The Expensive House for Spiders

The yellow dust of late spring has a way of mocking human ambition. I am currently on my hands and knees, scrubbing a fine layer of pine pollen out of the weave of a $799 weatherproof sofa, and my jaw aches because I bit my tongue while eating a ham sandwich ten minutes ago. It is a sharp, metallic distraction that matches the dull throb of my lower back. This sofa was supposed to be the centerpiece of my ‘outdoor sanctuary,’ a term I likely read in a catalog that arrived in my mailbox unbidden, smelling of expensive paper and false promises.

Next to me, a massive, built-in pizza oven-a stainless steel beast that cost $2099 and weighs more than a small car-is currently serving as a very expensive house for a family of extremely confused spiders. I haven’t fired it up in 19 months. It sits there, oxidizing in the humid air, a monument to a version of myself that apparently had the time and social energy to ferment dough for 49 hours and host rustic-chic garden parties.

The Domestic Arms Race

We are currently engaged in a quiet, domestic arms race. It is a suburban escalation where the backyard is no longer a patch of grass for a dog to run in, but a secondary, slightly worse house that we build outdoors. We’ve collectively decided that the natural world is only acceptable if it is filtered through the lens of high-end consumerism. We need 9-burner grills with infrared sear zones and blue LED-lit knobs to cook hotdogs that we could have just as easily boiled on the stove inside while standing in the air conditioning. We spend $5999 on outdoor sound systems so we can listen to the sound of ‘nature’ playlists, effectively drowning out the actual birds that are trying to live in the trees we’ve pruned to within an inch of their lives.

My friend Daniel D.R. is the patron saint of this specific kind of delusion. Daniel is a mindfulness instructor who talks a lot about ‘intentional space’ and ‘finding the breath,’ yet he spent the better part of last summer supervising the installation of a 29-square-foot waterfall feature in his backyard. […] He realized that he had spent $8999 to create a sound that he could have heard for free if he’d just walked to the creek at the end of the street. But the creek doesn’t come with a remote control or a warranty.

The Honesty of Oxidation

There is a peculiar sickness in the way we approach exterior design. We treat the backyard as a problem to be solved with more stuff. We pave over the earth with pavers that cost $19 per square foot, then we buy heavy-duty heaters to combat the cold, and misting systems to combat the heat. We are trying to build a climate-controlled box without walls, and we act surprised when the elements-the rain, the wind, the spiders, the rust-eventually win.

The rust is the most honest thing in my backyard. It doesn’t care about my ‘return on investment.’ It just eats away at the $399 side table because that table was never meant to be outside in the first place, despite what the label said. My tongue still hurts, a sharp reminder that my body is just as fallible as the ‘lifetime guarantee’ on my outdoor kitchen’s cabinetry.

I think about the houses I grew up in. There was a folding lawn chair with a frayed nylon webbed seat. It cost maybe $9. You sat in it until it broke, and then you sat on the grass. […] Now, we want the outside to be the inside. We want the comfort of a living room but with the prestige of a manicured lawn. We’ve forgotten how to simply exist in a space without a ‘station’ for something-a beverage station, a prep station, a relaxation station. It’s exhausting. We are managing our leisure time like a logistics operation.

The Value of Doing Less

This is why I’ve started to appreciate the guys who actually know how to build things with restraint. There’s a certain integrity in looking at a massive, empty yard and deciding not to fill it with a $15999 pergola.

I remember talking to the team at LLC about a project a neighbor was planning-a multi-level deck that would have required the removal of three 49-year-old oak trees. They were the only ones who had the guts to suggest that maybe the trees were the point of the yard, not the synthetic wood decking. They advocate for ‘right-sized’ projects, which is a polite way of saying ‘don’t build a second kitchen when you don’t even use the first one to its full potential.’

We spend so much time trying to ‘soften’ the outdoors that we lose the very thing that makes being outside restorative: the lack of control. Nature is messy. It’s inconvenient. It’s full of things that bite your tongue or make you sneeze. When we try to curate it into a ‘living experience,’ we just create another chore for ourselves.

The Most Luxurious Thing is Nothing

We are seeing a return to the functional. […] The goal isn’t to create a showroom; it’s to create a place where you can breathe without thinking about the maintenance schedule for your teak floorboards.

I finally finish scrubbing the sofa. It’s not perfectly clean, but it’s better. I sit down on it, and within 9 seconds, a bird flies over and drops a little reminder that I am not in charge here. I don’t even get mad. I just look at the spot and think about how much money I would have saved if I had just bought a $29 hammock and tied it between those two maples.

Surrender Summary

I’m done with the arms race. I’m surrendering. My backyard is no longer a project; it’s just a yard again. […] The dirt is free, it’s 19 billion years old, and it doesn’t require a single LED-lit knob to be enjoyed.