Houston: We Have a Backyard!

When we moved into our house the back yard consisted of a dilapidated covered back porch, a sloppy stoned patio and mulch.  Lots and lots of mulch.

Not.appealing.in.the.least.

So first we cleaned out the paver stones and wood edgers.  It then became a giant mud pit, but progress is progress.  

First, we tackled the fence.  The paint job on it was ancient so a nice coat of red spruced it right up! I'll be honest, I wanted white... yanno, white picket fence and the American dream.  But the neighbors on both side had red so we didn't want white leaking on their side. Red it was.  And honestly, it does look nice. :)

Next, for my birthday I requested a raised bed against the back wall.  That was the mother of all projects and thanks for my dad, Jim, and if I remember correctly, my brothers... mission accomplished! The grand plan is to grow vegetables in the bed and grow ivy up the back wall. But that's for later... 

(this was my contribution to the project. ;) You can't really tell from the photo but I was very pregnant with Elizabeth here.)

Ok:

Fence: painted

Pavers: gone

Back bed: done

Next was trying to figure out what to do with the remainder of our itty bitty yard.  

Under the pavers were tons and tons and tons and tons of stones.  Like lots.  So instead of sodding the entire yard we decided to put rubber mulch down as a play area.  In 1 Saturday Jim had that completed. Check.

Oh and even more coolness... the jungle gym came from neighbors down the street who didn't need it anymore and the turtle came from a friend of a friend who saw on Facebook (of all places) that I was looking for a free turtle.  All we paid for was sand and as fate would have it, our neighbors had 3 bags left over from the winter (car stabilizing in snow and all that) so we were able to re-fill it this year free of cost!

Ha! Seeing that picture made me remember the weeds.  Yeah, our whole back yard was weeds after the pavers and mulch were taken out.  Oh my.  So that was done too... weeds gone! 

All the above mentioned things happened from Spring-Summer 2010.  Now that it's Spring again we decided to jump on getting sod.  This past weekend Jim got sod and put it down with some help from my dad.  It created the mess of all messes bc we had to bring the sod inside the house to get it to the back yard but it's cleaned up now and looks like this: 

::cues choir of angels:: 

Isn't it pretty?!?! Now... We still need to plant the back bed, start growing ivy, and get some fresh mulch to fill in some gaps from last year but holy smokes what a change.  My backyard may be .000002 acres but it's absolutely perfect for my young family.  I seriously think the boys have spent the majority of their time out there since getting grass.  It's wonderful.  

Now my focus is on the patio... I'd love to paint it but that would be a big project.  And one I haven't broached with Jim.  I'd also like to get seating of some type and prettier toy storage, basically sprucing up the porch, but for now I am thrilled with the progression.  We have a yard.  Yay!!! 

So to recap: 

Before

After