So here’s how it’s going to go – I’m going to give you a slew of excuses and explanations for the sad state of our backyard and then I’m going to show you the shameful pictures – and you’re not going to judge me.  Mmkay, got a deal?

I realized our backyard had gotten out of control when I found myself admiring the lovely dappled light coming in the frosted window in our bathroom.  You see, there shouldn’t have been any dappled light because there shouldn’t be any trees outside our bathroom window.  This is how that little area of the backyard looked in April (back when we laid some sod):

And here’s how it looked last weekend:

Another area went from this:

to this:

Yeah.  There are no words for the disaster that our backyard had become.  It’s embarrassing.  Who knew our backyard could go back to nature in just a few months?  (But in our defense, this area is around the side of the house where we never look.  See?  I promised you excuses!).

Anyway, last Friday and Saturday we decided to take the first step toward ridding ourselves of this ridiculous eyesore by tearing up the jungle, along with all the random pieces of cement and edging that were sprinkled around.  The plan is to replace the flower beds with sod (which we can handle).  The area along the house went from this:

to this:

And those jungle-y areas now look a little something like this:

I know, we still have a long way to go before it’s remotely acceptable, but we made some serious progress – hallelujah! You can take a look at all of the jungle debris as proof of our progress:

And the concrete pavers in the pile below were quite a hot commodity – about half of them were gone from the curb after just a few minutes!

We’re hoping to complete the transformation next weekend, so fingers crossed that we get our acts together and make that happen.  What about you guys?  Are you as appalled by our backyard as I am?  Tackle any big projects over the weekend?

P.S.  You may have noticed that there’s no Inspiration Tuesday blog party today – I hope that hasn’t thrown you off!  There just didn’t seem to be  as much interest as I’d hoped, so it’s been retired for awhile – maybe it’ll make a comeback someday!  In the meantime, you are still more than welcome to link to your inspiring posts in the Comments section – just be sure to put your link in “quotes” so that it will show up!

It was filled with algae from years of neglect, the tile was dingy and dated, the entire backyard was taken up with cracked concrete decking, and the landscaping was a total joke.  It was a total nail-biter – could we pull this off?  Could we really turn it into a backyard that a family would love?

Well, you all know now that we not only managed to get the pool situation under control, but we turned it into a highlight of the house:

Here’s a behind the scenes look at how we did it, from the funky beginning to the awesome end.  Here we go!!

We knew that this pool was going to need a serious makeover if it was going to live up to the rest of the house.  I’m talking new plaster, tile, coping – the works!  But before we could get started on all the fun stuff, the pool had to be completely drained.  Here’s what it looked like:

Ew, right?  And let me tell you, all that nasty algae was stinky.  Super stinky.  I don’t know why I didn’t expect that, but I was totally surprised.  Luckily, the stinkiness didn’t last too long.  Once the pool was totally drained and cleaned, a new surface of fancy 3M quartz plaster was applied.  We were going for a tropical feel, so we opted for a colored plaster rather than the traditional white plaster – the plaster is slightly tinted blue, so the water looks all ocean-y and gorgeous.

Once the new plaster went up, it was time for the tile!!!  A crew of guys stood on these funky little metal risers all day and applied sheet after sheet of earthy-toned mosaic tiles:

The people at the tile place kept trying to convince us to choose those tiles that you always see in pools – 6 x 6 tiles in bright blue.  Those are really pretty, but we wanted something different, something a little fun.  I drove around for about a week with a box full of tile samples in my car, asking everyone that rode in my car which tiles they liked best – kind of like a fashion show for tile.  In the end, we decided on these and I am beyond thrilled with how they came out!

While all the plastering and tiling was going on, the huge expanse of concrete decking was also being broken up with a jackhammer and removed.  We agonized forever over what to do with the decking – it took up almost the entire yard so there was virtually no grass or anywhere for kids or pets to play.  It was also cracked and pretty unsightly.  We ultimately decided to just get rid of it and put in a lawn – that way the new homeowners would have a true yard in addition to a pool, and we imaged that the pool would look really cool surrounded by grass, almost like a pond.

I do not envy the people that got the job of jackhammering up the decking.  The concrete was about 6 inches thick, and reinforced with steel rebar – it was a huge job!!

After all the decking was hauled away, it was time for the new flagstone coping.  Since we had removed the decking, we went for coping that is wider than standard so that the edge of the pool would look more substantial.  We also asked for the flagstone to be chiseled in an irregular pattern so that the edges would look more natural.  We love the way it turned out!!

