{"id":444422,"date":"2026-08-26T21:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T21:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/444422\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T21:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T21:22:11","slug":"your-kids-old-bedroom-is-ready-for-its-next-chapter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/444422\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Kid\u2019s Old Bedroom Is Ready for Its Next Chapter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Front yards. They used to be the most controlled part of a home\u2014or not. They could be tidy with manicured lawns<\/a>, have raised vegetable beds with food for sharing, or act as an overflow of things that didn\u2019t quite make it inside. Thank you, capitalism, and the American habit of endless consumption. In Lemon Grove, where I live, it\u2019s not uncommon to see a mechanic running a business from his front yard or a family selling birria on Saturdays from theirs. The front-yard genre is broad.<\/p>\n

But in communities across San Diego County, the most exposed part of a house\u2014the strip between public and private life\u2014is being turned into something eminently usable, visible, and hang-outable. At first glance, this may seem decorative, but in creating an intentional space<\/a>, particularly one that\u2019s visible to neighbors and passersby, it\u2019s also the release of a pressure valve.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s not gloss it over: American life has taken a hard right at high speed; two wheels have lifted off the pavement as we careen toward who-knows-what, and our nervous systems are making a sound best described as zoinks!<\/p>\n

People are trying to (re)build connection in an increasingly isolated culture<\/a>, (re)find beauty in the midst of endless anxiety, and (re)create a system friendly for critters. Many of us are remembering that, Oh yeah\u2014we\u2019re biological creatures.<\/p>\n

\"\"Courtesy of Andrea Doonan<\/p>\n

San Diego as a \u201cBiodiversity Hotspot\u201d<\/p>\n

Landscape designer Andrea Doonan, of Andrea Doonan Horticulture + Design<\/a>, is a certified arborist with more than 20 years of experience collaborating with homeowners and renters. She rejects sterile, white picket fence designs and places a strong emphasis on edible gardens and usable outdoor spaces. When we speak, she mentions the unusually wide range of plant<\/a> and animal life in the relatively small size of our region, making us a \u201cbiodiversity hotspot.\u201d (San Diego is the most biodiverse county in the Lower 48.) Because of this, we have a unique system of endangered species that rely on plants to survive.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore and more, people are introducing native landscapes to connect to nature and support birds, butterflies, and bees,\u201d Doonan says. \u201cI\u2019m very passionate about getting people to unplug and ground.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s for a love of all creatures, our climate, or water conservation<\/a>, Doonan describes a broader shift toward habitat-driven spaces that are both aesthetic and ecological. For her clients, this can mean replacing turf with native planting, adding seating areas, or even rethinking the front walk as an active, planted threshold rather than just a green lawn. \u201cThere\u2019s this idea that people want to make a difference,\u201d she says. \u201cBut they also want a place to entertain, recreate, and ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the center of this is a simple but increasingly urgent question: How can small design choices<\/a> ripple outward into community life?<\/p>\n

\"\"Courtesy of Andrea Doonan<\/p>\n

For Doonan\u2019s client Lee Miller, that shift is fully expressed. After remodeling the interior of his Pacific Beach home, Miller focused on the backyard, thinking that would be the place for his soon-to-be-born daughter to eventually play. The front yard of his corner property was the last detail to be completed.<\/p>\n

Miller said he wanted \u201ca very full, very natural look versus having everything measured.\u201d He knew what he liked when he saw it, but it was Doonan who translated his ideas and guided the creation of a wildlife-friendly space with full-grown orange, plum, and pluot trees. \u201cWe have lots of birds, lots of bees, lots of lizards,\u201d Miller says. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing better than walking outside and eating fruit off a tree.\u201d<\/p>\n

The front yard has become where Miller\u2019s family spends time\u2014often more than the backyard. He and his daughter, who\u2019s now 5, explore the space together, checking what\u2019s growing, learning about their little ecosystem, and chasing lizards. It\u2019s where his daughter plays, where she\u2019s built her own fairy garden, and where neighborhood parents and kids tend to gather at the end of the day.<\/p>\n

\"\"Courtesy of Jenna Gilmer<\/p>\n

Building Community by Being Out There<\/p>\n

For her own Normal Heights home, Doonan designed a front yard that includes a seed library, raised beds, native plants, and a sitting area where she and her husband spend time. \u201cI\u2019m meeting my neighbors because I put two chairs and some plants in the front yard,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m sharing produce with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

That exchange has become part of the landscape itself, and she points to small systems (like seed libraries) as ways of circulating plant material and knowledge directly between people. In real life. Person to person.<\/p>\n

More and more, Doonan says, when we\u2019re talking about solving the big problems, it\u2019s important to remember that everything starts local. Even \u201cguerilla gardening\u201d\u2014small acts of informal planting and care<\/a> in overlooked sections of land, such as parking strips\u2014makes a difference. Tossing some seeds and adding a bench to the sidewalk strip out front can create a \u201cpocket park\u201d or \u201ca mini-mini park.\u201d In that framing, the front yard stops being an ornamental backdrop and starts becoming an infrastructure for connection.<\/p>\n

