Hello everyone and happy Friday! You guys…I am so dang sore! Every bone and muscle in my body seems to be screaming at me right now. I also have cuts all over and am even rocking a pretty awesome sunburn. Annnnnd this would be why!
Yep, I’m taking a little hiatus from indoor projects to finally start working on the backyard. I know that it probably doesn’t look like much, but I think our backyard has come very far this past week!
When we first purchased our house two years ago the backyard was a total jungle. Actually, to be fair it was springtime when we purchased it so it just looked “a little weedy” and we didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves in to.
But once the summer months hit it became super overgrown and down right scary! Which wasn’t something that we weren’t used to. You may recall that our old back yard was no pretty picture when we first moved in…
But after a lot of hard work we were finally able to get it to here:
You can read all about the journey in this post. Sadly we only got to enjoy the fully finished backyard that one summer before moving. I’ve been wanting so bad to do something about the new one but it’s so much bigger and interior renovations have totally taken front seat.
Finally, last October the HOA sent us a polite letter telling us that something had to be done about our wild yard or else we would be slapped with a big fat fine. Not sure if one of the neighbors complained or if one of them peeked over the fence…but either way it kicked us in to gear!
With help from a couple of amazing friends we were able to tear out a lot of the weeds and even took out the dead tree. It felt amazing to get all of the weeds out and it was looking so much better. Still bare and sad…but better.
Last week I was outside playing with the boys and I realized how many dandelions we had coming in. And that’s how this whole ball started rolling!
Over the weekend Anthony laid some weed and feed down, and on Monday I went out and dug up all of the dead weeds. After they were all out, I got motivated to try to bring what little lawn we have back to life. So I started digging out the crab grass.
Which is actually A LOT of work people! My foot is screaming at me for stomping on the shovel so many times and my arms feel like jello. Once I was done I raked up what I could and laid down some grass seed.
We do have a sprinkler system, but we need to have it serviced. So for now I’ve been out there morning, afternoon and evening watering it like crazy hoping that I can get it to grow. Honestly my hopes aren’t extremely high and I feel like I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing, but I figure that it’s worth a shot and if all else fails we can have it sodded like the last yard.
Look at all of the trash that we’ve accumulated on the side of the house! I know, it’s bad. Most of that is bagged weeds and bundled branches that I can hopefully get out in the trash over the next few weeks, but some things like the old table and piece of old kitchen countertop will need to wait until our neighborhood large item pick up in June.
One of my biggest accomplishments this week has been clearing the area underneath the deck. It was full of weeds and old pavers so I went through and ripped them all out before laying some landscape fabric down.
The plan is to throw down some mulch and put the sandbox that I just ordered for the kids under there.
I found it on Wayfair (link here) for a crazy good price and couldn’t resist since the boys have been asking for one for awhile. This nice shady spot is going to be perfect for it and they are so existed for us to get it built this weekend. Heck–I’m excited too and can’t wait to get in there with them to make some sand castles!
I’m also pretty pumped about my little riverbed I made for the gutter…I know, it’s the small things for me haha.
There were a bunch of rocks on the side of the house and I figured that this would be both a practical and pretty use for them.
The patio is the drop zone right now, but I found all of the hardware for our old tent canopy so hopefully the hubby can help me get that set up this weekend.
Tomorrow I plan to rip more weeds out of the flower bed to prepare it for mulch. I keep envisioning how pretty this corner will be with some bright cheerful flowers! I usually have a pretty black thumb when it comes to annuals, but I have had some luck with a few perennials so we’ll what I can do!
If you’ve made it this far, I must thank you for enduring probably the most boring blog post of all time haha. I am just sooooo happy with the progress that I’ve made back here all on my lonesome and just had to share–so seriously thank you for letting me ramble!
I hope you all have a beautiful Mother’s Day weekend and I’ll be back next week. Stay safe everyone!
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