Yard Re-Do, Part 3: Sod

After all of our hardwork this summer, the time had finally come for sod! The old weeds and grass were dead and cleared away, topsoil was brought in, sprinkler lines were adjusted for hopefully optimum coverage, new curbing was in place, weeds that grew back were pulled out, and the ground was level, or as level as we, the non-professional diy-ers, could make it. 

It. Was. Time. FINALLY! 

We had 5 pallets of sod delivered to our home. Never in my life had I ever been so happy to see grass!

 

Kyle came home early from work that day to get started. It was Friday, and we knew we had to get started right away or sod laying would spill over into Saturday. 

Kyle laid an entire pallet on his own before I had the chance to come help him. My mom came over around dinner time and helped watch the girls. Then I put my work gloves on and joined him. Laying sod isn't hard to do, but all of the bending and lifting makes it physically exhausting! Thank goodness we have some good friends (and my dad) who came out and saved the day. Just the addition of a few extra bodies dramatically sped up the process. We are so grateful to them for helping us! Seriously, by ourselves, Kyle and I would have been at it clear into Saturday afternoon had we not received some help. We are extra grateful for the help knowing it was a bit of a sacrifice. Isn't laying sod on everyone's list of favorite Friday evening activities? :) 

  

There it is all done and green. Kyle and I couldn't believe our eyes the next day when we saw it in full sunlight. Green grass in our backyard! It really looks like a different place. I really nearly cried. Now our girls have a space at our home where they can run around and play!

The grass is in and green as ever. In fact, Kyle is out mowing as I type. But... there is still a lot of work to be done to completely finish our backyard transformation. I don't want to post a full before and after picture yet, I want to wait until it really is finished. For now, here is a pre-sod and post sod.

The girls and I have been able to enjoy the new yard already. We have picnicked, read books, and brought out the soccer ball. Now I can actually spend a little time in the garden (which is a total mess this year, but full of tomatoes, grapes, and peaches) without worrying what those two are getting into. I never realized how important a good backyard would be to me, until we really didn't have one. Hurray for one more step towards completion!

If you missed out on all of the work we've done see our yard clean up, new patio, adding topsoil, and new deck.

Yard Re-Do, Part 2: Deck

Before we first bought our home we paid for an inspector to come out and look it over. He mentioned to us that the deck needed some TLC. Really, it was pretty obvious it needed something. What he failed to notice or mention was that it needed more than just TLC, it needed to be replaced. After years of wear and winters of snow piled up on it, the support beams underneath had begun to rot, a couple of them nearly completely through. We didn't realize this until one day when Kyle stepped out on it and felt the decking begin to give way underneath him. It was then we decided it needed to be torn down and replaced.

Deck before. Kyle started working on taking it down before I got my camera out. So here it is at the beginning of deconstruction.

Here is some of the rotting wood we discovered during tear down.

After the deck was torn down the house sat for over a year with no new decking. Until this summer when we fully began to tackle our backyard transformation. While I was in Washington for my sister's wedding open house, Kyle and his dad put up the frame for the main portion of the deck. A few weeks later Kyle began work on the rest. Since we put in the patio last fall, we decided to shrink down the size of the deck to just a landing down to the patio, instead of clear across the back of the house.

We did a lot of back and forth on what type of material to use for the decking. Composite vs. redwood. It was a hard decision! Ultimately when it was time to make the decision we opted for the redwood. Composite has a lot of fantastic advantages, but we decided redwood was a better choice for us right now: Kyle understood how to work with it, we could stain it whatever color we would like, it doesn't get melt-your-feet-off-hot in the sun, and it costs half as much as composite. 

Look! A deck! No railing, but the decking is complete!

I love the wide stairs. They are the same width as the deck.

Once it was time for the railing the construction became a two man job. I got out my work gloves and Kyle set me to work cutting down the balusters.  

I didn't get any pictures of putting the railing up because I was busy helping Kyle by holding railing in place, checking that everything was level, and putting screws in place while Kyle came along with the drill to secure them down. It was a straight week of deck building in the evening. We would eat dinner and then head outside to work on the deck. Some evenings I wouldn't make it out until the girls were in bed, other times they went to Papa and Rara's house to play. Kyle and I would work until dark, until we really couldn't see any more. Then inside for a shower, quick TV show and then bed.

Now it's done. Another project to check off of our forever-long to-do list. 

And we love it! We still need to pick out a stain. That can wait for a little bit. We're just happy the construction is over and we have a functional deck once again!

Notice the addition of curbing? This yard is starting to come together! Next step: sod.

Yard Re-Do, Part 1: Topsoil

When we bought our house two years ago the backyard was over run with weeds. It really was about half weeds, and half grass. The house was rented for a few years before we bought it, and so the yard wasn't kept up like it should have been. Just after we moved in we spent a weekend with Kyle's family just clearing out the junk that had accumulated underneath the deck. The following year we spent a weekend installing a new patio.

