Backyard Makeover, part 2

Well, slowly but surely, the yard is coming along.  It is so fun to see progress.  It has been so stinkin' hot here, that not too much work is getting done.  The boys have been going out to work in the yard once the afternoon sun is gone, so they don't have to bake out in the sun!

The rest of the frame for the deck is done, and we have managed to almost completely fill it with dirt from the side yard, one wheelbarrow at a time.  Dave would rototill, and the boys would fill and dump all the dirt into this corner deck area.  We also went and picked up a truckload of dirt from someone locally who was getting rid of dirt. Found the guy on Craigslist, and he even loaded it into our truck with a giant bucket tractor.  Nice.  Here is the almost completely filled deck.  And a dog added in for interest.  You can see the little gas line popping up out of the dirt right in the middle.

Dave lowered the level of the dirt down the side yard to prepare to lay a path with pavers.  I was able to score 300 square 12 X 12 gray pavers for FREE on Craigslist.  I just checked every day, and happened to find these just at the right time.  We took both our SUV and our truck, and loaded as many as we could fit!  SCORE!!!!!  I would recommend if you want to do any sort of project that you check Craiglist before buying new.  Even though we weren't ready for the pavers yet, if you can get stuff you need for free or extremely reduced cost, it is worth the time to check back daily for the things you may need.  I have also scored all the lava rock for our future fire pit for free.  So we just piled it up somewhere out of the way until we need it!

Ok, so back to the project.  We wanted to put a path down the middle of our sideyard, leaving the sides available for some plants later on.  So Dave ran some sprinkler pipe down the sideyard for me so water will be available in the future when we want to plant some things.

In order to create the path, we needed some way to define the path with edging.  I really wanted to use large landscaping rocks, but every time I checked Craigslist and found some, they were either too small or already taken.  Landscaping bricks are cheap, but we have such a long side yard, so it would have cost a couple hundred dollars just for the edging.  Nope.  They make some rubber type edging also, but again, gets costly. Dave is really good at thinking outside of the box, and he found some wood bendable edging stuff.  It comes in like 6 or 7 foot long strips, in a bundle of like 10 of them.  Cost :  $40.  That I can do!

Here is Dave beginning to lay out the shape of the walkway.

This path will go down the sideyard, and then veer off in two directions. It will meet the concrete by the house, and will also continue on to the deck.  Once the path is completely defined with the edging, we will begin laying the pavers down, and then fill with small variegated pea gravel.  I am still hoping to score the gravel free too.  If not, it's relatively cheap anyways!

Well, that's all for now!

Backyard Makeover

A few weeks ago, I posted that we put up a new fence.  I may have mentioned the need for an entire yard makeover, that has been needed for years now but always seemed such an overwhelming and costly task.  However, building the fence sort of motivated us to move forward on it a little at a time.  And when I say "us", I really mean Dave and the boys, since I am sort of useless right now.  It pains me that I cannot take part physically in this process, as I always love being a part of projects.  I love getting my hands dirty, trying new power tools, and just working alongside my husband.  To me, it is so fun and rewarding.  But for now, I will be a spectator, designer, shopping companion, and refreshment coordinator :-)

I thought it would be fun to blog the process of the makeover, because frankly, who doesn't like a good makeover? It's so much fun!  I thought it would also be fun to show others how projects can be done by being thrifty, thinking outside the box, and by considering various alternatives to the "normal". I want to encourage people that they can accomplish their dream projects, even with monetary hindrances!  I happen to be married to a very handy, very mechanical, very creative minded husband, and that is helpful too!  So welcome to...............................................

Project DeShong Backyard Makeover

Left side of yard before.  Nice dead grass, weeds, holes from dogs digging.....

Right side of yard before.  Same story as the other side.

Goal:  To turn a yard full of dead grass/weeds into a beautiful haven for fun, rest, and relaxation.  The goal is to landscape the side yard, plant grass in the backyard, and build a deck complete with fire pit!  Since there is a logical order to doing things, here is the step by step.  This is more for me, so I can organize my thoughts:

1) Rototill side yard (check)
2) Lay gas line for future fire pit on future deck (check)
3) Build frame for deck, so we can move on to step 4 (halfway finished)
4) Backfill deck with dirt from side yard
5) Landscape side yard (details to follow, including how we will do this on the extreme cheap....I can't wait to share)!
6) Rototill side one of the yard, and plant grass seed  (so the dogs will still have access to one side of the yard at a time)
7) Meanwhile, while grass is growing and becoming established, build deck (stay tuned for how we plan to do this for next to nothing in cost)
8) Rototill side two of yard and plant grass seed
9) DONE!  Ah, I can't wait for the day!



Step 1: We were blessed to borrow a rototiller from some dear friends, and since they hardly ever use it, we are able to keep it for a while, and use it at our leisure, instead of the cost of renting a machine for 4 hours at a time.  The first thing Dave did was to kill the remaining grass and weeds with total vegetation killer.  One container did the job, and Austin did the whole thing.  Dave soaked the side yard with water to make it easier to rototill, and then he was able to make light of the job.  It took him a weekend and he had the entire side yard rototilled up.  I wish I had a before pic of this side yard.  It was knee high in weeds, most of them already dead.  It was not a pretty sight.

Step 2:  One of the things we have longed to do in the yard was to build a small deck in the back corner (pretty much where Dave and Vance are standing in the pic below) ,and put in a fire pit.  So the next step before any more work could be done was to dig a trench to run the gas line from the house to our future deck site, since it needs to be buried underground.   Here is breaking ground for the trench.

And here is the gas line.  We had to run it from the house to this spot, about 10 feet.  We now have fire.

Step 3:  Build the frame for the future deck.  This needed to be done before we could level out the side yard, since we needed to use all the leftover fill dirt to fill the deck area.  After considering all our cost options, we came up with the idea to use railroad ties as the frame for our deck!

I have always loved the rustic look, and at $16 a piece, this is an extremely cheap way to do it, as opposed to stacking bricks or other building materials.  And, it takes a jiffy to build.  That's a plus.  The first layer of them had to be buried about halfway in the ground, so here is Dave at work doing this just last weekend.

And here is half of the first level buried.

Once the first level is completely buried, Dave will stack on levels two and three, attaching them to each other with brackets, and using rebar for extra support.   Stay tuned for more pics and an update. Thanks for coming along with us on this adventure!