This is completely off-topic from everything else I talk about around here, so fair warning.

So, as a lot of people know, about 8 years ago, we bought a new house. Things have been great, love it here, you know the drill. However, the one thing that has been bothering us is our back yard. It’s just an empty canvas and we have no idea what to do with it. None whatsoever. We keep talking about getting a landscape designer, but we have no clue what to tell them. They can make it pretty, but they can’t make it useful.

I am totally lost.

It’s a big space with virtually nothing in it. It’s a big space and when we moved in, the previous owners had apparently had livestock, there were fences and pens all over the place, seemingly at random. There’s a koi pond that we’ve never used, plus a couple of planters, but almost all of the fences, we’ve ripped out. There were 5 trees, all of them dead or dying so those are almost all gone. There was a pergola that was here when we bought the house, something put up without a permit by previous owners and not structurally sound anyhow, plus it sat on the roof, which had to be removed when we re- roofed the house. Now, it’s just a wasteland.

I have a woodworking shop in a separate building, but that’s about it. Mostly my interaction with the back yard is walking back and forth to the shop. We’ve got two truck gates, large enough to drive a semi in if we had one, one to the front yard off of the driveway and one leading out into an alley between houses. I don’t think my wife has stepped foot out in the back yard for six months.

Yet we have no clue what to do with it. Back with previous houses, we had kids. They’re grown and gone now. There’s no reason to make anywhere to play. The only ones out there most of the time are the dogs. I can’t even conceive of what I’d want to do with the space. Maybe a fire pit? I doubt we’d use it. We could put in a pool, but we’ve had that before and it never got used, even with kids. I’m sure for the first couple of years, we’d jump in during the summer, but otherwise it’s just a big hole in the ground and expensive to maintain. Same with putting in a spa. My sister and her husband had one and got rid of it because they never used it. The whole thing became a haven for black widows and all the upkeep, they didn’t want to do. I don’t either. I don’t want to have to pay someone else for it either. It’s just not worthwhile if we’re not going to get any long-term enjoyment out of it.

I had plans to put in a build-in barbecue, since we have natural gas run already, but now that the kids are gone, I know I’d never use it. It’s not like we entertain. The only time anyone really comes over is for Thanksgiving and Christmas and it’s way too cold out for anyone to want to go outside then.

So it just sits there empty. My wife still talks about getting a designer in sometime in the spring like she has for several years now, but we have zero ideas. I don’t want something to look at, I want something to do, and I can’t imagine actually doing anything out there. It’s kind of driving me crazy, but we’ve been going around and around like this for years.

Anyone have any ideas? I’ve tried putting this on landscaping subreddits and nobody had any suggestions. I just have no clue what to do.