We finally have grass in our backyard!! Woot!
We've been waiting to run into Ahmed Hassan of Yard Crashers at our local Home Improvement stores that we frequently visit, but finally decided after three years, that's probably just not going to happen. Now that Kalia is here, and her and I love spending time outdoors, that got moved to the top of the to-do list for this summer. We decided to section out the project because our backyard is pretty big. I didn't get a before picture, but our backyard is pretty much all the same. This is the section that we're waiting to redo. Kodi wanted to say hi and he missed you guys too! Do you see all of the weeds and dead sections? Ugh!
First up Chris sprayed round up all over the section we decided to sod to kill all of the existing weeds and little bit of grass that was there. After we let that sit for the better part of a week, I took the metal rake out there and raked and raked and raked during Kalia's naptimes. I got about 80% done with it all before Chris came out after work one day to help me out. He said he didn't know how I didn't make him rent a plow to pull it all up. It was such hard back breaking work. It was actually the hardest part though, so thankfully, everything got easier from there.
I might have told Chris that the success of our marriage depending on nightly massages while all of this was going on. :-)
Chris rented a tiller from Home Depot and tilled up the dirt and few remaining stubborn areas of dead grass/weeds that we couldn't get to come up.
That part was actually easier than I thought it would be. We rented it for 4 hours, and had it back in plenty of time. The only problem with the tiller was that he hit the sprinkler pipe in a few places and had to patch some holes. But after he patched that up, he laid fertilizer, weed killer, and bug killer on our fresh dirt to give the sod a good base to stick to. Next up, we were ready for sod!
We had the sod guys deliver three pallets of sod on Tuesday of last week. They didn't show up until after 6, so we didn't get to start on laying the sod until 730 - after we fed Kalia, ate dinner, and put her down for the night.
Chris removed the fence panels and had the delivery truck just take the sod straight to where we were laying it. My back loves that man! So smart!
I have no idea how most people do this, but when we get to an edge or around a tree, we our big tree pruners to cut the sod.
And then we just push it down. So simple!
We managed to get two pallets laid before it got too dark and we had to call it quits. Chris rigged our dolly with a piece of plywood across the bottom and we loaded up all of the sod onto the dolly, rolled that over to where we were laying, and just emptied from there. Again, my back loves that man! Here's what it looked like before we went to bed (and a picture of Chris's dolly rig):
On Wednesday morning we got up and laid the last pallet of sod before Chris hurried off to work. Kalia woke up well before the sun rose that day, which was only good because it meant she went back down for her first nap as the sun was rising. Let me tell ya though, we were not so chipper laying down that 3rd pallet as we were for the first two! But man, is insta-lawn (that's what I call pallets of sod vs. seeding or plugging!) so nice!
After we got the third pallet laid, we realized that we overkilled / underestimated how much sod we'd need. I told Chris I wanted to leave a small dirt border around the sod so that we could keep the new stuff away from the weeds and such, but this was a little bit much. Especially with a Kodi and a Kalia!
So Chris headed down to the sod place (they'll only deliver 2 + pallets for free) and had them put 500 sq feet of sod into his truck. That thing was weighed down!
After laying that the night before we had to leave for my sisters wedding, we decided that the next big section of the yard isn't getting done until the Fall. We're actually going to put another 1/2 pallet back here, because we still have more dirt than we'd like with Kodi and Kalia. We need to resod the sidewalk part of our front yard anyways, so we'll just over load Chris's truck and do them both at the same time shortly.
After all our hard work, here's what our new back yard looks like today :
So much nicer!! Kalia and I have already thoroughly enjoyed it this week too. We borrowed one of those big sprinkler things to get a patch wet that looked like the sprinklers weren't hitting, and her and I had a grand 'ol time running through the sprinklers. Ahhh, to be a kid again. Life is good!
Hope everyone is having a great week so far!
