Backyard Makeover Reveal
Just how most of our home projects go, this one began out of necessity and was not planned. In fact, if we are talking plans, this all started at the beginning of the summer when we were trying to figure out if we could plan a beach vacation (spoiler alert this project blew that chance).
Our backyard fence has been decrepit and slowly falling down since we moved in 7 years ago. But we much preferred fixing things inside so it had moved to almost dead last on the list of things to do. We knew with every passing Texas Spring season we were lucky that it was still standing and that it was just a matter of time before it went down. Which it inevitably did. The remarkable thing was that even though the fence was completely out of the ground, it was still upright because of 3 jasmine vines that had grown up and around them to the other side. Those beautiful plants were so deeply rooted in the ground they were keeping it from totally going down. The kids got a kick out of lightly pushing on it and watching the entire fence dance. I did not.
Enter, Iron Wood Fence and Gate to the rescue! They made all of our fencing dreams come true. We loved the new fortress they had built us, but afterwards we had a whole “if you give a mouse a cookie” situation on our hands and realized very quickly how awful the rest of the patio looked.
It wasn’t horrible, but one thing that actually was on our home wish list was laying pavers down over the decomposed granite. The granite had been a temporary solution when we first moved in to give us more space for a dining table when we were on a very tight budget (when haven’t we been, LOL). Although it worked well for years, no one could walk on it without shoes and I spent HOURS killing and pulling weeds and moss that seemed to BREED in it.
Also - Nick had been plotting to tear the small holly tree down since the day we moved in. He hated that tree. It took up space, it leaked berries constantly and he had dreams of replacing it with an extended patio and a pergola. I had always put my foot down, mostly on the grounds that it blocked the view of the neighbor’s houses that I didn’t want to have to look at. But now that our new fence fixed that problem, I didn’t have much of a leg to stand on.
We did some major weighing of options, pros and cons lists, and more budget talks. It doesn’t help that one of my favorite web clients is an amazing local landscape nursery who specializes in projects like this and may or may not have been fueling my fire when I spoke with them almost daily about it. It seemed like perfect timing, I knew the project was in good hands, and we don’t need things like food or vacations anyway. So off we went.
I have to give MAJOR PROPS to the crew at Landscape Systems. The week they worked at our house seemed to be the one that God decided Texas was ready for REAL summer and turned the thermostat up to the 100s. They worked their butts off day in and day out and churned out an amazing result that we are over the moon excited about.
Once the dogs gave us their stamp of approval it was time to decorate. :)
We spent an entire day cleaning off the furniture, hosing down the patio and re-purposing seating and decor items from around the house to complete the transformation. I may or may not have told Nick he had to go inside while I did my thing because I needed to focus without him offering his design options. #marriedlife
The end result is a much bigger space, that’s functional and pretty!! I ended up adding patio/cafe lights to the back fence which totally completed the look for me. I will say, you know I have a teal obsession, I know I have a teal obsession, but after bringing items together that were previously scattered in other places I realized it might be time for me to STOP buying blue. Or maybe next I’ll spray paint the kids chairs or something. For now, I’m going to just enjoy my beautiful backyard for the next couple of weeks of summer that we have left!!
Enjoy scrolling through all of the “after” pictures and make sure you read to the bottom where we revealed a little bonus surprise for the kids.
My flowers are all in bloom just making it look even better! Landscape Systems also planted everything in my planters back in April and between getting them planted early and having my sprinkler system hooked up to them to get daily watering, they’ve lasted all summer! The most successful year I’ve had with them yet.
I have to share that we had one VERY sad little girl on our hands. The tree we tore down was the only one she could climb on her own, and she spent many days hanging from the branches. We promised her we would remedy that situation but she wasn’t having it. So we snapped farewell pictures of her and the tree and off we went. We literally cut it down with the sounds of her sobbing at the top of her lungs in the background.
Caden? He cared for about a second and then we let him saw the stumps and he was THRILLED. Who knew little boys liked being physical and using their hands in nature. #sarcasm
But we have some VERY awesome friends in the wood working industry who offered to help us out and created wooden stairs up the large live oak we have on the other side of the yard. Now she and Caden can climb anytime they want. Eventually I’ll get on Amazon and order a rope to attach to the trunk to make climbing even easier but until then they are just as happy as we are!
