Homeowners: The Backyard of Doom

One of the huge reasons we wanted to buy a house was to have a backyard of our own. So we could enjoy evening drinks with friends around a patio table and let Ollie run in his own space and have a grill we didn't have to share with 50 other people in the apartment complex and so I could plant herbs and hibiscus and whatever I felt like in the garden.

When we moved into this house we knew it was going to be a lot of work back there. The house had been a foreclosure and was therefore vacant for over a year which meant that no one was taking care of the yard. Add that to the fact that they had random cages (we think for animals of some sort) and covered structures throughout the yard and we were faced with quite a challenge.

Step 1: 

*Remove all the random structures. 

(evidence can be seen along the wall behind J)

*Pull out all the dead plants in the planter. 

*Demolish the oddly placed piece of cement in the side-yard 

(which turned out to be a bigger project than we imagined)

*Attempt to remove all the stickers/weeds in the lawn 

(so Ollie wouldn't come in covered in them, but clearly he wasn't in the actual lawn much)

Step 2: 

*Kill off all the dead grass/weeds/etc etc in the lawn

*Rototill the yard so it wasn't as hard as brick 

(rented a truck from Home Depot and two rototillers because our ground sucked that much)

*Lay down 20+ bags of topsoil, that happens to smell like manure 

(J's clothes had to be washed multiple times to get the smell out) 

*Attempt to put in a sprinkler system 

(but realize we don't have enough water pressure for one after all the digging was finished)

*Scrap said sprinklers and fill in the holes

*Spread more top soil and fertilizer

*Lay sod

Step 3: 

*Admire the changes because they are so great!

 *Water sod excessively with our sprayers attached to the hose

*Start to plan out what to plant around the edge of the yard

*Put in red bark along the edge of the patio 

(because the spot was too skinny for grass and Ollie needs a "restroom")

*Buy a patio table to finish the yard off

*Continue to water the new sod

*Dream about all the evenings we'll spend in our new space

We cannot believe how much hard work it took to fix the yard but we are so happy with the results. Now it's time for entertaining of friends and family back there. But for now I'm off to water the sod ;-)