Patio & turf oasis — a side yard of bare dirt made into the best room in the house

The before photograph is the whole brief: bare compacted dirt running the length of the house, a red-painted brick wall, a leaning wooden fence and construction waste stacked against a dead vine.

What the yard did have was canopy. Mature live oaks covered almost the entire footprint, which is shade you cannot buy and cannot rush.

What we did

The ground was cleared and regraded, then split into two surfaces that meet on a curve: a flagstone patio wide enough for real furniture, and an artificial turf lawn shaped to sit under the heaviest shade.

Turf was the right call here specifically because of those oaks. Grass will not hold under that much canopy in San Antonio, and the client wanted green year round rather than the thin patchy lawn the site would actually support.

Detail

Every turf edge against the flagstone is hand-nailed and cut to the curve rather than butted straight and hidden under a trim. The perimeter wall was painted out to a quiet grey so the planting and the stone carry the colour instead.