Gwen's new backyard

Here's a time-line of our backyard sod project:

Last week: Ordered 3 pallets of Emerald Zoysia sod from The Grass Patch and 6 cu yards of "Thunder Dirt" from GeoGrowers.

Friday, Oct. 17: Started digging out the old grass (dead St. Augustine/Bermuda/weed mix) during Gwen's naps, and then in the evening until dark.

Saturday, Oct. 18th: Continued digging and turning over dirt to remove old grass. Also trimmed trees, went to home center and bought 15 bags of mulch and landscape lighting, put in landscape edging, laid mulch, installed lighting. Continued digging until after dark.

Sunday, Oct. 19th: Continued digging out old grass. Finally finished around 1pm and started raking all the remaining grass pieces into piles and attempting to smooth out yard. At 3pm, left to play a soccer game. After game, dinner, and Gwen going to bed, Megan and I started shoveling dirt from the driveway into the wheel barrow and dumping it in mounds around the yard. We worked until about 10pm. We moved a little more than half the pile.

Monday, Oct 20th: Got up early again and finished moving the rest of the dirt by about 11:00am. Then began smoothing out the dirt with a rake. Then rolled it with the roller (as instructed by the Grass Patch.) Just as we were finishing the prep work for the yard, the sod showed up (around 1pm.) Timing couldn't have been better. On Sunday I was sure we wouldn't have the yard ready in time, but we did. Megan and Gwen watered the dirt and grass while I loaded it in the wheel barrow and began laying it in rows. During Gwen's afternoon nap, Megan and I both laid the sod which made things go a lot quicker. Still, I didn't finish until about 8pm Monday night.

It was a lot of physical labor. Next time I will definitely call in some help from family and friends.
Before pictures:



Saturday night:



Sunday evening: (still have not begun to move new dirt to backyard)

Monday morning (after all new dirt is down):


Monday lunchtime, sod arrives:

Megan and Gwen water grass: