Turn your backyard into an oasis

These do-it-yourself projects can transform your outdoor space cheaply and quickly.

(Money Magazine) -- Fixing up your front yard may improve curb appeal, but fixing up the backyard can improve your life. Done right, it will draw your family outdoors for everything from dining alfresco to tending a kitchen garden to playing lawn games --effectively expanding your living space beyond the walls of the house.

"The trick is to make your backyard not only beautiful but also private, useful, and fun," says Washington, D.C., landscape architect Joan Honeyman. These affordable do-it-yourself projects can help you get it there.

Create natural screening

Chances are, a few houses overlook your yard -- and you're stuck staring at them too. For an attractive, affordable way to block those views, skip a wooden fence and plant a row of evergreens, suggests Honeyman.

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Choose a naturally slender variety, which won't eat up valuable land or need much pruning. Arborvitae is a fast grower that thrives in most parts of the U.S. and, depending on the variety, will hit 10 to 60 feet to block second-floor sightlines. You'll pay about $50 per two-foot arborvitae, which you should plant close together to create full coverage. They'll grow about two feet a year.

Quiet the din

Unless you live far away from it all, noise pollution is a fact of life. Help drown out the racket of your neighbor's pool parties and that yappy dog down the street with the soothing sounds of a water fountain.

To keep costs down, get a self-contained model, which requires no excavation work or piping (just top it off with the hose now and then), says San Francisco landscape designer Deanna Glory.

You'll pay $500 and up for one of Campania International's cast-stone offerings (garden-fountains.com), plus $200 to $300 for an electrician to install the wiring.

Control the sun

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A table umbrella isn't big enough to banish oppressive midday rays from your patio or deck. If you have basic carpentry skills, build a simple pergola using a few hundred dollars' worth of cedar or redwood timbers. Plant a flowering vine such as wisteria on it, and presto! -- dappled (and fragrant) shade.

Or get an offset umbrella ($450 and up at patioumbrellas.com). Like a desk lamp, it stands on its own base and can articulate and swing 360° -- providing shade where and when you want it.

Add attractions

Give your family reasons to spend time in your beautiful yard. Put in a few easy-to-grow fruit bushes, such as blueberries and grapes (about $40 for three plants, johnnyseeds.com), says landscape designer Sharon Turner of Murrells Inlet, S.C.

Extend the fun on cool nights with frontgate.com's copper fire pit ($350). And hang a rope hammock ($200 at pawleysislandhammocks.com) to give yourself the perfect spot to do nothing at all.