Our Backyard Renovation

It was time for project ... like the rest of the world during quarantine we decided to do a home renovation on a part of our home we knew needed love the moment we walked through it, our yard! A dead patch of grass along the back of the fence, a fire pit that hardly got used, a bunch of wonky bricks lining the permitter of our yard that our kids would rip up to search for bugs and then accidentally put them back over the top of sprinkler heads. It needed help, so this is our before ...

The very first thing we did was pull up all the bricks and replaced them with curbing ... something we wanted in our last home but didn't have the luxury of affording at the time. We removed the stone surrounding the fire pit and used some of the leftover grass to fill in the hole. Thanks to root stimulator, it has grown in so nicely! We wheel borrowed all the old river rock over to the side yard and laid down new landscape fabric.

The Saturday that the rock was delivered we worked all day long. The kids were troopers and loved helping with their shovels! Our bodies ached after that day. haha

I took all of the old bricks and made a cute path below these back windows and around to our side yard ...

There is still a big heap of them you can see near the gate. We plan to rip out some grass up front and use them as an extended flagstone patio off our porch where the grass just gets too damp. A project for another day!

The next step was one of the best parts in the process, picking out plants! Liam and Lyla had a blast running around the nurseries in their boots ...

Thanks to my dad for letting us borrow his truck, we brought home several redbud trees and a spring snow crabapple to replace a maple in the front yard that was planted too close to our house.

We spent the next several days planting the trees and adding peonies, dogwoods, boxwoods, and hydrangeas in-between. We also planted some perennials (coneflowers, daisies, and zinnias) from seeds. We added some small starts of english ivy to try growing up our metal fence for privacy too so I'm excited about those! We'll see how much they fill in over the next couple of years before planting too much more. I didn't want to end up with overcrowding. It absolutely transformed the space and looks so beautiful out there now!! Take a look ...

At the nursery where we bought our rock, they gave Liam a small strawberry plant. Since we don't have a garden yet, we planted it in this pot. He was so excited to have his own plant and reminds me all the time to cut off the flower stems to encourage root growth for fruit. I don't think we will have any strawberries this season but hopefully next year!

When Rue died last fall, we had her cremated. They gave us this beautiful box to hold her ashes and we picked out a "snowball" bush to match her white tail and buried her beneath. She always loved our backyard at our last house. We also surrounded the plant with the moon (she was a night owl) and heart shaped rocks we found right after she passed away to remember her by.

Pinching myself to have my own peony bushes that are flourishing in my yard despite the awful clay soil!

Our next project is this side yard. For a while it has been our dumping ground where we put extra rocks and dirt throughout the renovation. We were so thankful to have kept it all because it ended up helping level the ground over there for cement to be poured in a couple of weeks! We tore out that extra patch of grass up to the curbing (you can see the progress from the first to the second picture). Eventually we'll have a shed over there and some hanging garden boxes from the fence. Perhaps a little sandbox. Who knows, maybe even a hot tub one day!

We also strung some cute lights (the crazy cord situation has since been solved) and upgraded our patio furniture from the one my mom gave to use which we were so grateful to have in the mean time ...

My favorite place! Isn't it so magical?! I love it!

It was a lot of work, but worth every minute! Now, I sit out here and read a book while the kids have quiet time or we roast s'mores as a family around the fire table. We swing and play and cut flowers from our very own yard to put in a vase on the kitchen table. It feels like our own slice of paradise in the world and I'm so grateful!