The new cedar pergola went up in a flash while another crew was working on the pool – it’s a huge improvement over the old plastic sheeting that used to shade the patio.  Even though we hated to cut down a tree, we ultimately had no choice but to remove the sculpted tree and bushes right by the pergola – they were totally blocking access to the stairs in the pool!

Now that all the decking was gone, we needed to spread oodles of dirt across the entire backyard to raise the ground level to match up with the edge of the pool.  It was a huge endeavor undertaken by Landscaper Jared, and you can get the full scoop about that fun project right here.

After the dirt was added and about a zillion pieces of sod were laid, it was time for the fun part – landscaping!!!

I dished the dirt (literally) about how we turned the landscaping into a tropical paradise here, and you can get the 411 about all the plants we chose right here.

One of the last touches that we added to the landscaping was about 20 bags of black mulch – I think the people at Lowe’s thought we were crazy when we were loading up the truck:

We added mulch to the planting beds for a few reasons: (1) mulch would help reduce the number of weeds that grew in the beds (thereby reducing the amount of weeding that we would have to do), (2) mulch helps the plants’ roots retain water to get through the Texas heat, and (3) mulch makes the beds look awesome!!!

While any old mulch will help out your plants, black mulch is totally my favorite color of mulch because the vibrant colors of the plants really pop against the black background.  However, you will be covered from head to toe in black mulch dirt, and your fingernails definitely will not thank you.

One of the final things that was completed in the backyard was the tiling of the patio – I told you all about the transformation here.  I am head over heels for the result!!

Our finishing touch was to add flagstone stepping stones from the patio to the pool.  Not only does it look pretty, but it prevents people from tracking grass into the pool – gotta love form and function!!

So there you have it – the entire tale of how the pool at the flip went from an eyesore that no one would dare to swim in to an inviting tropical paradise that just begs for you to jump right in.

We love to spend a hot afternoon floating around in this pool – there’s no better way to beat the heat!  How about you guys?  Now that summer is drawing to an end, what will you miss most about those lazy days of summer?  Or are you ready to bid the heat adieu and bring on the fall?

Let me start from the very beginning (which, according to Julie Andrews, is a very good place to start).

A few weeks ago when we first bought the flip, the patio was frightening:

I don’t know which was scarier – the blue outdoor carpeting, the green plastic roofing, the dark and dingy screens, or the confining peach brick wall?  Take your pick.  Clearly, it all had to go.

Once demo was complete, we were left with this worn concrete pad with remnants of the adhesive from the blue outdoor carpet – not too pretty to look at.

We considered our options.  If we stained it, we’d have to grind down the concrete to get rid of the adhesive, and that still wouldn’t fix the few cracks in the slab.  Same thing for painting.  Stamping the concrete would be too expensive, and wasn’t really the look we were going for.  That left tiling the concrete pad – but how expensive would that be?

Our first bid that we got from our tile guy was high – like sky-high.  We were in a panic, what were we going to do to make the patio live up to the rest of the backyard?  My hubby instantly went into bargain-hunter mode – it’s one of his strong suits.  After a day of phone calls, he got a bid for less than a 1/4 of our tile guy’s original bid – score!!!!

But before the tiling extravaganza could begin, we needed some tile!  We headed off to this place, which is the same stone yard where we bought the Austin stone for our fab fireplace:

Look at all of the goodies!!!  We cute right to the chase and headed over towards the Oklahoma flagstone – we wanted to use the same stone for the patio as we did for the coping on the pool so that the pool and patio would look totally cohesive.

Do you think we found enough stone??

We stuck our name on this ton of 1 inch thick flagstone.   1 inch flag is perfect for tiling over an existing concrete pad – any thicker and it’s difficult to work with.  However, you wouldn’t want to lay these thin babies straight on the ground without the support of concrete as flagstone is brittle and could break.

The next day, my lovely hubby borrowed a truck and brought this ton of precious cargo back to the flip:

Soon after, our new tile guy was picking the perfect stones and laying them out for a dry fit:

A few hours and buckets of thinset later, our patio looked like this!!

We ran off to Home Depot to buy 8 bags of Polyblend sanded grout in Fawn – the perfect match for the pool coping.  Here’s the patio all grouted and gorgeous:

A few days later, we wetted down the patio and got to scrubbing with a long-handled broom – this was to remove the fine layer of grout that dried on top of the flagstone.

And now the patio looks like this!!  I’m in love.

So, what’s the verdict?  Do you guys like it?  What kind of outdoor space do you have at your crib?

That puppy gets H-O-T in the Texas heat, so heat and sun-tolerant plants were a must when we were thinking about landscaping around the pool.

