SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Bryan Powell turned to the Internet two years ago in search of ideas for a built-in barbecue, bar and a slate tile patio he wanted to construct in his back yard in Castro Valley, Calif.
Instead of finding ideas to inspire his project, he found frustration.
"There was not one single place on the Internet where I could go to view pictures of people's yards and projects," Powell says.
So he created one.
The site, www.yardshare.com , launched in February and has some 130 user-submitted yard and garden projects featuring more than 3,000 photos. Powell says the site attracts 75 to 100 visitors a day.
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Powell, 29, works by day as a client relationship manager at a finance company in San Francisco. Before creating YardShare, he had no experience building a Web site.
So he taught himself.
"I bought a book and some software," Powell says. It took him seven months of working 18-hour days - combined with his "real" job -- to get the site to the point where it was ready to be launched to the public.
Powell designed the site to be a place where homeowners can share pictures, stories, advice and information in an interactive way. Most of the projects posted online are from homeowners who have done the work themselves, but some have had professional help for part or all of the job.
Powell also invites landscape professionals to post photos of their work; San Anselmo's Avant Garden has put up several.
Projects on the site are clustered by type: large and small yards, front and back gardens, hardscape, lighting, pools, patios, water features, etc. Call up the outdoor kitchen section, for example, and you can see 87 photos that chronicle the step-by-step progress of Mike and Leslie's kitchen - it's not done yet - that includes a cooler, sink, four-burner propane grill, stainless steel open-air wood grill and bar seating for six.
Visitors to the site may view the projects as slide shows or look at individual photos as thumbnails. They also can ask questions and post comments. Those wishing to add photos of their own projects must go through a simple registration process.
"Some people just go in and post a few pictures of a completed project, but others treat it as an ongoing portfolio so they can show family and friends how their project is coming along," Powell says. What about his own backyard project? It's chronicled on the Web site.
