Transforming My Backyard into a Hidden Paradise

Yeah, so things have gotten completely out of control. I don't know how this happened. I don't know how we got to this point. It all just grew so quickly. It just exploded. I feel like I looked up one day and everything was three feet tall. Like, what the fuck? Damn, son. Nature's incredible. But this also needs to be tamed. Like, this can't stay this way. Okay. Yeah, no, I see you. So listen, I want to transform this place. There's so much potential, but I realized I needed some help and just wait until you see what this will turn into. Okay, let me back up for a second and explain what I'm talking about. Last fall, I moved to the French countryside to this tiny village where I now live in this very old house that required a lot of fixing up. So I spent the winter addressing all the urgent stuff. But in the meantime, nature's been hard at work turning my front and backyard into the big mess. Which is cool, except it doesn't feel cohesive. Not to mention, this is pretty time-consuming to maintain. It's just not inviting when it's unruly like this, you know? What I want to do is turn my home into this calm, welcoming, oasis of well-being, full of French charm. I felt like the perfect goal to work towards was to have everything set up enough so that I could begin to throw a few little intimate summer gatherings. And I'm going to show you the full transformation. To make this a little bit easier to understand, let me give you a breakdown of what we're working with here. There are basically four quadrants on this property that I'm trying to fix up. There's the front yard. There's the front yard off to the side. There's the backyard off to the side. And then there's the backyard where the studio is. That's the studio right there. It all began innocently. To get the ball rolling with a few friends, we began by removing the old fence that was beginning to rot. Which led to the realization that I was going to need a lot more help. Good morning, folks. The machines just rolled up and they're way bigger than I thought they'd be. Oh damn, we're doing this for real. All right, okay, so let me run you through stage by stage. Stage one was very clear. It was cut down the overgrown grass and weeds and flatten the land wherever possible. When you have decades of accumulation of things, decades of overgrowth, when you dig a little bit at it, when you scratch here and there, all these surprises come to the surface. All of this is trash that I've pulled so far from just the backyard. It's unbelievable. Dude, this is insane. It's all transforming for my eyes. Obviously, there's a charm to the overgrown look, the wildness. I don't want a pristinely cut, very short lawn that's so curated as to be sanitized, right? I'm not interested in that. But... There's so much going on there needed to be a bit of a clearing out The machines helped dig up what would become a more intentional entrance to the property which felt good but I mentioned surprises I knew that there was a low stone wall in the front yard But what I didn't know was that it would break so easily They accidentally cracked the top of the stone wall so then it was like oh god What do I do now? I mean it doesn't look giant but it's a very heavy stone wall that would require many truckloads to clear out. So all of a sudden all this new work that I'm thinking about doing because it's like okay it's broken. This wall's gotta go. I sat on it for a little bit and then my mom had this great idea to create a pathway from the entrance to the front door. So... What's really kind of incredible about this is that you start clearing things away and then all these new creative ideas pop up. So in parallel, we were attacking the sauna, which was very kindly sent to me from the brand Polyus. They have some fantastic sauna designs, and by we, I mean my friends. Okay, let's see what they're doing. Ooh, a lot is being done. Goofiness and playfulness make the work go by so much more quickly. And honestly, I needed that kind of boost. But I also got a lot of emails actually from a lot of you I'm really grateful for the many offers that I received for many of you, but for a long time I just couldn't accept any of them However, I did get an email from a couple of wonderful young Americans Sam and Ethan and offered to help me out So a team was really taking shape. All right troops I have seldom seen the enemy this week. Today is our day. The ivy is on the brink Sam I need you on the rake. Ethan, I need you to watch our backs. Claudia, keep yanking with your gloves, okay? And I'm on clippers. We got this. Let's do this. Yeah, all right. We had to do quite a bit of clearing out of the backyard because everything was so overgrown. If you just leave trees to grow, they keep sprouting new branches. It makes it very difficult to actually remove all of the ivy overgrowth everywhere. We just went completely ham. on the backyard, pruning the trees, clearing the ivy, and I have to say, this has to be one of the most satisfying outdoor activities I think I've ever done. It was just so good to clear it out. This felt exactly like pruning a bonsai, just on a much larger scale. You're working with nature, not eviscerating it, but providing direction. A lot of life works this way. It's nice to have a sense of direction. From there, we dug a shallow hole, laid down tarp, And then I needed fine gravel. It is so heavy. The car literally feels lower. I can feel it. That's so bad for the suspension. I pushed my car to its absolute maximum in terms of carrying weight to bring it from the hardware store. 450 to 500 kilograms. Laying down the gravel was awesome. So we built the base. Bartholomew and Claudia are champions for coming out to help me. laid down the concrete slabs and brought over the base for the sauna. I knew he would love this camera. Can you get a little closer? Yep. And I gotta give a special spotlight to Sam and Ethan. I gotta say these two guys were amazing. Together we built the exterior of the sauna. The further we got, the more excited I got. It just looks so amazing. Perfectly tucked away, nestled in my backyard. But not just that. We began laying down tarp all over the place on the property in the areas where I wanted to have a bit of gravel. Then finally with everything kind of ready to go came the big day. The big boy. The big one. Here goes nothing. Fifteen tons of gravel delivered on my property. Oh my god. Okay, so I had to shoot this. pretty closely framed because I don't want to give away the full transformation. It looks incredible behind me. But before we get to that, because we're not quite there yet, I'm going to briefly talk about BetterHelp, whose support in this paid partnership is what... makes this kind of thing possible. I mean, I've ended up working on this yard transformation on and off for more than four months. I've had to hire help alongside all the work that I'm putting into it. So getting this kind of support makes a huge difference. Plus, I fundamentally believe that therapy is such a good investment to make on yourself. Better understand your own triggers and emotional hang-ups because we all have them. I talk to my own therapists every single week and have been doing so for over six years and it has utterly transformed my life. I think there's a big misunderstanding that Therapy is only for when you're like in crisis But I think it's excellent to do it even when you're doing great because there's always more you can be learning about yourself and BetterHelp has a wide network of credentialed therapists that can help you Plus there's the fact that it's incredibly flexible to fit your schedule whatever your schedule may look like whether you want to talk via video phone call or text. You can keep changing your therapist for free if you're not clicking with who you're talking with. And it's really easy to sign up and get matched with someone. There's a link in my description if you want to check it out or you can go to betterhelp.com slash Nathaniel Drew. Clicking that link helps support this channel, but it also gets you 10% off on your first month with BetterHelp. All right, having said that, let's dive back in and let me tell you, the transformation only gets better from here. So much. I don't even think it's going to be enough, but this is a really good start. So it's 7.30 in the morning, bright and early. Actually not that early by countryside standards, but just work with me here. We just got to work. We just started spreading it all over the place. It's exhausting, but it's also very satisfying. It's just so cool to see it fill up the space, create new pathways. I added gravel to the side of the house, also in the front yard and the front entrance. I was just thinking about as I was breaking the gravel. that you guys came here and it looked one way and you're leaving and it looks very different. It looks stunning. We got way more done than I expected. You got a whole new yard? Yeah, I'm really happy with the progress we've made so far. 15 tons was nothing to us. The next stage was to plant for biodiversity. Clover makes sense on so many levels as a base. It looks nice, needs less maintenance than grass, and also attracts pollinators. It's also really good for the soil. With the help of a friend, Nico, we got to work. laying down the seeds, flattening them on the ground, and then I needed to water it pretty regularly for that first week or so. For those of you that are wondering, the water comes from my well. With the exterior of the sauna now built, my dad came over and helped me add finishing touches, stain the outside, and also build the inside. It's like I'm swimming or flying. All the while, the clover was starting to come to life, which was so satisfying to see. My little babies are growing. At this point, my brother came to live with me for a chunk of the summer, and he was super helpful in tackling this second pass on the gravel. But even more than that, it was a unique bonding experience to spend time together out here since it has been years since we spent this much time around each other, and we've both changed so much. It's like I got to know my brother again, but this time as an adult. With the additional gravel, I was able to create that pathway now through the stone wall. Oh, and we set up the pathway in the backyard that leads up to the sauna. From here I tackled one of the most satisfying projects yet It's sort of like one thing leads to the next you build a little bit of momentum and each cool new addition just brings everything more to life I wanted to build a couple of flower boxes to create a flower bed to hold up the dirt in front of the studio because it's pretty uneven and Maybe it's obvious already, but I'm not a very handy person so much of this is outside of my wheelhouse I've really never built much of anything out of wood. So while this was not perfect, and I think you shouldn't look too closely at the details, I was really proud of how this came out. And simultaneously, other parts of the backyard were coming to life, like the sauna. I had to give it a shot for myself. I'm very excited about it. It's hitting. It works. It works, I can tell you it works. Since I wanted to throw a few intimate summer gatherings with friends, I was beginning to run out of time, so I had some guys come out. and helped me clean the roofs which resulted in them literally changing color They also helped me lay down the cold plunge and cut back some of the overgrowth again since several months had actually gone by at this point Things kept coming more and more to life and aligning at this point It was all just so cool to see it come together As we headed deeper into the summer the days and weeks blended together long bright and warm. Always some project to do, but no major rush like there had been in the early days of me living here. This is me finally planting the flowers in the flower boxes I built. And before I even finished planting the flowers, bees were coming over to check out what was going on. That was so cool to see. I mean, guys, come on. This looks so good. And so even though I wasn't quite done, the small summer gatherings began. You have had 100,000 past lives. I love it! Buon provecho. Thanks for cooking, guys. Mmm. Wow. I ordered some lights, which I knew were really going to add to the magic of the space. Reaction! Look at this. Wow. I mean, I knew this was going to happen because as soon as you put lights out, it feels magical, but that looks so magical. Wow. All right, so, oh. This is unusual. The place really comes to life when there are people here. Some of you may remember the two artists that I lived with last year, through whom I found this house. They came over to see the transformation with their own eyes. It was a nice full circle moment. Very Frenchy. The clover is definitely going to need until probably next spring to create a fuller more uniform ground cover But so it goes, these things take time, nature will continue to do what it does The project is never really done So here finally are some of the before-after shots that show just how much this space has transformed Of course it's a project that's never really done There's always something more still to do or clean up or expand upon, but I'm really proud of how far it has come.

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Timestamps:

0:00 – Things got completely out of control
0:43 – How I ended up out here
1:37 – What I'm working with
2:11 – Cutting things back
3:40 – A Stone Surprise
4:31 – Assembling a team
5:24 – Clearing out more overgrowth & base of the sauna
7:40 – Exterior of the sauna & laying down tarp
8:00 – A major delivery of gravel
10:43 – Planting for biodiversity
11:12 – Interior of the sauna & clover growth
11:44 – 2nd major delivery of gravel
12:44 – Building flower boxes
13:25 – Testing the sauna for the first time
13:50 – Roof cleaning & cold plunge
14:12 – Bringing furniture, planting flowers 
15:04 – Gatherings begin & putting up lights
15:50 – Summer vibes 
16:11 – The artists visit
16:48 – Before / After moments