I don't think this picture really does justice to the mess of a yard we inherited.

Now, two years later we're really getting down to business. The yard has always been so over run with weeds the girls haven't been able to spend much time playing in the backyard. We really haven't ever sat out in our yard and enjoyed it. We want to turn it into a space that we can all enjoy together. To do that, we chose to completely start over. That meant killing all of the vegetation that was growing back there, tilling up the dirt, bringing in new dirt, and leveling out the ground.

To start, we rented an aerator from Home Depot. Kyle wanted to poke the ground to death before bringing in a tiller, in hopes that it would help the tiller break up the dirt better. The aerator was scary. At least I thought so. Kyle had me try it once. I felt like it was pulling me along for the ride and I panicked and drove it right up the side of the fence! Kyle of course thought it was hilarious. I conceded that if he finished up aerating the yard he could go see a movie with a friend later that week. I wasn't about to try it again!

After the aerator we rented a tiller. A BIG tiller. This thing was a beast. It tore through the ground like nobody's business. It was fantastic!

Kyle made a few passes over the whole backyard and then it was time to bring in the dirt. Check out that pile of topsoil in our driveway! Just for future reference: we ordered 13 cu. ft., and then Kyle had another 4 delivered the next weekend, so 17 cu. ft. in total. We needed a lot of dirt. The yard was pretty uneven, with some big sink spots just before the fence line. The dirt was used to make the soil softer for the new grass we'll bring in (our soil is pretty heavily clay), and also to fill in the gaps and smooth out and level the ground. 

To move the dirt we brought in the big guns: Kyle's sisters and their significant others. :) This Hill family is so fantastic. They are always so willing to come over and help us with the yard work we need done. It is great. It makes things go so much faster! 

Here's a photo dump of the process:

Our yard is riddled with roots. The trees on the other side of our fence line have been around for years, their roots show it- like this one!

Brittany, Clark, and Hailey taking an Otter Pop break.

I love the Otter Pop in Chelsie's mouth while she digs.

Hailey even got in on the raking. She did pretty well, it was actually helpful!

All done! So much better, right? Now the ground is level and free of weeds. We just need some grass. That is for another day.

As a side note: Hailey was funny. Cody laid down in the grass and Hailey ran and grabbed the umbrella from her play kitchen to shade the two of them.

She then used her ice powers to freeze the sun.

Oh to be 4 again...

2 Months of Kyle's Life: Finishing the Basement Bathroom

With my parents living with us temporarily, we chose to finish the unfinished bathroom in our basement. This way they have their own bathroom, plus now we have an official guest bath for visitors.

Let me start by telling you how much work Kyle put into this bathroom. To save on costs, we chose to do the work ourselves. Or, mostly, Kyle did the work himself. Kyle spent a solid two months working on this project. Every night after work, he came home, ate a quick dinner, and worked on the bathroom until 10 or 11 pm. Sometimes later. By every night, I mean, every night. And every Saturday. He put in a lot of time and effort. And now he is exhausted and says he won't ever do that again. We are both sick of Home Depot. You know you've been there to many times when the cashiers begin to recognize you (this happened to Kyle). And when you start to know the people working at the store, what their names are, who works in what departments, and who is most helpful.

Enough talk. Let's get down to the nitty gritty.

Here is what we started with:

The rough in plumbing was done on the bathroom. But the layout was weird. So, Kyle and coworker/friend Jake, spent a Saturday busting up concrete and moving around pipes and vents.

Then Kyle framed the bathroom, installed the shower, and ran the waterlines into the bathroom. (Jake helped with part of the the waterlines as well.)

Once the waterlines were in place, it was time for drywall. Wow was that a lot of work. And took a long time. Two weeks, just for drywall. The repeated layers of mudding and sanding was a lot of work.

Sanding the mudding smooth was messy. 

Once the drywall was done (hooray!) it was time to prime. It was at this point that it really started to look like a room.

After priming came painting. We chose to paint the room gray. There are so many shades of gray. It is ridiculous! Warm gray, cool gray, green gray, blue gray... I love gray on the walls, but wow, it was hard to choose one to paint with.

After painting, Kyle installed all of the fixtures and it really became a bathroom!

I'm not going to lie, it really was fun going shopping and picking out everything to go into the bathroom. I felt like I was always at the store picking something up for the bathroom. Life was crazy for a couple of months. But, we got through it and now we have a guest bathroom. And now Kyle can relax. No more projects for a little while. And definitely none as large of a scale as this one.

We love how it turned out. I think he did a fantastic job! Now if only the rest of our house looked like this...

Here it is again, before and after: