apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I think it may be a little odd. Especially if you don't live near the coast. I stayed at a beach house on vacation a couple years ago, and I would constantly be dragging sand in the house no matter how hard I wiped down.

litter box

its a cute idea in theory...but i have a toddler...and his sandbox QUICKLY became the neighborhood litter box for all felines within a 5 mile radius...

I think it's strangely cool. A corner of a yard with just the decomposed granite, fire pit, grasses and a couple of seats would be nice also. The granite would last longer than the sand anyhow.

I actually built a sand firepit in my back yard in Long Beach about 6 years ago. Was the greatest thing ever- real sand stolen from sunset beach (they had the softest sand) and a propane flame coming up through the sand. Looked awesome. Became the biggest after hours party house. For one summer. I spent another year battling local cats until my pit was completely ruined, with cat poop and pepper and moth balls and anything else mixed into the sand to keep the cats away. I tried to keep it covered, but by then it was too late. Learn from me. Whatever you do, if the local strays see that much sand, nothing will deter them but a barrier. A physical barrier.

if you had ANY trees in your backyard, it'd be a huge mess in the fall. Imagine dead leaves in your beach sand.
I don't know about this.

i think this is a typical and completely unpractical magazine "idea".

Oh man. Whatever you do, don't encourage people to steal sand from local beaches. Isn't there already enough of an erosion problem at the shoreline?

ditto mshell - and from my experience with trying to do this with a small strip in the yard, it will completely turn into a litter box.

I had a strip of soil that was constantly overgrown with weeds, so one day after extensive weeding I thought it would be good to put down some black plastic, drought tolerant plants, and cover the black plastic with a thin layer of sand (basically something weeds can't take root in). it looked really cute until the next day when there were like 3 turds in the sand and I couldn't believe it didn't cross my mind that the whole thing looked like a giant litterbox to the neighborhood cats. argh! I am now thinking about either planting more densely or trying deck tiles instead of sand over the black plastic.

so please, learn from my stupidity, and don't try this idea at home!

I'm not really a fan of that. It looks nice, but I think cats would poop all over the place, and I sweep my floors twice a day already. It looks like a nice window display for a department store.

Where I live the city sands the streets in winter because it's more environmentally friendly than salt. So for five months out of the year I am constantly sweeping up the sand my family and dogs bring in on our feet. It's a pain. I can't see wanting MORE sand in the house than I already have.

My sister did this in London, England. She had left-over tropical plants and sand from an art exhibit and she used it to creat a beach-theme space on the roof-top. I haven't seen it, but I've heard it is really nice, fun and great for entertaining.

I don't know for certain, but I doubt cats frequent roof-tops?

Yeah, but cats aside, the appealing thing about a beach is not the sand but the water.