evolution of a yard

Russ and I were super blessed to be able to purchase a brand new home for our first home. We really lucked out, because that even meant we got to make a few of the interior decisions like carpet, flooring, countertops, and paint color.

The downside to purchasing a brand new home was that it did not include any sort of yard. For our first year, we had rock hard fill dirt and, more often, an abundance of weeds! (Weeds really do grow like CRAZY when you ignore them. We're talking 6 feet tall in our entire backyard!)

We hoped to put in a yard right after moving in (we moved in mid-May 2015), but we were slow movers and bad planners, and before we knew it, the scorching summer was upon us. Not only that, but the estimate our realtor gave us for doing the yard ourselves was just far too low. I mean, 4k sounds like a lot, but apparently, when it comes to a yard, it's...not. So we kept saving and waiting until spring 2016 to get started for real.

The entire process was just incredibly overwhelming. When it comes to interior decorating, I am a BIG fan, and I feel like I can copy Pinterest ideas or come up with my own ideas just fine. Outside is a different story. I had basic ideas of what I maybe wanted, but I never knew if they'd look too boring or if they'd be cohesive throughout the yard. I really, really just wanted to hire one person to take care of everything, but everyone was booked out like crazy! I was so upset with myself for not calling landscaping companies in the wintertime when I actually had been thinking about the yard. My rationale was that they couldn't do anything in the wintertime. But that is entirely incorrect! They could have made plans and set future dates! Alas, wisdom for the future, I suppose.

Anyway, we ended up hiring a bunch of different people throughout the process and trying to do as much as we could on our own. It involved a ridiculous amount of phone calls, as well as diligence and patience. What we had hoped to accomplish over 6 weeks ended up taking about 12, and we still have more to do. But things have mostly come together. Dates reflect when the pics were taken.

2/27/2016

The before pictures, complete with our giant pile of weeds that sat in our backyard all winter long after family helped us chop them all down in October 2015.

3/17/2016
We planned to build up the back of our yard about 18 inches (because it sloped down from the level of the patio), but there was a manhole in our way. Our original idea was to put stones around it and then put on a covering. When we finished, the grass would be at the same level as the top of the stone. We thought we were pretty smart for coming up with this idea! But more on that later.

The weeds still remained.

We started doing some prep work for concrete. We wanted to add a parking space at the end of the driveway, an extension of the walkway to the front door, and a little pad for our garbage and recycling cans.

where the garbage can pad was going

our non-extended driveway

where we extended the walkway

5/3/2016
A lot happened in the time between the last photos and these ones!

• We (mostly Russ) packed the weed pile into a truck and took it to a yard waste place. Russ set some mice free into the pasture behind us in the process.
• We had some free fill dirt delivered.
• We spent hours and hours digging out a 12'x20' space for our driveway extension and then we got concrete in the areas mentioned before.
• I thought to myself, "I'd rather not pay $150 for stones to get buried around a manhole if I don't have to!" So I called the irrigation place and asked them what they do about that. They said that generally you have to take care of it yourself, but after coming out to survey the area and seeing our "brilliant" stone plan, they decided to take care of it for us because they couldn't actually access the manhole with all those stones in the way. They put on a sleeve that raised the manhole up to where we needed to be (for free!), and that meant we got to use those stones for a firepit! (Though not yet.)
• Russ and Lance spent about two hours loading and unloading free rocks from KSL to build a retaining wall at the back of our yard (up against that fence), only to decide that the rocks were too small (and the rocks only covered about a third of what they needed to cover), so Russ moved those rocks out of the way for the moment until we could find a different purpose for them.
• We had a guy come and put in a real retaining wall with giant boulders. We also had him level out the front and backyard. Luckily, this took care of most of the weeds that were already starting to grow like crazy! We just had some along the edges of the house and concrete that we had to work on.

5/20/2016
We got trenched for a sprinkling system. We also bought sprinkling supplies, though they are not pictured.

6/5/2016
Russ spent SO MANY HOURS laboring over our sprinkler system in the hot sun. Like truly, two or three Saturdays (ALL DAY), as well as many weeknight evenings. I honestly helped for maybe two hours of the 30-40 he spent. He is such a rockstar, and I'm so grateful that he was willing to do that for us. He saved us about $2000 by doing so.

6/25/2016
We were hoping to put sod in by the 25th, but we were quite behind schedule. However, we had already recruited some family to help us out, so we utilized their help for other things! Over the course of the weekend, we built a rock path to the back patio, put rock curbing up, pulled weeds, and spread a ton of topsoil (actually, more like 40 tons of top soil . . . and we didn't even finish!). We were so grateful for all the help! Unfortunately, we determined that we would have to re-do the rock path and some of the borders, but more on that later.

7/2/2016
We thought we would have plenty of time to work throughout the week so we could be prepared for sod, but between both of us being in such pain from our previous weekend's work, we barely made it, and that's only because we got more help from family and ward members. Again, we were so grateful for willing hands :) Throughout the week (and even a little bit on the Saturday morning), we had to finish spreading out the dirt, finish putting sprinkler heads on, and pack the dirt down and make sure it was as smooth and even as possible. We were still smoothing and installing heads when the sod arrived on Saturday. Family and ward members helped us with the sod installation; my brother Brandon was a master sod cutter! Seriously, it was ridiculous how quickly he cut them compared to me. Probably 10x as fast. At least. Anyway. SOD!

Over the following months
I don't remember exactly when Russ built the fire pit, but it was sometime in August or September.

We filled most of the flowerbeds with leftover topsoil and Russ installed a few lights on the front of our house. I LOVE this. It makes our house look so much more welcoming at night! He also installed a light that points at our house number, so now people can see that at night!

Currently
And here's where we're at! Plans for the spring include adding a pergola above the back patio, redoing that pathway that leads back to the patio because it has sunken in in some places, and hopefully adding plants and trees! We also have to decide whether we're going to go with our original plan of having a few garden boxes in the backyard or if we're going to put a shed there instead. But for now, I'm perfectly happy with my grass, rather than weeds :)

**ashleynicole