Landscape architect Bret Belyea<\/a> frames this front-yard movement (my term, not his) as social repair. \u201cIt\u2019s a handshake to your neighbors and passersby,\u201d he says. \u201cIt says something about who you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, plant choices matter, but not only for ecological reasons. Native and climate-appropriate plantings become part of how neighborhoods re-establish contact with each other, even without formal planning. What he describes is an aesthetic, but it\u2019s also relational in the way a yard can signal openness rather than withdrawal, invitation rather than separation, and connection rather than, \u201cGet off my lawn, ya damn kids!\u201d<\/p>\n

Hanging out in the front yard rather than sequestering in the back is a signal to outsiders that they\u2019re really not outsiders at all. Or, at least, they don\u2019t have to remain so.<\/p>\n

\"\"Courtesy of Andrea Doonan<\/p>\n

The Front Yard as Memory<\/p>\n

Not every front yard in this shift toward social spaces has a professional\u2019s influence. Some are created through labor, trial and error, and nostalgia. For Grace Wanjiru, the memory of her childhood in Gitaru, Kenya, led her to beautifully DIY the hell out of the front part of her half-acre Encanto property. When she bought her home nearly two decades ago, it was essentially just a little house plunked down on a giant plot of dirt. She had a blank slate and plenty of memories from which to create something that would imbue the space with peace and hospitality.<\/p>\n

The designer-led yards are often framed through an academic understanding of ecology, structure, and intentional planting strategies, and Wanjiru did much of the same thing through instinct. When she\u2019d visit her mother, who lives just outside of Nairobi, she was reminded of the abundant beauty and vibrancy of a childhood spent running free, climbing trees, and being connected to nature. It was important to Wanjiru that her then-young daughters, both now in their early 20s, have that experience.<\/p>\n

\"\"Courtesy of Grace Wanjiru<\/p>\n

Wanjiru\u2019s goal was to create the feeling of home, not as replication but as translation. \u201cWhen you throw a seed in Kenya, something grows,\u201d Wanjiru tells me. \u201cHere, the dirt is horrible for plants. I still wanted green and color. I wanted nature\u2014birds and insects. I grew up with nature, but here: No.\u201d<\/p>\n

With an understanding of what would and wouldn\u2019t grow in San Diego, Wanjiru was able to achieve a sense of home with succulents and native plants she purchased at Walmart. She created a large courtyard with a fence built of wood and corrugated metal. Inside, she added a hammock and a bird bath, which Wanjiru settled on after gophers ate through seven different plants; a table with an open cookbook, a bottle of wine, three glasses; a weathered dresser\u2014once in her daughter\u2019s room\u2014that now sits opposite the table and contains Wanjiru\u2019s many seeds. And, of course, strung lights. <\/p>\n

The space feels rustic, comforting<\/a>, personal, emotional, and magical. It feels like love. <\/p>\n

Wanjiru likes to host small groups of her friends and family, keeping it intimate but accessible. \u201cThis is the kind of house you just call: \u2018What are you doing? Are you making your African tea? Can we just come over?\u2019 Because this is what they do [in Kenya],\u201d she tells me. \u201cAnd so I always want to have that, because I think for foreigners living in America, that\u2019s one of the things we struggle with. We don\u2019t have that kind of community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Craving a communal feeling, Wanjiru built it herself. And her kids grew up climbing the jacaranda tree and playing in the garden.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still gather out there,\u201d she says. \u201cWe read in the hammock, talk, connect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Courtesy of Andrea Doonan<\/p>\n

Gardens as Points of Connection<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most important part of a front yard is a garden, whether it\u2019s a space for entertaining and gathering, retreating and grounding, discovering and playing, resting and people-watching. The science backs up what gardeners have long known: Spending time around plants can be profoundly restorative. A 2024 review of dozens of studies found that gardening is consistently associated with better mental health, greater well-being, and improved quality of life, also linking interaction with plants and green spaces to better nervous system regulation.<\/p>\n

For Doonan, this is part of why the conversation around gardens is bigger than aesthetics. \u201cGardens are for everyone,\u201d she says. \u201cI think it\u2019s a right for all of us to have access to gardens.\u201d \u201cAll of us\u201d means homeowners and renters, people with sprawling yards and people with apartment balconies, people with large budgets and people growing herbs in containers from the discount rack at Home Depot.<\/p>\n

In my conversation with Belyea, I tell him about a little house I passed in Oceanside this past spring. The owners set out free avocado clippings from their tree for anyone to take. \u201cThis is people\u2019s way of putting an olive branch out,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd it just happens to be an avocado branch.\u201d Maybe that\u2019s what this front-yard shift is really about. Maybe it\u2019s about trying to remember how to live alongside one another again. A hammock beneath string lights. Kids chasing lizards through native plants. Someone slowing to ask what\u2019s growing. A neighbor stopping by and staying longer than they planned to. All of it, a pocket of softness in a culture that\u2019s trying its damndest to make us harden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Front yards. They used to be the most controlled part of a home\u2014or not. They could be tidy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[6813,74,76,113785,176109,75],"class_list":["post-444422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-homes","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-home","tag-san-diego-interior-design","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}