Phase I

We’ve been working hard (with what little sunshine we have been given) on completing the ‘fire-pit’ area of our backyard. It was about THIS time last year when we turned the space into our evening entertainment. It has been such a fun neighborhood hang-out.

Here’s the BEFORE:

To start things off, we ordered 8 yards of rock! What a pain it was to move it from the front, to the back. It was delivered on a Tuesday, and fully moved by Saturday (before Easter).

 

The small gravel got dumped down the hill, but the big rock found it’s home on our lawn until we were ready to place it. I suppose when everything is said and done, we will have to replant the grass. Darn.

 

We picked up 8 10foot rail-road ties on the same day the rock was delivered. Aaron scored a deal on Craigslist but MAN!!!… these suckers were heavy! We both have bruises covering our forearms and thighs.

 

We had everything dug out and measured the weekend before we had the rock delivered. This how we finished things off before the heavy rain LAST weekend. 1/2 way finished with Phase I!

 

Thanks to the nice weather this weekend, we were able to finish the retaining wall and lay out our rock for a decorative finish.

 

Here’s the bird’s eye view. Phase I complete! Unfortunately, the tarps looks super trashy now that we have a more ‘finished’ look to the hill/fire-pit area. Phase II will be a white picket fence with rock along the edge of the grass. That should be completed throughout the week. Phase III will include planting some sort of plant in the dirt part of the hill (to help hold it up), and then building a structure to encompass the wood so that we can eliminate the trashy tarps.

After all that it is highly likely that we will be burnt out from yard work, but we do have some more plans in the works with other parts of the yard as summer sets in, so you will just have to wait and see!