Backyard progress

My mom and the husband have been diligently working on the backyard (with a little help from me now & again...there's something to be said for being pregnant!) Our yard has been a bit of a process for the last 3 years (we've come a long way since our days of cultivating a weed garden, much to the horror of our neighbors).

Last summer, we decided to part ways with the ugly tree that sat behind our garage. Talk about a mess...we definitely don't miss that thing anymore! Remember how things looked before? Let's take a walk down memory lane, just for kicks...

And then the tree left us. Best. Day. Ever.

And then nothing happened...for a long time. The tree/landscaper dudes never came back to complete their work until December. Yep, December (thank goodness for our mild winter). So things sorta looked like this for a solid 4 or 5 months.

After the soil was delivered and sculpted (is that a technical landscaping term??), things sat idle for awhile. And then a ton of weeds showed up. We have a HUGE crab grass problem that spreads from our lovely neighbors in the back. And try as we might, that stuff comes back each and every year. So with that tackled (until it comes back next year) & some misc. things planted, we had made some huge progress....

 

(points to anyone who can find the dog in this picture!)

The husband digging holes in prep for our trees to be delivered...

 

The trees are delivered (holy hell, these suckers are big!). And then the el prego would sit around and bark orders for the next 30 minutes...ha (it's funny, but only to me...the husband and my mom were not as amused)!

See? He doesn't look amused here...



We couldn't find the dog for much of the day. He was taking a nap in the garage (smart doggie).

Then I moved him out into the sun. I had to keep myself busy while heavy trees were being planted!



After everything was planted, I helped mulch. It's my favorite (I'm not sure why), and my way of actually helping that day. Things are looking much better, huh?



Our grass is shot to hell & we can't figure out how to get it back to normal (the crab grass really does a number to it each spring). I've been busy tossing around grass seed like it's my job, so we'll see if that works. Until then, ignore the patchy grass & admire the new landscaping, okay? The tall bushes were our way of somewhat disguising the neighbors ugly yard. They've made improvements to the house over the last year, but the ugly backyard and ridiculous shed don't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. The eventual goal is to put some pavers or a patio of some sort back here. We've got 4 big chairs back there now (shoot...never got a picture of that!), but I can tell you that we enjoyed this remodeled area all weekend!

And a view from the new landscaping, overlooking our garden (which is about 3 bags of mulch away from being finished!)...

The dog is enjoying his new surroundings too!

So now that the backyard is pretty much complete, we've shifted our focus back to the indoors. Since, yeah...we're t-minus 11 days from the home tour and I'm crapping my pants just thinking of all the things that need to be done before then! So you bet your behind I'll be posting progress pics over the course of the week (heck, at that rate you won't even need to go on the actual tour!). See you soon!