel the barbeque a poly gas line was installed, this also fuels the fireplace in the outdoor living room.

Seating for the outdoor kitchen not only includes a counter-bar, but also a teak table and chair set. The area is shaded by a Douglas Fir wood patio cover, which is finished in a semi-gloss paint.

Outdoor kitchens are a trend on the rise, the Sam's includes a 42-inch Lynx barbeque and rotisserie, granite counter-bar, teak table and chair set and another Douglas Fir wood patio cover.

Living Room/Fireplace

The outdoor furniture is from Sirio's wicker line and is showcased with a hanging lantern pendant by Blackwell. To allow the Sam's control of the lighting environment the lantern was installed with a dimming feature. The second lighting feature is by FX Luminaire and illuminates the Koi pond and fireplace with low voltage lighting. Montana Stone Veneer encompasses the fireplace also by Blackwell and an infrared heater sits at the opposite side of the patio to even out the heat for those sitting furthest from the fireplace. This room sits under the second patio cover by Douglas Fir, also finished in a semi-gloss paint.

Before Garden Builders took on the project the Sam's backyard was just a basic design. The homeowners asked that three original trees remain, a Prunus pictured left and two Birch, one pictured center.

Overall Project and Challenges

Hernandez found many challenges on this project beginning with the size of the backyard, a 25 x 60 foot space. The area was cut down even further as the city requires that the detached patio covers sit six feet away from the residence, the koi pond eight feet away from the residence and all features had to sit five feet in from the property line making the total buildable space 20 x 50 feet. Hernandez also had to work around three existing trees, two birch and one Prunus in the backyard that the Sam's were adamant to keep.