The Backyard

The backyard is a project that Bob and I have been dying to do for a while and I told him that I wanted it done before baby got here. That I way I could throw the older two outside to play if they are driving me nuts and need to get some energy out. We started it back in the beginning of August and have been slowly picking a project a month that way we don't blow the budget. Here was how it was before we started:

We had a small dog run in the back but our first project was to extend that since they are now going to confined to the dog run when we get a nice yard. We ran it all down that side wall. Here is a picture of Bob and his friend working on it. You can see the completed dog run in some later pictures.

After the dog run was completed Bob built a retaining wall so we could build up and level out the dirt. This also required moving a bunch of the sprinkler heads. He used over 200 pavers that weighed 22 pounds each. We had to do it in multiple loads to prevent the van from scraping bottom.

 When he was off the the 2 weeks for paternity leave I made him go on overdrive and get the sod in before he went back to work. We had to get it in before it started freezing at night so everyday when Dean and Isaac went down for naps he went to work. We had 10 cubic yards of fill dirt (seen below) and then another 8 cubic yards of top soil delivered to level out the back. He also had to remove a stump that was right in the middle of where we wanted the grass.

 Next he laid the edging to outline where the grass would be...

 and had 550 squared feet of sod delivered and then laid it himself.

I'm really happy with how it looks so far and the rest of it is stuff that we can get done over the winter such as putting bark around the trees, laying rock in the other areas and cleaning up the outer edges. We also have plans to take down the large dead maple tree in the middle of that square flower bed and turning it into a vegetable garden come spring time which I am super excited about. I'll post pictures as we complete other projects but we are now far enough along that the boys have a safe place to play. Whoohoo!