10 Ideas For Your Future Shared Yard With Friends

Shared backyards are a highlight of sharing property with friends. With two or more households contributing effort, skills, and resources, it’s half the effort to make (and maintain) the yard of your dreams. In this article, we’ll explore 10 ideas to transform your backyard into the perfect shared hangout spot. From budget-friendly DIY projects to luxurious additions, we'll cover a range of options to suit different tastes and budgets. 

Live Near Friends can help you find that perfect property that fits multiple parties and has an empty canvas of a yard.

Idea 1: a big hot tub

• DIY-Able: No
• Cost range: $5,000 – $20,000+
• Help needed: electrician, plumber

Let’s start with the obvious: put in a hot tub. As Phil Levin said of the giant cedar hot tub at Radish: “It looks awesome, seems awesome, and is awesome.” Hot tubs require at least monthly maintenance (more if you use them frequently) but when you share one, the work is spread between more people. 

Buying a hot tub can simply mean picking something out and ordering it from Costco. But you may need to prep the space where the hot tub will go, and potentially work with an electrician and plumber to install a 220-volt power line, water line and gas line. Many people choose to order a hot tub through a specialized dealership, where agents can help work through these complexities and how specific tubs will work in your space.

As for the hot tub itself, there are almost endless varieties: you’ll want to think about how many people will be using it, what kind of seating you want, if you want jets or just enjoy soaking … Wirecutter has a good guide to walk you through the decision-making process. 

A good, basic tub starts around $5,000, and high-end ones can be up to $20,000.

Idea 2: a mud kitchen 

• DIY-Able: Yes
• Cost range: $0 – $500+
• Help needed: Maybe a plumber?

We’ve covered the benefits of parenting near friends. A huge part of this is being able to send your kids outside to play with other kids—bonus points if there’s a designated area to contain the craziness (and the mess). A mud kitchen does this perfectly.

A mud kitchen is basically a play kitchen plopped outside in the dirt, plus water. It doesn’t sound like much, but young kids go wild for it. You can put any play kitchen outside and call it a mud kitchen, but if you want to get more professional about it, you can find people on Facebook Marketplace who will build one custom for your space, complete with a water hookup and any other bells and whistles you can dream of, starting around $500. If you’re handy, you can build one yourself within a weekend.

Idea 3: a movie projector + screen

• DIY-Able: Yes
• Cost range: $150 - $1200
• Help needed: none

Installing a projector is a low effort, high reward improvement for your backyard. It’s equally fun for adults and kids, and a great excuse to invite people over. 

Projectors range from $150-$1000, and screens from $100-$200. The screen can be rolled up when not in use, and left outside for years without issue. And depending on your setup, you may not even need a screen. If there’s a big, blank wall, you can often just use that.

Idea 4: a vintage trailer

• DIY-Able: Mostly
• Cost range: $10,000 - $100,000+
• Help needed: electrician, plumber

Putting a vintage trailer in your backyard can get you functional extra space without the effort and expense involved in building an ADU. “You can use it as an office, guest room, or even a rental unit,” said landscape architect Site Rupe. “My daughter likes to use ours for sleepovers with her friends.” 

There are two ways to go about it, Rupe said: you can look for an old, dilapidated trailer and refurbish it, or find one that’s ready to go and essentially just plop it down in your yard for an instant extra unit. 

Old trailers often go for a couple thousand dollars, but they’re usually in such bad shape that they need to be completely gutted. That means tearing out the existing insulation and installing interior wood paneling. It’s a project, but it gives you a total blank slate for whatever you might want to do inside. 

If you’re not up for a DIY project, you can get a beautiful furnished trailer starting for around $20K (and going way up from there). 

Once the trailer is in your backyard, you can hook it up to your existing water and sewage system and have a fully functional additional unit. The cost of doing so will depend on your existing setup, but Sita estimated around $1K. 

Idea 5: a barrel sauna

• DIY-Able: Mostly
• Cost range: $6,000 - $20,000+
• Help needed: electrician, plumber

A barrel sauna is a sauna that looks like a giant wine barrel. The shape isn’t just aesthetically pleasing, it’s also more efficient to heat, helps ensure even heating, and allows for ventilation underneath.

Barrel saunas are the best value (starting around $5K), and easy to assemble and maintain. At Radish, they got one from Costco and decked it out with a supply of aromatherapy oils and LED lighting. It’s a low effort way to transform your backyard into a spa retreat. 

Like the hot tub, you’ll need a electrician to run a 240v connection, which will probably cost $1-2k.

Idea 6: a firepit

• DIY-Able: Yes
• Cost range: $250 - $5,000+
• Help needed: potentially a mason, if you want to build your own

Fire pits make it comfortable to hang out in the backyard at night year round (they’re especially great for Bay Area summer nights, when it’s 53 degrees by 6pm). Julia, who lives with friends in a duplex in Oakland, says, “We love having people over to the fire pit at night to play music or roast marshmallows. It’s the best way to bring people together.”

Phil says the custom stone fire pit at Radish is the most-used feature in the backyard, and requires zero maintenance.  

There are lots of options and price ranges. If you want to create a big, powerful fire pit that fits in perfectly with your style and space constraints, you can build a custom stone fire pit. You’d start by choosing a fire pit bowl or burner system, then hire a mason or landscaper to create custom stonework around it (cost: $3 - $5K).

Pre-made stone fire pits (like this one from West Elm) are also available for under $1,000. 

Julia’s duplex started with an in-ground fire pit with no stone work around it, but found that people would trip on it and switched to a portable, smokeless fire pit that they can easily stash out of the way when not in use (an added bonus is that it produces less smoke than a conventional fire pit). 

Idea 7: a pizza oven

• DIY-Able: Yes
• Cost range: $500 - $15,000+
• Help needed: potentially a mason, if you want to build your own

As with fire pits, pizza ovens can be built-in or portable. Built-in pizza ovens are usually quite large, and take a long time to heat up, but they churn out lots of pizzas quickly—a big plus if you envision hosting backyard pizza parties for all your friends. 

DIY pizza ovens can be made with brick, cob, or other materials, and while they won’t cost much in terms of materials, they’re a significant time investment and best if someone in your household is already into building stuff. You can also buy a ready-made full size pizza oven (starting around $500), which you’d then need to mount on some sort of base. 

For instant pizza gratification, everyone seems to love the Ooni Koda 16”—a small, portable, gas-powered oven that is ready to use right out of the box. The downside of portable ovens is that they cook only one pizza at a time. 

Idea 8: an outdoor bathtub/shower

• DIY-Able: Yes
• Cost range: $500 - $5,000+
• Help needed: plumber

Julia, who shares a duplex with friends in Oakland, loves her outdoor clawfoot tub. Her children enjoy bathing under the trees, and Julia takes her own soak at least once a week. “We live next to a creek, so you can hear it flowing while you’re in the tub,” she said. “We put in a hummingbird feeder so you can watch the birds while you bathe, and installed fairy lights above the tub for night time baths.”

Julia found a tub for free on the side of the road, then paid a plumber for a couple hours of work to put in a pipe from their washing machine, which was already outside. They also spent a day adding a DIY shade structure over the tub. 

Once you have a tub, it’s also easy to add a shower. Sita Rupe likes extending a shower head into overhanging trees. This provides privacy and hides the shower unit, almost making it feel like you’re taking a rain shower. 

Costs will depend on where your existing water source is—it’s going to be easier and cheaper if you have something readily available in the backyard to pull from. Sita estimates $300-$1000. 

Idea 9: a chicken coop

• DIY-Able: Yes
• Cost range: $200 - $2,000+ (for just the coop, not the chickens, feed, etc)
• Help needed: none

Raising your own chickens is an excellent way to put your shared yard to practical use. You get a steady supply of fresh, free-range eggs and free fertilizer for your garden. Plus, chickens make charming and entertaining pets. 

Once you’ve built a chicken coop and acquired some hens, raising them for eggs isn’t hard: the daily responsibilities include letting the chickens out of the coop in the morning, making sure they have food and water, closing the coop at night, and, of course, collecting the eggs. This work gets cut in half when there are two households pitching in. 

“I never wanted chickens, but now that I have them, I can’t imagine life without them,” said Sita Rupe, the landscape architect in Oakland. “The whole neighborhood gets their eggs from us.”

Chickens need a protected, enclosed space to protect them from predators at night, and an outdoor area to walk around in during the day. Julia, who lives in a duplex with friends in Oakland, bought a used chicken coop for $200. Sita repurposed an old playhouse for her chicken coop, and used wooden filing cabinet drawers for lay baskets. 

As for acquiring the chickens, Sita recommends getting at least three (chickens are social creatures), and raising them from chicks. This requires keeping them indoors under a heat lamp for the first few weeks, until they’re ready to live outside. (If you have kids, be careful—Julia’s toddler smashed all their incubating eggs before they hatched!) You can also just get pullets (teenage chickens) if you don’t want to deal with raising chicks indoors. 

Many cities allow you to keep chickens as backyard pets without a permit (in San Francisco, for example, you’re allowed to have up to four), as long as you’re not selling the eggs. Check your local regulations before you get started. 

Idea 10: a garden room

• DIY-Able: Yes
• Cost range: $500 - $5,000+
• Help needed: potentially a mason, if you want to build your own

There’s something magical about garden structures like gazebos or greenhouses. They don’t have to be big or expensive to enhance your backyard, and in many cases, it’s better to think small scale and DIY. 

“I come into a lot of spaces where people want to add an ADU to serve as an office or extra bedroom,” said Page McCargo, landscape architect and owner of Edgeland Designs. Larger structures can work, but they take up a lot of the landscape. “Some of the coolest structures are the ones that aren’t fully finished,” she said. “Having something playful or artistic can feel really unique and special, add useful square footage, and draw people into the garden.” 

Page did the landscaping for the garden of Black Bird Bookstore in San Francisco, which includes a small, simple structure that you could almost describe as a shed, except for the fact that it feels like a peaceful hut at a Japanese mountain spa. 

Landscape architect Sita Rupe recommends play houses as a great place to start. “With a playhouse, you don’t have to know what you’re doing. You can just use scrap materials, have fun, and let it grow over time.” 

If you’re looking for your own salvaged materials, Sita recommends Freecycle and Facebook Marketplace, or Building Resource and Urban Ore if you’re in the Bay Area (just be sure not to use pressure treated wood for any surface your kids will play on).