We also had a really cool existing, unidentified palm-like tree that we wanted to work around:

With our requirements for hot ‘n hardy plants that fit in with our funky palm tree, coming up with a tropical, oasis-like landscaping scheme was a no-brainer.

Now that you’ve heard all about how we transformed the backyard, I thought I’d give you the scoop on which plants we picked, and why.  Here we go!!

These plants below form the main focal point of the backyard.  By choosing plants of varying heights, we were able to break up the large expanse of fence behind the pool, and add some texture and visual interest to keep your eye moving from plant to plant so that you don’t miss a single one of those beauties.

While we wanted the majority of the plants to be green to form kind of a backdrop for the gorgeous pool, I couldn’t resist a few fun pops of color with those giant hibiscus – they had me from hello!

Each one of these tropical plants is tolerant of full-sun (a necessity in this backyard) and lots of heat.  The few days a year that Dallas gets below freezing, all the new owner will need to do to keep these plants happy is cover them with a sheet – easy!

We also added a little planting vignette over by the new fence that was constructed to hide the pool equipment from view.  Our goal was simply to break up the fence a little bit (a common theme, it seems) and add a little pop of color in another corner of the yard.

So now you know all the nitty gritty about those fun tropical plants hanging out by the pool!  The word on the street is that the pool will be ready to swim in this weekend – yippee!!  Now, here’s my big question to you guys – does anybody know what the heck that unidentified palm-like tree is over by the pool?  I wanna know!!

This post is shared with Hooked on Houses.

Remember that awesome brother-in-law of mine?  The landscaper?  Let me refresh your memory:

Well, it turns out that Jared’s also a miracle worker.

When we first bought the flip, the backyard was abysmal.  And that’s being kind.

See what I mean?  We knew that it had potential, and that it could eventually turn into a huge selling point for the house – but there sure was a long way to go.

I’ll fill you in on all the details with the pool later, but the landscaping was a huge hurdle all in itself.  Basically, there wasn’t any landscaping.  No grass, no flowers, no plants – it was kind of a wasteland back there.  And there were lots of stumps – oodles of them.

There was no question that the stumps had to go – so two awesome guys went to work and had them all removed within 2 days (they might also be upgraded to miracle worker status).  Take a look at this big sucker, mid-demolish:

It doesn’t look too impressive in the picture, but trust me – in person it was about 2 feet in diameter!

Once the ground was clear, my fancy brother-in-law Jared got to work bringing in the fill dirt and leveling out the backyard – remember that escapade?  Then he laid out these big rocks to form the two planting beds:

I was very impressed that he managed to manhandle these ginormous and heavy beasts into position.

Then it was time for the sod – ahh, the sod:

It took about a pallet and a half to fully sod the backyard – that’s a lot!!  (And all while working in 100+ Texas heat – I’m pretty sure Jared deserves a medal).

After the sod was down, it was time for the fun stuff – plants!!!  The hubby and I took our merry selves to Lowes and had quite the field day in the tropical plant section – no backyard oasis is complete without tropical plants, you know!!

After we wrestled all the plants back to the flip, we laid them all out into position – it took us awhile, and we took turns telling each other where to move the plants.  And let me tell you, some of those palm trees are really prickly!!  My right arm looked like I had lost a fight with a fork (ok, I’m exaggerating, but it wasn’t pretty).  Here are the plants all lined up and ready to find their places:

And here are all those gorgeous plants in their new homes:

And sorry, I couldn’t resist – they were begging to be photographed from every angle, so here you go!

Awesome, right??  Here’s a huge thank you to Jared, who gave up oodles of time to help us out and created a totally gorgeous backyard oasis that any buyer is sure to adore.  Thank you!!

So what do you guys think?  Are you ready to move in yet?  I know I’m ready to jump in that pool!!  What’s your backyard like – did you go tropical, go for all lawn, or are you a sucker for bushes and flower beds?  We want to hear about it!!  (And later I’ll fill you guys in on the plants that we chose, so stay tuned!)

P.S.  A little birdie told me that Jared is thinking about moving to Dallas next year to start his own landscaping company – how cool would that be???

Want a sneak peek at what’s going on at our flip at this very moment?  Check it out:

Oh yeah, that’s right – it’s my brother-in-law on a ProTrac.  [A ProTrac is like a skid loader that you stand on - and a skid loader is a piece of equipment that you can attach different types of tools to, like buckets, augers, trenchers, etc. - don't worry, I didn't know either until yesterday.]

