Have you ever started talking about dreams and ideas where you say…Wouldn’t it be neat if … and then finish that sentence with whatever you can dream up.
For us, that idea was: Wouldn’t it be neat if we had a basketball court in our backyard. And the cool thing is we made it happen.
If you’re new here, I’m Jillian and I love to share ways you can simplify your home as well as some DIY projects that we happen to be completing around our home.
Our family has always enjoyed playing basketball. Chris and I both played in junior high and high school for the good old Rockway Flames. And our son Rowan, has loved any kind of sport since he was little and has gravitated towards basketball over the past few years and currently plays on a local team.
We started off by having the kids’ plastic basketball net on the deck and in our basement when the kids were pretty little. We then eventually put up a 7 foot hoop that was attached to the bricks at the back of our house and used our deck as the court. Now I realize most people put a basketball hoop at the front of their house and utilize their driveway as their court. Unfortunately, our driveway is sloped so much that it’s not ideal so that’s where our backyard court idea began to form.
Last winter we started more seriously exploring what it would look like to put in a halfcourt basketball slab in our backyard. We got some quotes from companies that put in sport courts and quickly realized that we weren’t prepared to commit to the kind of price they were charging so the DIYers in us got to work planning
Our first thought was that we should just put in a patio stone court so it wasn’t something permanent incase we didn’t want to leave it there. So we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. We rented a rototiller, and tilled up half of our backyard. We moved around the dirt because there was a bit of a slope. We tried our best to make it as level as possible. We ordered gravel and stone dust from a local landscape company and had the patio stones delivered to our driveway. We were set, ready to make this backyard court a reality.
Unfortunately, It didn’t go completely as we had planned but what projects ever go super smoothly? We quickly realized that the patio stones weren’t going to be a great basketball court option. We realized that if the surface wasn’t completely flat, someone could trip or the ball would bounce weirdly. It wasn’t great. Plus, it was so tedious and frustrating trying to get the stones level that after a full afternoon of Chris and our friend Rob trying to lay the perfect line of 12 stones…realizing there was still another 120 to go after that, it was only a matter of time before we accepted defeat and called the landscaping company to come back and pick up the patio stones to return them.
We then got to calling a bunch of places to see about finding someone that could pour a concrete slab on short notice. We found someone and since we had already prepped the area, that helped to have the job done sooner and at a lower price point.
Saying goodbye to those patio stones and calling in a professional to do the concrete was the best decision. They poured the slab on one day and came back a few days later to do the cuts. We had them strategically cut the expansion lines where the foul line and key would be so it worked out nicely.
It’s been so much fun to have a court in our backyard. I know this would not be for everyone but when you find something that fits with your family and your interests, you just have to run with it. We love having evening games of bump with our family and Rowan has a few buddies he loves to shoot hoops with as well.
It’s really neat to look back upon this project and see how it started as a fun pie in the sky idea that became something that maybe we could actually do and then finally made it become a reality.
I would love to hear, what is something that your family has dreamed up and made happen or what’s something you are currently in the process of dreaming and planning for it to come true?
