Wednesday, June 26, 2013

anatomy of a backyard {warning - photo dump ahead}

First, dig a hole for your patio. Then, fill it with rocks and sand hauled via a trailer. This may take two trips due to the fact that you don't know what you're doing don't have enough rocks.





Then go buy a pallet of paver stones and haul them home. In the trailer. Again. Keep in mind you'll be begging to borrow your dad's vehicles and trailer for about a month straight to haul all the stuff to make a yard. Remember to thank him profusely. 


After laying out the design of your paver stones in Excel (oh yes, Jess did this), lay the design out on the ground to see if you like it. Then put the pavers in place. One by one. All eighty of them. (Totally all Jess.)





Buy some plants - boxwoods for the hedges and some pretties for color - and plant them in your clay dirt with a little Miracle Gro for good measure. Then move around the extras that haven't yet found a home. (Still moving them around.)






After spraying the weed-riddled yard and waiting the requisite month for the poison to seep out, begin gutting the entire yard. Be aware that it will be somewhat like the Amazon jungle, filled with ant beds and bugs and spiders that are for sure poisonous and want to kill you. Because you've got bedrock for soil and years worth of root systems, you'll want to use a pick ax for most of this. Your biceps will suddenly appear on your arms. Along with a tan. 


If you have children, you can create a fort with towels or umbrellas for shade, and then employ any and all toys and methods of entertainment possible to keep them occupied while you work on your biceps the yard. Making their first acquaintance with a potato bug is requisite. Your kid will probably name the bug her Squishy. But will thankfully not squish said Squishy.





At this point, you should start thinking about grass. Initially, seeding might seem like a good (cheap) option. But then you'll read about the likely fail it will be and decide to go with sod. You'll spend an entire day raking and pick axing the ground, flattening out the lumps and preparing it for sod. You may not have photos of this because you may be busy flattening the earth. Photo taking is likely not a priority. Mostly just drinking Gatorade is.

To save a couple hundred bucks, start trolling the Classified ads looking for people getting rid of excess sod. It'll be free and/or cheap. Of course, this method requires a trailer and a truck of some sort. So you'll be calling in a favor again. And you'll probably be hauling it out to who-knows-where to get said cheap sod.

Once you find the sod, drive out to the farmlands with your kids in tow, and pick it up. You'll need 1,100 square feet of sod, so roll up 150 of those bad boys and stack 'em high. Remember those biceps? 

If after loading the sod and driving away, you suddenly hear a loud pop and grinding noise, you should probably say a silent prayer of gratitude that you were going slow (in the farmlands) and your busted trailer filled with about two tons of sod...


... just busted and didn't turn your (dad's) car over. Remember. Babies in tow. (Blessing in the disaster!)

Call Triple A, and they'll be out in a jiffy with a flat bed semi. They'll load your now not cheap sod onto the trailer and escort that pretty grass all the way home for you. This would be a good point to find the humor in the situation. Maybe a joke about your sod being safely buckled in it's car seat (trailer).




With the help of friends and a brother, roll out that sod in no time flat. 





Now this is the best part. Bring the babies out. Tell them THEY CAN RUN.






Enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy.






But don't get too comfortable. Because it ain't over. You've got little projects in the back to finish, and you haven't even touched the front yard yet! 

But still. Enjoy. :)



3 comments:

Riss said...

Oh man, the adorable pictures of the girls having fun at the end must make it all worth it! I also loved how in the one of Jess laying on his finished patio you can see the shadow of you holding Lou while you took the picture.

Karli Johnson said...

holy cow you guys rock!! it looks great. and i agree-the pics of the girls at the end are just perfect. have fun with your new backyard!

eclaires said...

Love this! The sod looks great. And I'm sure your biceps do too.

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