Great ideas for outdoor rooms

Reinvent your yard with a new deck, patio, cottage, dining room, or curl-up space

19 favorite garden cottages and sheds

Creative ideas for backyard retreats, detached home offices, and reinvented sheds

Marion Brenne

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Small garden solution

Open areas and intimate nooks: That was what landscape architect Tomi Kobara wanted from a makeover of her Oakland, California, garden.

Part of the challenge of the transformation was the backyard's tiny size ― barely more than 1,500 square feet.

When she bought her property, a shed that served as a studio sat in the far corner of the wedge-shaped backyard. In front of it lay a concrete patio surrounded by a large lawn.

See what she did with it