To create an intimate outdoor room, Mike and Alana started with an 8-foot-tall, wood privacy fence along the length of the side yard, which was open to a neighbor's driveway. Though Mike felt he could have built the fence himself, he hired professionals. "I felt like this was an instance where professionals who build fences every day would do it a lot faster and cheaper than I could," Mike says. The side of their brick house forms the other "wall," opposite the fence.

To soften hard edges, such as the brick house and the wood fence, the Littles included several small flowerbeds in the new space.