Probably the biggest blank slate of our whole home is the back yard.  The previous owners didn’t do anything with it but let their dog use it as a huge toilet and let their seven kids dig holes in it.  It’s bordered by a huge, gray cinder-block wall, and an ugly, decrepit blue wooden fence and is covered with tons of annoying gray pea gravel (the kind that sticks in the tread of your shoes and tracks in all over the house).  One of the first things we did was build a brick retaining wall along the length of the block wall and plant vines, with hopes that some day before we sold, we wouldn’t have to lay eyes on that boring, concrete again.  It sure did the trick!