I am a tad embarrassed to share these photos with you all but I think a lot of us have those spaces, whether in our homes or yards, that we just don’t pay much attention to. One of those spaces is pictured down below. This side of our house we have neglected (obviously), other things have just taken precedence over it throughout the years. But I am happy to say we are finally ready to make over this space and I am so stoked to show you all what we have planned!
Here she is in all her glory! Radiant, huh?!
When we first moved into our home we put mulch in lots of spaces but soon after realized that was a big mistake. Moving into a house with zero landscaping can be very overwhelming and at the time we were just trying to eliminate dirt and mud! This space used to be covered in mulch that Matt eventually took all out and then planted grass. As you can see, some of the grass made it and some of it did not.
Our grill is stored back here along with a lot of the girl’s outside toys. We are moving the grill to a new spot but this area will still probably be a storage area for the girl’s bikes and such.
Sketch of Landscaping Plans
I am no artist by any means but lately I have enjoyed sketching out some of my design ideas for different areas in our home. This is what I came up with and now we just have to do it; the hardest part! We are going to do pavers in half the space and then a flag stone pathway. I would like to do some smaller, raised garden beds but we will see if that happens or not. We still have to figure out some things first. We also have a french drain on this side that Matt did after our backyard and basement flooded 6 months after we moved into our home that we have to work around as well. Matt is very good at landscaping, I am quite lucky that he knows what he’s doing because I do not! I can draw pretty things but that is somewhat the extent of my knowledge.
Over the weekend, Matt rototilled the space for the pavers. Him, Jayde and I then shoveled all of this space out. When doing pavers, you need to dig down 4 inches. It was A LOT of dirt; more than what I anticipated.
For the base of our pavers we used concrete sand that we bought from a local greenhouse. It’s relatively cheap; for this space we only spent $40 for the sand. On the right side you can also see the french drain that takes the water out of our yard. Our plan is to cover that up with pea gravel.
The worst part is over, digging and moving all of that dirt! Next step is the pavers which we have plans to put down this weekend. I will also be sharing a trick that is saving us hundreds of dollars on the pavers! Landscaping is hard work but so rewarding when it’s all said and done! Can’t wait to take you along on the process!
