Our Backyard Renovation

We spent the summer being very busy bees.  Although it’s not very timely, I’m finally ready to reveal our biggest home project yet….a complete backyard renovation!

Although we have a fairly small backyard, it’s much larger than the rest of the yards in our townhouse neighborhood.  But when we bought the house, the yard was completely empty and had no landscaping.  We didn’t even realize how much longer our yard was than our neighbors’.  To make the most of this someday selling point and to add privacy and enjoyment, we took on a big landscaping and hardscaping endeavor to transform our empty little plot of land into our little oasis.

Remember that old Michael Jordan commercial where he had “nothin’ but net”?  Well we had nothing but grass.  The only thing we had growing on our land was a lonely Charlie Brown-esque evergreen tree and a large weed behind our air conditioning unit.  This made for a less than desirable and not very usable yard.  Although this complete blank-slate meant a lot of work, it also meant we had free reign to design the perfect yard for us (well, as perfect as our piggy bank would allow).

We started off by tackling our biggest backyard challenge- the complete lack of privacy.  Although living in a townhouse community has a lot of benefits, the lack of privacy is its biggest drawback.  Without any question, we agreed that good fences make good neighbors, and installing a fence was a must. We were tired of neighborhood kids riding their bikes across our backyard and wanted to enjoy our soon-to-be oasis without any peering eyes or having to stare at our neighbor’s yards and houses.

However, living in a townhouse neighborhood also means that we have to abide by rules set forth by our homeowner’s association.  This means we were obligated to get a 5 foot white vinyl fence.  I would have really preferred a 6 foot fence for extra privacy, but 5 feet is all we are allowed.  But we were able to pick out the fence style so we chose a complete privacy fence which has to gaps between each fence slat.

To cut costs, we enlisted the help of a friend who is a contractor and agreed to install the fence along with Hubby’s help for a discounted price.  It was grueling, but Rob and our contractor friend installed the fence in 2 days.  I was amazed that in just a couple of days we were able to add privacy and definition to our yard.

Unfortunately for our muscles, this was only the start of our backyard renovation.  Stayed tuned to see how we completed our backyard makeover.

This project is featured on DIY Day.