When Liz Fisher and her husband bought their San Diego, Calif., home in 2021, it wasn’t the size of the backyard that sold them — it was the trees. The roughly 7,300-square-foot lot came with an avocado tree, two orange trees and a towering magnolia that shades nearly half the yard.

“I knew immediately that they made the property feel really special,” Fisher, 36, a content creator who shares interior design, DIY and home renovation projects online, tells PEOPLE exclusively. “You can change almost everything about a backyard, but you can’t fast-forward decades to create mature trees.”

Those mature trees didn’t just make the property stand out. They also inspired Fisher’s vision for the space.

From the beginning, she imagined transforming the yard into a timeless outdoor retreat inspired by the warm, welcoming homes in Nancy Meyers films and the relaxed sophistication of Montecito ranch homes.

“They feel elevated without feeling formal — beautiful, inviting, lived-in and designed to bring people together,” she says.

Bringing that vision to life was never meant to happen overnight. Rather than tackling one large renovation, Fisher and her husband treated the backyard as a long-term passion project while also renovating the interior of their home, working on investment properties and growing their family.

That steady approach also helped keep costs manageable. Rather than paying for everything upfront, the couple spread purchases over five years, deciding what they were comfortable spending on each phase. So far, they’ve invested about $28,000 in the backyard, though Fisher says it’s still a work in progress.

“Our mindset was always, ‘We’ll work on it whenever we have the extra time or money,’ ” she says. “Little by little, it all started coming together.”

Every phase began with careful planning. Before construction started, Fisher designed the entire backyard herself, creating a 3D rendering in design software to visualize how each area would connect.

Once the design was in place, the couple set out to build nearly all of it themselves, occasionally with help from Fisher’s father-in-law. They hired professionals only to pour the concrete slab, install the concrete countertops for the outdoor BBQ and bar and plant the privacy hedges since Fisher was either pregnant or newly postpartum during those stages.

“We sourced materials from a variety of places over the years, including home improvement stores, local nurseries, stone yards and online retailers,” she says. “I love mixing investment pieces with more affordable finds because I think that’s what gives a space personality and makes it feel collected over time, rather than like everything came from one place.”

Taking on most of the work themselves made the renovation more affordable, but it didn’t make it any easier.

The biggest challenge wasn’t the construction itself — it was finding the time. Projects had to fit around interior renovations, investment properties, pregnancies, raising young children and the demands of everyday life. Progress often came slowly, but Fisher says that was always part of the plan.

“We spent weeks clearing the yard by hand — pulling weeds, digging, hoeing and hauling everything out,” she says. “We started in the winter, so everything was muddy, and I happened to be in my first trimester with my daughter.”

As the years passed, it wasn’t just the project that progressed, the family’s needs changed, too.

After their daughter was born, they partially removed a deck built over an existing concrete patio to create a larger lawn for play. Their original clover lawn was eventually replaced with traditional grass, while the outdoor BBQ area expanded after they decided to add custom island seating. Even the privacy hedges required jackhammering out a strip of concrete that had already been poured along the fence.

“As our family grew, so did our needs, and I actually love that our backyard reflects that evolution,” she says. “It tells the story of our family.”

That evolution also became something she shared with hundreds of thousands of viewers online.

Since documenting home renovation and DIY projects on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and her blog, posting the backyard’s transformation on TikTok felt like a natural extension of her work. But because the renovation stretched across five years, months often passed between updates.

Recently, Fisher decided to create one video showing the entire transformation from start to finish. It resonated with millions of viewers, many of whom said they appreciated seeing a renovation unfold over years instead of days.

“The biggest thing people kept saying was how refreshing it was to see a realistic renovation timeline instead of another overnight transformation,” Fisher says.

Others thanked the family for showing that a major renovation doesn’t require an unlimited budget or perfect circumstances to make meaningful progress.

“I hope people realize that even really big goals become achievable when you tackle them little by little,” she says. “The time is going to pass anyway, whether you start today or not. If you keep showing up, doing what you can with the time and resources you have, you’ll eventually get there.”

“Our backyard isn’t special because it’s perfect,” she adds. “It’s special because it’s where our life has happened.”