So over the years, the beautiful backyard we inherited upon our purchase of this house has slowly decayed into a dead-plants-dangerous-broken-deck-dirt-instead-of-grass mess. Some of this is our fault, some of it is the kids' fault, and some of it is just the result of time. When the deck started becoming a hazard to friends and neighborhood kids, however, we realized the time had come to do something about it. (notice we weren't worried that is was a danger to *our* kids!)
Hence the Great Summer Backyard Re-do (Phase 1) was born!
Of course, I didn't get a really good "before" picture, but here it is after we had already removed a few rosemary bushes and a dying citrus tree:
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| Yard extends a little beyond the tree at the right. Didn't have a lot of grassy area. Beyond the deck it goes down a hill to our trampoline and a lot of irritating blackberry bushes |
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| Broken deck, old hot tub, halfway taken down treehouse |
The plans? Remove the upper deck, remove the tree house (it was halfway supported on the deck so it needed to be removed and re-engineered), remove the hot tub, patch and keep lower deck, make a larger flat area by creating a retaining wall, filling with dirt, putting in new sprinklers, then putting sod over the whole darn thing.
By the way, did I mention we started this in June during the hottest few weeks I've ever experienced in Sacramento? Thank goodness we have a lot of shade!
Here it is with the upper deck removed and the hot tub gone. Jay's coworker actually owes an excavator and was kind enough to bring it over and dig a trench for our retaining wall. We'd still be digging through roots now if he hadn't!
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| Cal getting a turn on the excavator. He was in heaven! |
The trench is completed! (and Calvin is enjoying playing in the dirt)
Next, Jay started building the retaining wall:
I don't even remember how many bricks it took. But I clearly remember how much fill dirt we needed, because luckily I recorded it for posterity's sake. :)
Between Jay, one of the young men from church, me, and the kids, we got all the dirt moved back and filled behind the wall, stamping it down and watering it between layers. It was a long process, but you gotta do what you gotta do!
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| The boys being good helpers |
After the wall was completed on both sides, and the fill dirt was in, we begun the laborious effort of putting in sprinklers. Luckily, we only had to do sprinklers on this side where the old deck used to be. The other side already had a sprinkler system. The problem with this side was the horrific root system of our redwood tree. We had to rent a ditch witch, and even with that it was no fun.
After the sprinklers were in, Jay built the stairs while we all started to wheelbarrow back loads of top soil.
Soon, the top soil was on and Natalie, Jay, and I laid rolls and rolls of sod. Jay also patched the hole in the deck where the hot tub was, The end result?
We love it! We have spent a lot of time out here this summer, as you can see by the bald patches forming around the tree where the kids run in circles. You can also catch a glimpse of the sign post we made, but I will show that in more detail in a future post. I love it so much that I want to make sure to give it the blog attention it deserves. :)
Oh, and yes, there will be a Phase 2 one day, where we'll finally tackle down the hill and rebuild the treehouse in a new location. But in the words of Aragon, today is not that day. :)
