Backyard progress- the big dig!

Before the "big dig"

For years we have been having water issues with our backyard. We have dug trenches and put down piping. This summer we even got some of our neighbors left over piping to yet again fix another problem area.

View towards the woods

Let me digress for a bit... the day after we got back from our amazing vacation to Turks and Caicos we went to the local lake and truthfully after being in the most beautiful water I was absolutely disgusted to be at the lake with its BROWN stinky water. So after that I was on a quest to put in a pool so that we would not have to journey to the lake to swim again- natures walks are just fine there.

Well this is where our backyard drainage come into play AGAIN! In order to do an above ground pool we would need 2 retaining walls. At that price I figured I'd check into an in ground pool and get everything fixed at once. Well all was going along until the pool estimates started coming in in the high 30's without the fence (an additional 8K for the fence), plus we would still need the cover (2K) and a heater (4K) so now we are somewhere in the mid 40's and that isn't even dealing with the retaining walls that we would still need. Also, we got a much lower appraisal on the house due to lack of homes for sale, foreclosures in the area and bad economy- so with my dreams of an in ground pool quickly being squelched due to WAY TOO MUCH MONEY and being the financially responsible people we NEED and want to be- my hopes of the pool were quickly being washed down the hill! But I still didn't want to give up completely!

Then along comes our neighbor's friend Brian. We have known Brian for a few years now. He has always helped our neighbor with building projects since he is a contractor and owns his own HUGE excavator, dump truck etc... The kids have always thought he was better than a rock star with his huge equipment. He offered suggestions on how to make it work. He could regrade the entire back yard. We thought about this for a few days and honestly the thought of having my ENTIRE backyard torn up was WAY to much for me- Lola knows to go to the back slider and ask to go out, it would be a muddy mess, etc... But we came up with a different solution that worked out great! First he and our neighbor started in the front yard and took out 5 dead trees that we have been talking about getting rid of for years. (Of course the ice storm couldn't have taken care of those!) Then into the back yard to take out more dead trees and start the digging process to flatten the land so that we would not need a retaining wall.

Okay enough rambling here are some progress pictures of our backyard. OH how I LOVE PROGRESS!

Brian the rock star- on the right

the big dig

Some serious machinery right out our back door

Definitely a spectator sport!

See the joy on their faces?

After these pictures Brian let each of the kids help drive and move the bucket. It was really cool! Movies to follow in another post...

So Paul and I really thought about what would be the best way to go financially and aesthetically pleasing. We decided to go with an above ground oval which we will add decking around and lattice work. It will be level with our current deck so it will be kinda like an above ground mock in ground.

The finished product minus the oval pool (which will go parallel with the deck and extend past where the stairs are currently and extra deck to be added under the kitchen windows and along the back side)

Excavator path from the woods into our yard. This will be seeded need week

after the heavy rains which are expected so it won't all wash away!

It really opens the area up. Eventually we want to seed up in the back also.

We now have a path that lead all the way to both of our neighbors. The kids love riding their

bikes back there! Brian went above and beyond by clearing out extra over growth and trees and

placing a curving wall of boulders. We had just a few rocks to spare!

As frustrating as this whole process has been it has also been a good learning process. I am an instantaneous gratification kinda gal and it has been good to go slow and make good decisions rather than delve in and deal with the consequences or in this case bills later. We are excited for the changes and making decisions that are so much more realistic in this economy.

1. The excavator rock star

2. honest & hard workers that is hard to come by sometimes!

3. PROGRESS!! :-)