The Evolution of a Yard

Once upon a time our back yard looked like this:

After some serious cleanup, the miracle of hydroseed, and a LOT of love and attention from the hubs, it looked like this:

While we loved the large trees and the shade they provided, they were both half dead and positioned way too close to the house to accommodate the patio we knew we wanted.

If you're gonna have a beautiful yard, you've gotta have a comfortable place to sit and enjoy it.

First we took down one tree.

And then the other.

Then we had both stumps ground...

although further digging over the last few weeks revealed more unground stump/roots than we cared to discover. We've got the broken shovel and axe to prove it.

Then it was demolition time.

Followed by painstakingly tearing up Justin's beautiful grass.

Finally, concrete day arrived last Saturday.

Our friends Josey and Drew ever so graciously made the trip down to help.

I was still inside when I heard the truck arrive, and peeked out the window a few minutes later to see the truck preparing to back up into our yard from the west side.

As you can imagine, Kendry was perfectly smitten with the concrete truck.

A few moments later I heard a funny noise, followed by voices debating. I threw on my shoes and headed outside, where I found the men now on the east side our house, pondering if the concrete truck could fit from that direction. Not good.

The concrete truck was so heavy, and the ground so soft, that the truck couldn't get over the slight incline along our fence line. Because of the placement of our septic tank, we only had the one entry point for the truck to back in.

So I prayed over a concrete truck...and the $1,000 worth of concrete mixing in said truck that we had to pay for whether it actually made it into our yard or not.

The men dug out some spare sheets of plywood from our basement and laid them down for the truck to back over.

Problem solved.

Thank you, Lord!

Other than that little hiccup - or concrete truck sized hiccup, depending on how you look at it - the rest of the process went smoothly and quickly.

We are blessed to have friends who work with concrete for a living.

My contribution was easy - keep the kiddo occupied, and take pictures of course.

Finished!



View from the back door:





Its a beautiful thing!

Too bad we can't say the same for our lawn.

"That's gonna leave a mark!"

We also had to patch up this damage to the neighbor's yard. See what I mean about the truck having a hard time getting in?

We are far from finished though.

Next we need to build a landing and stairs. Then we need to swap out that outdated A/C unit for an actual window before someone knocks themselves out cold by smacking their head on that thing. I already have. Trust me, it hurts.

Then we need to stain and seal the concrete, followed up by installing our sun shade sail and some colorful outdoor rugs.

Would it surprise you to know I already have my eye on an animal print rug?


source


Probably not.

Lots of work to still be done, but we're looking forward to it.

A HUGE thank you to Josey and Drew for their help - as well as to their spouses for letting these already hardworking husbands and daddies skip town to help us out. We owe you!