Our Ongoing Yard Project

So, I've been meaning to post this for months now, but I keep waiting for that one more project to be completed.  You know, "I'll post after we finish ____, or after we finish ____".  Who am I kidding, we ALWAYS have a project in the works, or on the to do list.   Hopefully, this all makes sense, but mostly this is for me to have in one spot for that time in the, hopefully, not to distance future when I actually get caught up on scrapbooking.  Anyway, the photo above is about 1 month after we moved in (November 2010).   The yard was actually pretty nice, but we wanted more grass and a lot less rock.  First thing on the agenda - get rid of the 2 tress behind the rock riverbed.  See, Adam has already started tugging away at one of them. 

Another angel of the, soon-to-be, bye bye trees.  

One tree down, one to go.  Have you noticed a trend in my posts?  We put all of our visitors to work.  

 The right side of the yard (November 2010)

 The trees are now gone and piles of trash and branches are starting to form all over the yard.  That beautiful hideous fountain will be out of here soon.

Adam built me 2 beautiful planter boxes.  See them, past the trampoline.  The shed from the back corner is now gone.  

 There you go a better view.  This was January, I believe. 

 A huge muddy yard for the kids to enjoy.  They actually loved it when the yard was a mess because they could fill up holes and streams with rocks and mud.  The river bed is slowly disappearing.

River bed is gone, Adam is leveling the entire yard, the hideous fountain sold (that's right someone actually paid us $50 buckies for it, suckers) and most of the gravel/rocks are moved somewhere else. 

The red lava rocks are now gone from the spot just above, and sprinklers are going in.  My hubbies amazing, isn't he!!

Pooh/dirt.  We've had a lot of piles dumped on our driveway.  Our neighbors love us, especially when I hose it off when it's all gone, and the remnants go down the gutters past their house. :)

Rocks still here (see Grant climbing on them, and the big pile of river rocks behind the diving board), just moved to a different location.  Adam also, removed part of that yucca tree and the tree next to it, and planted a lemon tree there.  

 Next, a lot of cement work.  We poured a sidewalk from the old sidewalk, around to the tramp, and then over to the back fence of the swimming pool.  So, now the sidewalk goes around the entire yard. Oh yeah, before this Adam tilled, leveled and seeded the grass (didn't get a picture, I guess)

Hallelujah!!  My favorite change............the fence around the pool.  I was so happy when this went up.  No more not as much worrying about kids falling in the pool.

Yeah, more piles!  This time playground bark and sandbox sand.

We put the sandbox behind the playhouse.  It's great because it's shady for most of the day, and if when the kids dump sand out it doesn't get in the grass.  This was before the sandbox.  

 Adam just built that 2 tier planter box for me last weekend.  I'm going to fill it with strawberries. Yum. We used the old framing boards from our cement projects to build the sand box and the planter box.  Add a coat or two of paint and you can't even tell.

We piled a lot of junk in that corner by the trampoline, so it was an entire Saturday project cleaning it out.

Aw, so much better.  Nice and neat.  New sidewalk, playground bark and grass.  I love after all the prep work is done and things start to take shape. 

And look what made it outside............the slide from Christmas.  It was actually bitter sweet for me.  I liked having it in the living room, because it kept the kids occupied quite often.  

 So, after 9 months, this is what the yard looks like now.  Still a lot to do, but definite progress. 

 

Right side of the yard.  Still to do:  plant orange tree where the wheel barrow is, finish taking out the yucca and some other trees along that fence, new fence along that side of yard, patio table for the square cement slab (under rocks), too much to list for by the pool. Most of the stuff we have left are wants, and not needs, so they will come with time, desire and moo-la.

 Left side. Sorry, the pictures aren't that great, because I just went outside and snapped them, instead of waiting for the sun to go down.  Deal with it. Still need to finish painting playhouse.  Yeah, I lost steam on that project.  The ideas are running rampant though, so I'd better get going on it again. 

Still need to do some more cement work over on the right side of the yard, so that mixer is a permanent fixture until then.  After that's gone, we'll plant some stuff along that back fence. 

Ta Da. There you are, all caught up on our yard projects.  Now I can post one project at a time, from now on. 

Can you spy 3 little kids?  They're all in this picture.