Recently, one of my neighbors sent out a group text asking if anyone had logs from cut-down trees for a friend who had some cool plans for her backyard. It immediately reminded me of the Natural Play Spaces series we did a few years ago and I sent it to her. Looking over it, I remembered how wonderful it was and wanted to share it with you guys with summer being here. I hope it inspires you to look at your backyard in a whole new way this summer! I've written before about how much I value … [Read more...]
Natural Play Spaces: Children’s Veggie Gardens
You guys! It has been the rainiest season in Seattle in the history of ever (literally) but the sun is out today. And - of course - it's making me want to plant all the things. If you're feeling me, here's a post we did a few summers ago on one of the coolest kinds of gardens out there; the kids' garden. Enjoy and happy planting! Now that the bark has been laid, we've made one more major addition to our backyard natural play space. But don't get too excited - I haven't had a chance … [Read more...]
How to Build a Sandbox… Finally!
Hey friends. We're still working furiously to get our home ready to put on the market this week, but I haven't forgotten about you! Since I didn't get around to posting about our DIY sandbox until the end of the summer when it first debuted - I thought I'd get ahead of the game this year and post it now. You know, so you could build it and actually enjoy it all summer. It's a good project - you should totally do it if you have the space. Young House Love even based their sandbox on … [Read more...]
Fun with Logs
At first I was feeling guilty that this post is long overdue - we started the series back in May after all. But now I'm thinking it might be just the time to re-visit the idea of natural outdoor play spaces. With summer coming to an end, so too is the time for running through the sprinklers and planting vegetable gardens. The return of cool, crisp fall weather is actually quite perfect for a more rustic approach to outdoor play. … [Read more...]
Playgrounds Gone Natural: Play Gardens
photos counter clockwise from top: The Imagination Tree, Pinterest, Paint on the Ceiling After first writing about playgrounds and backyards going natural, I was so excited to hear you all wanted to come along on my journey in building S and C their own natural play space. I've thought a lot about how best to approach this new series and I think the simplest route is to use each post to spotlight a different possible element. Today we're talking about play … [Read more...]