Backyard Evolution

I am sooo excited about our finally completed backyard that I had to make a whole post about it.

So, one of the main reasons we chose this house is because it was basically the only townhouse we could find that actually had a backyard. Not just a glorified patio, like a backyard. Okay, it's nothing to brag about, but at least it's got some space!

When we first moved in, it looked like this:

To me, it screamed "old lady backyard." And totally random. Wood chips + random plants that were clearly planted just for the open house; most of them still had Home Depot tags attached to them. Not the greatest landscaping job, but whatever; we could see the potential!

Originally, I wanted to immediately pull up the wood chips and put down grass. But the lack of a sprinkler system, plus California's growing drought problem changed my mind. Instead we opted to put in a large vegetable garden, another dream of mine.

my wonderful father helping us put in our doomed garden

Sadly, it turned out to be a pipe dream... and a waste of money. We neglected to realize before we planted that our backyard is in the shade 90% of the day. Great for playing, not great for growing. The only plants that actually produced anything were tomatoes (which were delicious by the way). The rest all grew and then just kinda molded in the hot, shady environment. It was disheartening, but lesson learned.

I was still very obsessed with the need for our backyard to be functional in some way. So we decided to build a sandbox. I loved my giant sandbox as a kid and I knew the kids would love one too. Peter was amazing and built a simple 6x6 sandbox in the dirt/rock/woodchip pile. Our kids LOVED it! Heck, we loved it. And amazingly, no little animals turned it into a litter box! Being in the shade of our neighbor's tree, however, it did collect a LOT of leaves, sticks, and these random fruits that the squirrels love but I still have no idea what they are.

for the record, I dug most of this hole.

Jude adds train tracks to dad's work

Peter seriously unloaded two vans full of play sand!

so clean and pretty!

still couldn't banish all the ugly woodchips

But even with the sandbox of awesome and mysterious fruit, it still left a big chunk of our backyard completely useless. The kids didn't want to run and play on a pile of dirt, rocks, and painful woodchips, and as it turned to winter it basically became a mud pile. At this point I hated the backyard and all it's disfunction. My kids rarely went outside, which totally defeated the purpose of having a nice backyard.

So we got the idea from our neighbors to level out the dirt and put in artificial grass! Have you seen the new artificial grass they make these days? It's awesome, looks great, and drought resistant! It's expensive, but worth it. Unfortunately, after that our plans stalled for a long time. I got pregnant, we got busy, our contractor got busy... We finally got back on top of things in the spring.

we bought a large, cheap outdoor carpet to try and cover up some of the dirt

in it's mid-construction mess

some very nice men flattened out and prepped the yard. they didn't speak like any English and they completely pissed off our grumpy neighbor, but it turned out! 

waiting for grass to come

we had to lose our awesome sandbox, but this $5 sand/water table I found at a garage sale makes up for it

And now, it is finally finished! We came home from our last trip to discover a beautifully finished backyard! Seriously, our contractor went above and beyond; it's just amazing! Here it is, in all it's iphone photo glory.

first thing we did when we got home: set up the playhouse that has been sitting in it's giant box, taunting my children for the past month. 

Best investment ever.