Welcome back to Room Reno #85 here at The Sims Resource! Today we’re helping a Sim who wants to turn her bland backyard into a springtime oasis! Let’s meet the Sim we’re helping!

Meet Stella!

Stella is a Sim who recently moved to Willow Creek, and her favorite thing to do is garden! She tries her best to live off the land, so she also raises chickens and wants to transform the yard at her new ish house into a springtime oasis for all of them! I say new ish because her house is actually a few months old in terms of when she moved in, but she hasn’t had a chance to make over the boring yard yet because Willow Creek gets cold and snowy in the winter and all of her new plants would have frozen over! Now that the weather is warm and it’s time to get some sunshine again, Stella can’t wait to make her lawn into the perfect place for gardening, chicken raising, and entertaining all in one! Let’s see what we’re working with.

The Before

This is a pretty standard yard! It has a lot of potential that isn’t being used, but the current layout certainly isn’t bad either. The deck can stay for sure, since it’s got a lot of great space for an eating area and a grill along with some decorative plants. It could definitely use a little fencing to help make it safer, along with an expansion of the stairs all the way across the open edge so that more people can use them at once. The grill could be upgraded to a newer model too, maybe one of those fancy ones that gets installed into a set of counters for the ultimate outdoor cooking experience.

The rest of the yard is pretty much unused space, with a small sitting area and a few planter boxes. All this is well and good, but it can definitely be expanded upon. First of all, the planter boxes are going to become freeform dirt planting areas because that’s what Stella prefers. They’re also probably going to move from that corner of the yard to somewhere else, making space for the all-important chicken coop and the fire pit. That’s right – a fire pit! It wasn’t on Stella’s list of absolute needs, but I think it’ll add a lot of value to the yard (and make it more usable on chilly days).

The Planning

This space was actually pretty simple to plan – more so than I thought it would be, considering it’s a whole yard! The fence is a big part of that. It sort of creates a set of walls that I can use as boundaries for the ‘room’ that is the yard, while the house creates the other walls on the other sides too. I put the chicken coop up against the fence on two sides to help ensure maximum protection against foxes and other critters who might mean the chickens harm.

Don’t worry, I’ll be fencing them in on the other two sides as well so that Stella’s whole yard doesn’t turn into chicken central! Plus, she doesn’t want them pecking at all of her lovely crops, which are going to be placed up against the house. I actually ended up expanding the house a bit to create a flat edge against the yard. It was partially a house shape issue, but also an issue of sunlight–the area behind that wall to the left was getting a lot less sun, and it seemed like those crops would suffer for it! Or, they would if this was real life. In the game, I just didn’t like how it looked 😉 I’m planning on putting a whole patio spread up on the deck, which is a pretty good size for entertaining without taking up the whole backyard. A table and some chairs along with a grill station will make it perfect for warm spring days. For cooler evenings, the fire pit will create a great place to hang out and warm up from the chilly wind with friends! Let’s get building.

The After

This backyard is so cute! I think it has a lot more springtime vibes now. As someone who is currently getting into gardening, I think Stella might have the ultimate gardening setup right now (outside of a greenhouse, I guess!). Plus, she gets a lot of extra indoor space with the room expansion. I like to avoid major renovations in a lot of the Room Renos, but this one felt appropriate because I think it made better use of both the yard and the inside of the house. The plants will get a much more even exposure to the sun, which means faster growth and more crops for Stella to cook up or sell to other Sims.

I also adore the entertaining space in this yard–the deck has the perfect setup for grilling or chilling while also allowing the rest of the space to be used for everything else. I especially love the fancy built-in grill with the counters, since it’s a huge upgrade from a simple standalone grill and makes the patio look super fancy. There’s even giant planters for all of Stella’s decorative plants! Gosh, it’s so much easier for Sims to take care of plants, isn’t it? I have trouble keeping succulents alive, but Sims plants look great all the time, just like fake plants. Highly recommend fake plants if you want your spaces to look green but you can’t keep track of when you last watered your plants (this is a self callout). Anyway! The chicken coop area is also really cute, and is safely surrounded by tall fence on all sides so that the chickens stay safe.

Thanks for checking out Room Reno #85! If you liked this blog, check out Room Reno #84: Dark Boho Bedroom or our Gilmore Girls inspired lookbook. Looking for something else? Read about all the best Vanilla Girl CC or check out our Spring Break trends lookbook! Have a great day 😎