Gig Harbor Backyard Oasis

The brief in Gig Harbor was year-round use, which in this part of the world is a design constraint rather than a slogan. A backyard that only works in July is a backyard you use six weekends a year.

So the layout is built around heat and shelter. A custom outdoor kitchen carries both a grill and a dedicated smoke station. A fire pit gives one kind of gathering and a built fireplace gives another, with seating arranged so both actually get sat around. The hot tub sits where it can be reached without crossing open ground in the rain.

The result is a garden with somewhere to be in every season, rather than a summer set piece that gets covered in a tarp in October.