Front Yard As A Living Space

I read this article about a different vision of a front yard.  It wasn't all promotional.

Lawn History
America's fascination with a neatly mowed patch of grass began sometime after the Civil War, but ramped up in earnest in the 1950s, along with the growth of the suburbs.

The Garden Club of America helped this trend along through contests and other types of promotional campaigns. It even created a standard for the appropriate type of lawn, as "a plot with a single type of grass with no intruding weeds kept mown at a height of an inch and a half (we shoot for 1 5/8 here), uniformly green and neatly edged."

Living Space
"There's a lot of creativity that can be used to make a front yard useful," says Oregon landscape designer Barbara Hilty. "I encourage homeowners to use their front yard as living space."

Neighbor Reaction

Lawns are often part of the covenants agreed to by homeowners when they buy into a neighborhood.  Even when it is allowed, this kind of landscaping can be a tough sell to neighbors.

...

What I need to do is make it right... looking forward to cooler temperatures, football, bbq ribs and living in the front yard ... making it a fun neat inviting place :-)