Back Yard Renovation July 2021

 Progress! 

I like this word it makes me feel like we are actually getting somewhere. When we bought our house we knew we needed a new deck, to fix the fence and do something with the side yard that refused to grow grass. Here we are years later and it is finally starting to feel like a little oasis. When you buy a house you think you will get everything done in no time. You make little lists of what you want to do but then reality hits when you realize it costs a lot of money, blood, sweat and tears to get it all done. I will be the first to admit that I am blessed to have a spouse that is extremely handy and tackles many of these projects to the point he is exhausted from planting trees this weekend. Here are so recent photos with some of the work we have been doing. A note here too paying others or knowing your limits is not a bad thing we hired someone to do our deck and pergola. Could Ryan (my husband) done them himself? Sure but it would have taken him a lot of time. 

The above images are the side yard that is just a little sliver along our home. It is between our lot and our neighbors. For years we tried to grow grass but in recent years we just mulched it all in, removed an old tree stump, planted 4 trees, Ryan built a cool stand for our hammocks and a little retaining wall. At the bottom of the wall he placed out little planter he made out of the fence posts that fell down years ago in a storm. Now we have these cute little pots here too to look at while in the hot tub. Ryan also replaced some rooted fence posts and we stripped and painted the leftover fence we have. The fence was a labor of love taking us a year and a half to complete. The last picture is before we removed the weeds and put the cute pots in this year.

The next space up in the yard is most likely the biggest yard change and of course cost the most. Where the back yard meets the tiny side yard we went through the difficult process and expense at that of installing a hot tub during COVID-19. It involved multiple permits, meeting with the city and loads of money. We are so happy with it though. The pergola was built by someone we hired. Ryan did build the sand stand surround and the stairs which were old wood from the deck that was replaced. The sun shade was purchased from Amazon. We are really excited for the future of this part of the back yard. 

Here is the last part of our tiny backyard the deck and corner before the side yard. Now we used to have an enclosed fence that went all the way to the end of the house. If you have followed me on social media you would have heard about a large part of that fence falling down because the  giant tree that used to be next to the deck pushed on it so hard and it was rotting. Ryan in the past year has replaced the rotting posts and used the wood from the  fallen fence to make all sorts of furniture and decorative walls in our home. He is good at not wasting wood. The fixed fence was painted as well this was mentioned above. The concreate patio was done before we bought the house and it works but causes some drainage issues we are working on with pea gravel along the fence to prevent future fence rot. Ryan stripped the deck and we had it rebuilt this year as the wood on the deck part was rotting. It looks great! We also bought replacement trees for the 3 trees we cut down along the house this year. It's really coming together. We are not thinking about upcoming mulch, maybe an arbor and finally planting grass by the deck. 

The joys of home ownership is that things are never really complete! 

Until next time~ Emily