Spring has sprung! The warm weather is finally here and the sun is shining! I love this time of year. The fresh air and spending time outside are what I look forward to in the spring. Last year Shane and I spent a lot of time fixing up our backyard to make it a more enjoyable place.
I enjoy spending time sitting outside to watch Shane work on his outdoor projects, hanging out on the deck and playing ball with Rocco.
That is not my leg in the picture! Mine are nice and smooth 🙂
Shane and I spend a lot of time in the back of our house especially since our driveway is in the back. We park there, walk in/out of the house there, hang out on the deck, play with Rocco in the yard… Naturally, we would want it to look nice if we are spending so much time in our backyard. When we first moved in I felt like we were in a scary looking forest.
The Backyard
Unfortunately, I took these pictures in the winter when the leaves had already fallen off so use your imagination…
Here is a full shot of the backyard. In the bottom left, there is a large dirt patch with a tree and an awful looking shrub. On the bottom right is a really long patch of dirt that had three big, ugly shrubs surrounded by pavers (we removed these shrubs before this photo was taken). These two dirt patches alone took up most of our backyard and made the space feel small and unenjoyable. You can also see the ugly shrubs that run along the back of the deck and the back of our house along with the lattice/ladder thingy going up the back wall of the house. No, no, and no! We waited a full season to see what would grow in and how everything would look but it was awful. Especially the dry patch of grass right in the middle of the backyard.
The pavers had moss growing on them and they were all out of sorts. The shrubs looked like witches fingers and were way overgrown. The lattice/ladder thingy had nails and thorns and were a pain in the you-know-what. And our poor grass…
Here is a better photo of those three shrubs I mentioned in the first picture. Look how much space they took up in the backyard along with the tree and shrub closer to the driveway. Yikes.
This might be the scariest picture of all. This is the lattice covering the bottom side of the deck along the driveway. You wouldn’t believe what I found in there…
We started removing EVERYTHING as soon as the weather warmed up last year. We took out every shrub (not the tree), tore down the lattice, moved/washed the pavers and finally had a blank slate. Shane put up crisp, white lattice that contrasted nicely with the deck and the grass. We planted new shrubs along the deck and back of the house. There was fresh mulch everywhere (plug your nose). Shane spend endless hours trying to grow back that grass, too, especially in the big dirt patches. He deserves an award for that 🙂
We put in boxwoods along the deck and back of the house. They are tiny now but will grow bigger and bigger in a few years. We also used most of the pavers from the big dirt patch to build up this wall a little higher. All the pavers were in desperate need of a good power-wash. I like how this area looks neat and trimmed now.
We moved the rest of the pavers to create a border around the tree. Shane was able to grow grass in the rest of the dirt patches. For a while it looked like we had a huge grave where the three shrubs used to be. Our neighbors were scared… (just kidding!).
Lastly, once all the old lattice was taken down we left if open to underneath our deck for a while. I’ll admit, I liked the open space but it looked a little unfinished so Shane put up white lattice on the side of the deck, too.
I love all the room we have now to hang out in the backyard and to play with Rocco (and soon our baby girl!). It’s also much more appealing to the eye.
The Driveway
Our driveway was another sore spot. Our neighbor has two humongous trees in the backyard with the roots growing right under our driveway and into our deck. Over the years this resulted in bumps and cracks and overall safety issues. There was Belgian block on one side of our driveway and not the other. It was just a hot mess.
Here is a close up of the cracks and bumps. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tripped over these.
I cringe when I look back at this picture of the deck stairs. It’s awful. On the right is the view from the stairs looking into the driveway.
We hired someone to come tear everything up and work miracles. Our driveway looked like this for a few weeks which was scary (for me)… We decided to add an extra foot to the side of our driveway so you can see (in the picture to the right) where the old driveway ended and where the new driveway would end. Now we don’t have to squish or suck it all in when we park next to each other and get out of our cars.
This is what the end of our driveway looked like in progress. Just more dirt for Shane to deal with…
Finally, finally, finally the driveway was complete and it was glorious! I never thought I could be so excited about a driveway but when you have more room, no tripping hazards and a space that just looks nice you hear angels sing.
No more ugly tree root bumpcracks (my new word)…
A beautiful new step…
I realized while writing this post that we replaced one tripping hazard (the cracked step) with another (the hose). Hey, at least the hose is an easy fix.
I also worked a little of my magic to make the space look nice…
Now we get to enjoy this amazing space for years to come. A little hard work goes a long way. I can’t wait to see how our family grows into this backyard, adding toys and playing in the grass. It is a space we can all enjoy.