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We've been waiting to run into Ahmed Hassan of Yard Crashers at our local Home Improvement stores that we frequently visit, but finally decided after three years, that's probably just not going to happen. Now that Kalia is here, and her and I love spending time outdoors, that got moved to the top of the to-do list for this summer. We decided to section out the project because our backyard is pretty big. I didn't get a before picture, but our backyard is pretty much all the same. This is the section that we're waiting to redo. Kodi wanted to say hi and he missed you guys too! Do you see all of the weeds and dead sections? Ugh!
First up Chris sprayed round up all over the section we decided to sod to kill all of the existing weeds and little bit of grass that was there. After we let that sit for the better part of a week, I took the metal rake out there and raked and raked and raked during Kalia's naptimes. I got about 80% done with it all before Chris came out after work one day to help me out. He said he didn't know how I didn't make him rent a plow to pull it all up. It was such hard back breaking work. It was actually the hardest part though, so thankfully, everything got easier from there.
I might have told Chris that the success of our marriage depending on nightly massages while all of this was going on. :-)
Chris rented a tiller from Home Depot and tilled up the dirt and few remaining stubborn areas of dead grass/weeds that we couldn't get to come up.
That part was actually easier than I thought it would be. We rented it for 4 hours, and had it back in plenty of time. The only problem with the tiller was that he hit the sprinkler pipe in a few places and had to patch some holes. But after he patched that up, he laid fertilizer, weed killer, and bug killer on our fresh dirt to give the sod a good base to stick to. Next up, we were ready for sod!
We had the sod guys deliver three pallets of sod on Tuesday of last week. They didn't show up until after 6, so we didn't get to start on laying the sod until 730 - after we fed Kalia, ate dinner, and put her down for the night.
Chris removed the fence panels and had the delivery truck just take the sod straight to where we were laying it. My back loves that man! So smart!
I have no idea how most people do this, but when we get to an edge or around a tree, we our big tree pruners to cut the sod.
And then we just push it down. So simple!
We managed to get two pallets laid before it got too dark and we had to call it quits. Chris rigged our dolly with a piece of plywood across the bottom and we loaded up all of the sod onto the dolly, rolled that over to where we were laying, and just emptied from there. Again, my back loves that man! Here's what it looked like before we went to bed (and a picture of Chris's dolly rig):
On Wednesday morning we got up and laid the last pallet of sod before Chris hurried off to work. Kalia woke up well before the sun rose that day, which was only good because it meant she went back down for her first nap as the sun was rising. Let me tell ya though, we were not so chipper laying down that 3rd pallet as we were for the first two! But man, is insta-lawn (that's what I call pallets of sod vs. seeding or plugging!) so nice!
After we got the third pallet laid, we realized that we overkilled / underestimated how much sod we'd need. I told Chris I wanted to leave a small dirt border around the sod so that we could keep the new stuff away from the weeds and such, but this was a little bit much. Especially with a Kodi and a Kalia!
So Chris headed down to the sod place (they'll only deliver 2 + pallets for free) and had them put 500 sq feet of sod into his truck. That thing was weighed down!
After laying that the night before we had to leave for my sisters wedding, we decided that the next big section of the yard isn't getting done until the Fall. We're actually going to put another 1/2 pallet back here, because we still have more dirt than we'd like with Kodi and Kalia. We need to resod the sidewalk part of our front yard anyways, so we'll just over load Chris's truck and do them both at the same time shortly.
After all our hard work, here's what our new back yard looks like today :
So much nicer!! Kalia and I have already thoroughly enjoyed it this week too. We borrowed one of those big sprinkler things to get a patch wet that looked like the sprinklers weren't hitting, and her and I had a grand 'ol time running through the sprinklers. Ahhh, to be a kid again. Life is good!
Hope everyone is having a great week so far!
i'm having major sod envy right now! it looks great, and she's so ca-ute! so glad you're back to blogging!
ReplyDeletelooks great! what kind of grass is that? looks like st. augistine?
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Cape! It's great being back, although busy!!
ReplyDeleteRhiannon - it is St. Augustine. We thought about going with an easier to grow grass, but nothing really stood up to traffic / sun / drought all that well, so we went with what looks nice and what we already have in the rest of our yard. Thanks!
What a difference some green grass makes! It looks fantastic!
ReplyDelete