The yard!!!!

Many of you know that Dave and I have been working on our yard. Let's just say that if we had known it would be this much work we probably would not have bought this house. But now that it's done, we LOVE it!! It's not professional and we could probably fix a lot more things but for what it was before, it's perfect. So here are the pictures, they pretty much speak for themselves. We will show the before and after.

BEFORE

 Fences surround the hot tub and patio

 The yard was closed off surrounding the patio

The hot tub

The front flower bed

Another front flower bed

Driveway flower bed

Big pine tree in the front of our yard

House flower beds

Don't ask me why but there was a basketball hoop cemented into the back yard, Dave cut it down and then dug out the cement, it was quite the project

This was after we got the fence surrounding the patio and hot tub down, baby steps

The yucky dog run

The shed that had a car in it before we moved in

The side yard

The basketball hoop

We also took out a mailbox from the back flower bed, you can tell the disgusting look on Dave's face, we were confused too. Dave said he was waiting for his letter to get in to Hogwarts in there, it never showed up

DURING (picture overload)

 Front of the house flower bed

 Starting to trim the tree

 Actually cutting the tree down

 The aftermath of cutting the tree down, what a mess!! We had a dumpster in our driveway for a few days that we put all the branches in, I didn't get a picture before they hauled it away.

 Moving the hot tub

 Hauling the hot tub away. We put it on KSl and gave it away free. We had no desire to keep it because of the previous owners :)

 The shed built to house a car, ridiculous.

 Now gone!! Thanks again to KSL. A lady came and took it apart and hauled the pieces away.

 See how the yard opened up after the hot tub, fence, and shed were gone. As you can tell we wanted a more open and family friendly yard.

 Cleaning out the dog run. We don't think they had dogs in this for years but it was totally overgrown with weeds. You can see my mom and dad working hard. If it wasn't for them we wouldn't have gotten anywhere on our yard, they are amazingly efficient at yard work!

 Cutting the basketball hoop down

 Hooray!! It's down!!

 There were a million rocks which we also gave away on KSL for free. (can you see how I love KSL)

 

Tilling the front flower bed, it was totally overgrown with bulbs, weeds, and rose bushes. Dave hates bulbs so we dug up every one and started from scratch

 Front of the house flowerbed

 After the tree was gone, we planted a small one in hopes that it will grow a little bit before we sell this house and move on to another one.

 The side yard, we ripped out bush after bush. I started feeling like I wished I could have gone back in time and told the previous owners to not plant everything that they did because we just ripped it all out and re-did everything.

Getting ready to plant the front flower bed with our mail order plants (they were a lot cheaper through the mail because they are tiny and are not fully grown, but next year they will be amazing)

 We had to document this gate because it was literally held together with zip ties, I kid you not. The previous owner didn't know how to be really handy around the house or yard. With one big wind storm we almost lost it so we decided to put in a smaller gate closer to the front of the house.

 The zip ties as evidence :)

 We also took down the fence in the yard, along with the big gate. We felt that we were trying to lock everyone out from coming in to our yard and home and it wasn't very welcoming or attractive. This was probably my favorite part because I hated that fence and it made a WORLD of difference when we got it down. We also sold this gate and fence on KSL and the dog run fencing and made some money to help pay for the yard

 Marcus was such a good helper, he was so good to be on a blanket or in his walker while we worked on the yard. If he hadn't of been so good we would not have gotten it done this year. 

 Dave is digging up where the garden will go.

 Some wide shots of all the prep we did before we put in the sprinkler system and grass, it seemed like it took forever and we thought it would never end

 Starting the sprinkler system!! Finally!! Dave's brother James and brother-in-law Scotty were so nice to sacrifice their Saturday away from their families to help us put it in, we can't thank you guys enough.

 It was a lot of hard work and Dave did an amazing job on installing it and making sure it works great. We don't know how people live without sprinkler systems. Last year when we tried to water by hand our grass died and we couldn't keep up with it. It's so nice to have it water on a timer and not have to worry about it.

 Marcus loved to help out daddy

 After the sprinkler system was installed

Ready for grass!!

AFTER

We were going to put down grass seed and wait for the grass to grow in but it was taking too long and we realized the summer was going to be over before we would get to enjoy our yard. So we just went with sod. It was amazing how much better it looked, even with the uneven sod, and we were able to walk on it!!

 Here is our garden and back yard

We still need to put rocks in this parking area in the backyard

This is where the shed and dog run were out, we are planning to buy Marcus a swing set next year and put it in between the two trees

 The patio will be redone next year, but that porch swing is my favorite part of the backyard, we sit out there almost every night and enjoy the summer nights and our finished backyard

 The side yard, the grass is still not all the way grown in but it's nice to have a side yard that isn't full of scratchy bushes

 The front flower bed, we used the mail order flowers so next year these will fill in a lot better.

 The front yard!! No more huge pine tree that took up our entire front yard

 Our cute little house and front yard

Front flower beds

 So if you have made it this far in the post I commend you. We just wanted to make sure we had plenty of picture to remind us of all the hard work we put in to the yard. Dave and I say almost every day to each other how nice it is to have the yard done. We have so much more free time and Marcus and Toby love playing outside!! Thanks to my parents for sacrificing so much of their time to help us with everything! We couldn't have done it without you. And to all the family that helped out to get it done. Here's to hard work and a great summer!!