If you need to give your backyard a face lift, but money is a little tight, there’s no need to worry. Southern Living has some ideas from Kentucky garden designer, Jon Carloftis. Carloftis bought an older house in Lexington and decided to save money by transforming existing structures instead of starting from scratch. Here’s how he did it:

• Carloftis began by diving the yard into several smaller spaces, which creates a more welcoming, useful and bigger feel. The idea here is to bring the indoors out and the outdoors in.
• Instead of removing the asphalt of an unused section of the driveway, Carloftis choose to cover it with a layer of mixed pea gravel and create a courtyard. Shrubs and flowers were placed to make a border for an outdoor living room. The cast-iron fire pit is a great place for entertaining guests, even in cooler weather.
• The old garage walls and French doors below just didn’t work together, so Carloftis added brackets to the front and put a piece of wood on top of them. This supported the fiberglass planters he installed, along with pretty flowers in them, created the perfect solution.
• Next, Carloftis transformed the old garage into a potting shed to store plants and gardening supplies in. Braces were put in to support the sagging walls. He also painted the floor asphalt white.
• The secret lawn is a place in Carloftis’ yard used to be open to his neighbors, but now it’s a secret hideaway. How did he do it? An inexpensive privacy fence was added to the perimeter. Then, trees, shrubs and perennials were planted in front of the fence.
• The screened porch was rarely used, so Carloftis renovated it into a glassed-in bedroom. Carloftis explained that fiberglass was chosen because it never splits and can be painted or stained.
• The living green gate is perhaps the most unique feature this yard. A galvanized horse trough was filled with soil and planted with arborvitaes. A wooded brace was built for the bottom and an old piano dolly was attached to easily open and close the gate.

To see the rest of the photos of this transformation, visit the Southern Living site.

Photo credit: Van Chaplin via Southern Living.