And what is he doing on that crazy piece of equipment, you might ask?  Well, he’s going to move this:

over here, to raise the ground level after we removed the original pool decking:

He started leveling things out yesterday by hand, and after about 4 hours of constant work it looked like this:

[Are you oohing and aahing over the pool?  Wait til you see what it used to look like!!  Don't worry, I'll fill you in on what's been going on with the pool a little later.]

Clearly it was time to part with the $160 it would cost to rent a ProTrac – using the machine will speed this process up by about 4 days.  Talk about a worthwhile investment!!

Wanna see how that big pile of fill dirt wound up in the driveway?  If you were following my Tweets, you know it was no easy feat!!  Here are the pics, thanks to my hubby’s quick work with his camera phone:

Maneuvering that dump truck down the alley and around all the power lines and the dumpsters was apparently a total nail-biter.  And they had to do it twice!!  Luckily there was no big disaster (although the hubby said he hid in the garage during the power line scare . . . I should hope so!!).

Now you’re up to speed on today’s activities over at the flip – things are moving so fast and looking awesome, so hopefully it will be on the market in no time!

What’s the biggest piece of equipment you’ve ever used?  For me, it’s a drill  - what about you?  A table saw?  A jack hammer?  Maybe you’ve conquered the ProTrac!

Be sure to swing by DIY Day over at A Soft Place to Land – you’re sure to find some fab DIY projects to either admire or attempt yourself!

Then I started thinking about a few of my favorite things (Sound of Music reference intended), and I decided that “uninteresting” simply means “everyday pleasures” – little things you see every day that become beautiful because of how they make you feel, what they remind you of, or how they inspire you.

In my case, all I had to do was take a leisurely stroll around our house to find my favorite things – here we go!!

1.  Peonies.  My love for these gorgeous beauties is beyond all reason.

I feel totally sentimental about them because I carried them at our wedding, and I was beyond thrilled to find a huge bush of light pink blooms in our backyard:

But even more than that, they are just so simple and lovely.  And they smell like heaven.

2.  Bright colors (in pretty much any form they come in – especially glass).  Seriously, it’s an obsession.  But it’s an obsession that has toned down a bit over the years.  Where I used to have a bright turquoise bedroom with red accents (yes, it’s true), that love of color has now translated into something a bit more grown up and socially acceptable – thank goodness!  But honestly, a home devoid of color would depress me.  It was something that seriously worried me when I met my husband – he was a true devotee to tan and various shades of beige, whereas I liked to experiment with every color on the color wheel.  Somehow we have managed to survive such fundamental differences, and now I love looking around our home and seeing colorful images and pieces that really make me happy:

We’re still working towards getting our artwork hung (I know, we’re the slowest people in America), and I cannot wait!!!

3.  Crisp, white woodwork.  If you’ve ever seen our den and kitchen, you know I’m a smitten kitten for some white woodwork:

Mmm, it’s delish.  White woodwork just feels so clean and fresh and timeless, especially in a kitchen.  White crown molding and baseboards can be found throughout our entire house, and I always think it’s beautiful.

4.  Our backyard.  It’s a jungle out there, and that’s part of why I love it.  There’s so much potential – pretty much anything we do to it will make it look better.  In fact, just ripping out some flower beds and laying sod made a ridiculously huge difference:

But what’s even cooler is that our backyard is full of surprises – the good kind.  The former homeowner must have known what she was doing, because practically every month a new patch of flowers is coming into bloom – there’s always something that looks beautiful and that just begs to become part of a bouquet on my kitchen counter.

5.  My hubby and fam (kitties included).  Sappy, I know, but no house would be a home and no life would be complete without loved ones to share it with.  I should probably cross-stitch that somewhere.

6.  Our house.  I won’t repeat my prior ode to our home, but let’s just say that it’s definitely my favorite thing.  Not the bricks and lumber so much, but the life that we live within it.

Enough of my rambling – what are a few of your favorite things?  (Please tell me I’m not the only one singing the Sound of Music song in my head . . . )

Don’t forget to leave a comment on any post through Monday, June 22, for a chance to win a ton of awesome products from Gorilla Glue in the IGTBH Gnarly Giveaway!!!  More details about the Gnarly Giveaway can be found here.

Let’s get a close up of that gorgeous bloom.

Who knew that something so beautiful could be hiding in our yard??  And these were even the fancy double peonies, meaning that they have extra petals and are super gorgeous – love it!!

I’ve been smitten with peonies for quite some time, and they were even the flowers in my wedding bouquet.

When I got home from work last night, I was delighted to see about 10 peony blossoms hanging their heavy heads out in our yard – I couldn’t resist picking just a few!!  They are such a friendly and gorgeous touch in our half bathroom.

