Getting Sod and backyard progress!

It's been a minute since I've made a post because we have been enjoying time outside - and also working a ton outside in our backyard. When we purchased this house, the backyard was a top priority for us. We knew buying this house that the backyard was going to need a complete overhaul (the front yard too at some point) and so with the arrival of spring we've been making good on that!

We checked into a few places and ended up choosing a landscaping company to do the sod for us. They also quoted adding mulch etc - but we were very confident we could do that ourselves after completely redoing a bunch of the backyard at our last house. Plus - doing at least some of the work ourselves is going to save us a bunch of money - and sod is not cheap!

Keep reading to see how the process of getting sod put in went, and some tips if you decide to tackle some of your own landscaping.

Here is a picture of our yard after the spring melt:

The previous owners had a huge garden down the middle of the yard - needless to say we weren't a fan. The yard was also very uneven and bumpy. There was an old fire pit and an older garden box in the middle of the yard as well - both were falling apart. The company we hired was able to come out within 2 weeks of us contacting them!

They started by leveling everything out. With how bad our yard looked before - this dirt was actually a welcome sight! It was great to see everything cleaned out and clear!

Here's what the sod looked like the first day it was installed:

You can see here we had them leave a border all the way around the yard so we could do plants and a raised bed area.

We purchased edging from Lowes and put down weed barrier around the yard.

There's a large shaded area by our shed that they did not lay sod in - we decided to edge this area out ourselves and put mulch down. You can see I created a curved edge. Here's a tip if you ever need to make a landscaping curve -use a garden hose to lay it out, and then spray paint along the edge. The curve will look a lot more natural and you'll save yourself the trouble of moving your edging around a bunch of times.

Once I had the curve mapped out - everything was ready for plants and mulch!

We decided on black mulch this time. I like how it contrasts with our green plants!

Then I waited a few days for my plants to arrive! And they finally did.

I decided to keep in simple and do American Pillar and Little Lime Hydrangeas. I love Hydrangeas, and the American Pillar will grow tall and create a nice hedge along the back of our fence.

I added a few flagstone pavers where our gate opens along the back fence.

Here's the cozy hammock spot!

Here is the garden box area! We will be adding pea gravel along the sides of these.

And one more shot of these easy raised garden beds!

That's all for updates on the yard. I'll be posting more updates when I have them. Thanks for reading!