Last summer, we planted grass seed in our back yard, then in the Fall, we got our patio put in. The grass seed didn't come back as well as we hoped it would this year and we were starting to have some erosion issues near the patio, so we decided to put sod in around the patio. We were also not very happy with the grading around the patio, so we wanted to build it up a little so there wasn't so much of a drop off. Josh sprayed out all of the grass and weeds the week before last and we spent this weekend putting in new sod! This is something we've talked about doing for quite a while, but Josh has gotten really motivated to get it done over the past month or so. I guess this is his form of nesting. :-)
These are a couple before pictures. Unfortunately, this is all we had. There are definitely some in between photos, but this will do.
This is what the back yard looked like shortly after we moved in. This area is where we now have a flower bed and patio.
This is immediately after the patio was installed. Pre deck extension and pre erosion issues.
I had Friday off and Josh took it off. We spent a good portion of the day prepping the area. Josh picked up top soil and dumped it in the area we would be sodding and I raked it out. We ended up getting 3 loads of soil, so that was lots of wheel barrel loads for Josh! After we got it about how we thought we wanted it, I walked on it a bunch to pack it in a little since it was supposed to rain that night. Next, we went and picked up the sod! Josh arranged for Bryan to come help put the sod in on Saturday morning, so we wanted to make sure everything was ready to go. We went to Home Depot to rent a lawn roller and it POURED while we were gone. We were worried we would get back home and a lot of the topsoil would have washed away. Luckily, it pretty much stayed in place! Yay!
At this point, we were pretty much finished with the grading, we just needed some nice, fertile soil for the sod.
This is after one load of 50/50 compost/topsoil. That dropoff at the landing below the steps used to be HUGE, so we built that up quite a bit. It's MUCH better now.
From the other side.
This is our sod right after we picked it up on Friday.
Josh decided he wanted to get one more load of soil (we used a 50/50 compost top soil mix for the top 1/2 inch - inch), so he and Bryan went to pick up one more load Saturday morning before getting started with the sod. They ran over it with the lawn roller to pack it down and level it out before putting the sod in. Once they started putting the sod in, they made really fast progress!
After one more load of 50/50
All packed down and ready to sod!
Getting a good start on the sod!
After LOTS of hard work!
After all the sod was laid, Josh and Bryan took turns going over it a few times with the lawn roller, then it was time to water. It looks so much better! We still have quite a long way to go, but we're one step closer to having the back yard we want!
Since the baby is coming so soon, we're not planning on doing any more sodding this year, but we do plan to eventually do the whole back yard. This Bermuda should spread a bit between now and when we're ready for another pallet, though.
Bryan was a HUGE help this weekend. I could have helped Josh with some of this, but he would have been left to all the heavy lifting himself and the process would have taken SO much longer. We're very thankful to be close enough to family so that they're able to come out on a weekend to help us out like this!
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