I had a different post planned for today, but, let’s not lie, our yard improvement is pretty much the most awesome thing I could be sharing with you right now! 🙂
If you follow me on Instagram (thanks by the way!) then you know that early Saturday morning we got our sod delivered! Oh, happy day!
But, before all those beautiful rolls of sod showed up in our driveway, there was a lot of hard work that went into the process.
You can see what we started with almost exactly two years ago in {this} post.
Then, in the fall of last year {this} post made y’all jealous with how great our yard was looking (note heavy sarcasm here).
But finally, in January I shared with you {this} post that showed all the excitement that was removing those pesky Juniper stumps and leveling out our yard (completely serious, note the lack of sarcasm here).
And, I’m sorry, but when did my husband learn how to install an automatic sprinkler system?! I don’t remember when they studied that in Dental school. Yep, he’s pretty much a stud. 🙂
So, the weekend prior we had gotten our top soil delivered and spent the week making sure things were nice and level. You don’t want to pay thousands of dollars for a lawn and then have it be full of divots and hills!
To do this, you basically wet the soil, then rake every few days, allowing the ground to settle in between. The Friday night before our sod was delivered Mike used the roller we had rented to really make sure that things were flat and smooth.
Here’s what the yard was looking like early Saturday morning. Honestly, I already saw this as a huge improvement over what the yard looked like when we bought the house.
Since the sod got delivered a full hour before it was supposed to be (When are deliveries ever early?! We were so happy!), Mike got to work by himself, with me on watering duty every 30 minutes; but by the time our first 30 minutes came around people had started showing up to help.
My heart was seriously full with the outpouring of love and support that we received from our friends and members of our church. Some of these guys even had an Eagle Project right after this, and then a move to help with later in the afternoon and still they showed up at 9:00 am on a Saturday morning.
With all of their help the lawn was finished in less than two hours and I was so glad that Mike hadn’t had all that strenuous work to do by himself.
Because let’s face it, as a woman nearly 21 weeks along in her fourth pregnancy I wasn’t going to be toting around heavy rolls of sod and bending over all day. Sorry.
Also, we’ve learned that our kids can’t be left alone for too long inside the house while we’re working on things outside. Bad things happen.
So here’s where we stand at the end(ish) of Phase One. I still can’t get over how much better it looks! We are definitely not the eye sore of the neighborhood anymore!
We had a lot of neighbors stop by on their walks and tell us how great it was looking. I kept waiting for someone to stop and admonish us for laying a big lawn in the middle of a drought, but so far no one has. 🙂 Honestly, the way I look at it, we’ve been saving water for nearly eight years of marriage because we never had a lawn to water, so now it’s our turn.
Now it’s time to start working on preparing the side yard for the sprinkler system and seed, which we’ll be planting in the Fall. But for now, I finally feel like we can breath a sigh of relief
Check out this comparison of when we first bought the house, to now:
Really though, the pictures don’t do it justice. So why don’t you stop by and see it in person? I’ll offer you a diet Coke and we’ll grill some burgers on the back deck.
Then we’ll probably put you to work.
24 Responses to yard reveal: phase 1
It looks great! It doesn't even look like the same house haha
This looks so great! I'm a SOD lover but hubby refuses to pay the price for it. We plant new grass seed every year, I'm sure this method would be so much cheaper in the long run! Thankfully our grass gets fairly green and stays that way in the spring/summer!
It looks so great!!! So happy for you guys!
It looks beautiful!!! Gosh it makes me want to go pull weeds while my little boy is napping!
Yay!!! I love home improvements, especially when they are just in time for Spring/Summer 🙂 Great job on this! We finally remodeled our laundry room and replace a couple doors in our house and I swear fixing up the house makes us feel so accomplished haha
Linh
http://abeautifulrawr.com
Looks so so so good!!!! As I get older it's so funny how our priorities change! When I bought my first house I was like oh a yard I don't care about that at all, I want a fancy house inside! Now pets and baby later I am obsessed with beautiful yards!!
I can picture the kids running around your yard and having a ball!!
Love the comment about you saving waterfor the last 8 years! So true Lolol you did your duty! 🙂
it looks awesome!!! looks like your cute family will be making tons of memories in your new yard!
It looks so great!!!
That looks great! It's a great feeling accomplishing things like that on your own without hiring help, isn't it? I love DIY home projects! 🙂
I know, the house itself looks different to me too! Can't wait to repaint… but it'll happen eventually. 🙂
Honestly, the instant gratification was well worth the price in the end. But it'll be interesting when we seed in the Fall to see the comparison!
I know, now I'm itching to get more projects outside done! It has definitely lit a fire under me! 🙂
It really does make you feel so good when you accomplish something yourself! I nagged my husband so much about paying someone to do this for us, but in the end I am so proud of him and we have both learned so much!
My kids can't wait to "jump in the sprinklers" as my son said, it's so hard making him wait a couple weeks to run around and play on it but it will; be so nice to finally have a yard for them to play in.
So true, I am really proud of the hard work we've (and mostly my husband) has done. 🙂
Sounds good to me. I'll be right there 😉 That really is awesome though!
Looks so good! That's so nice of everyone to pitch in and help, wow! I remember the summer my dad decided we needed to sod our yard…too bad I was old enough to help. It was terrible so I'm definitely glad he didn't have to do it himself. And that it's spring and not the dead of summer. 😉
oohhh, nice lush grass! looks like it has been a long time coming, but well worth the wait for that beautiful yard 🙂
Looks AWESOME! Can I borrow your man to come install a sprinkler in our yard?!?! 🙂
The difference is amazing! I know you said the pictures don't do it justice (and frankly, I'd love to come share a Diet Coke with you), but from the pics it does look like a dramatic difference. Thanks for sharing! I don't know why, but before/after projects are always so uplifting and motivating.
I can't even imagine doing it in the middle of summer! Ugh!
Sure! He gets paid in Carl's Jr. fast food. 🙂
I agree, they kind of give you the little boost you need to get more projects done!
What a pretty project!
God bless,
XO, Claire
http://www.littlemissfashionqueen.blogspot.com