The pale pink color of the blossoms looks fresh and springy against the pale blue of the walls, porcelain sink and chrome accents.

And since I’m such a sucker for peonies, I just had to take a few glamour shots with the macro setting on my camera.

Aren’t the blossoms amazing?  I can’t get over the fullness and texture of these beauties.  While I was marveling over how gorgeous they were, Lexie couldn’t figure out what these flowers were doing on the floor.

I swear, those blossoms are huge – they’re almost as big as my cat!!

Is there a special bloom that you’re smitten with?  What flowers were in your wedding bouquet?  I hope there are some other peony-lovers out there!!

P.S.  I wanted to let everybody know that A Lil’ Welsh Rarebit, one of my favorite blogs, has been nominated for a Blogger’s Choice Award – head on over and vote for Christy if you get the chance!!

On Friday afternoon, our backyard was just a choppy mess of random plantings:

After just 3 hours of work (no lie), our backyard now looks like this:

So much better, right?  (And clearly, it’s not a dirty job at all – hehe).  Here’s how we did it:

1.  Clear the ground.  This was the most time-consuming part of the project (about 2 hours out of our total of 3 hours for this project).  We pulled up all of the old edging (a combo of cement blocks and metal edging).

We stacked the cement blocks in the driveway to either give away on Craigslist or use in a later project.  The next step was a little more laborious – we took out all of the old shrubs, weeds and random flowers (which were no longer flowering), leaving us with two big patches of dirt.  As we pulled out the old plants, we made sure to pick up any rocks (there were bunches!), roots and twigs that we came across.  You can tell the hubby is pretty proud here after he conquered these ridiculous roots:

(And you thought your roots were bad!  Hehe. )

2.  Mix it up. After the soil was free of any debris, we got to work with our shovels and chopped up the first few inches of the soil, which was really hard and compacted.  We chose to till the soil the old school way (by hand) instead of renting a tiller – not too hard and it saved us a few bucks.

3.  Top it off. Once the soil is nice and loose, it’s time to add some nutrient-rich topsoil / fertilizer.  We used about 6 bags ($30 worth) of Scott’s Turf Builder:

( I don’t know why it insists on being sideways – sorry! )

4.  Even it out. Obviously you don’t want a lumpy lawn, so even out the soil with a rake or your hands (we think hands work the best).  Also make sure that you aren’t creating any low spots that will collect water, and that the soil is graded to drain away from the house.

5.  Figure out “what” and “how much”. Before we headed out to Home Depot, we busted out the tape measurer to figure out how many square feet of sod we would need (turns out we needed 115 square feet, which amounted to 46 pieces of sod).  We also took a look at our existing lawn to determine the type of grass that we have.  We have St Augustine, which is really common in our part of Texas – it’s hardy, drought-resistant, and loves sun but can tolerate shade (this last fact is really great for us, since that part of the yard gets a fair amount of shade).  After figuring out what and how much we needed, we headed off to Home Depot and they loaded up my car with 46 lovely pieces of St. Augustine sod for a total of about 80 bucks.  (FYI – sod comes in pieces that are 24 x 16 inches, and garden centers like Home Depot also sell seed for those of you that have the patience to watch the grass grow, and plugs for when you need to fill in little gaps in your lawn.)

6.  Lay it all out. Once we unloaded all of the sod out of my car and into the backyard, it was time to get down to business.  My husband became the official sod-layer, while I acted as the sod waterer – it was a tough job, but someone had to do it.  Basically, I would water the back of each piece of sod before he laid it down so that it would be a little easier for the roots to break through to the ground.  Then my hubby laid the sod in a brick pattern, cutting the sod with garden shears whenever a randomly-sized piece was needed.  Sod is laid in a brick pattern (staggered) so that you don’t have big seams throughout your entire yard.

7.  Start the waterworks. After all of the sod is laid out, water it like crazy – like big-time crazy.  You want the soil on the back of each piece of sod to kind of melt into the ground below, so don’t be shy with that garden hose.  And give the new grass a serious soaking every day for the next two weeks, and then a big-time soak every other day for the next few weeks.  Basically, you can’t water the new grass too much.

8.  Enjoy. Looking out over your handiwork is pretty darn satisfying, so grab a drink and set up shop on the back porch to admire your lawn for awhile.  Oh yeah – you might want to wash all that dirt off first.

Now that doesn’t sound too hard, does it?  Honestly, the hubby and I were shocked at how easy it all was, and how quickly we finished.  The preparation part took about 2 hours, and the sod-laying part took another hour – 3 hours total for 115 square feet of new lawn.  And our efforts cost us just over $100, which is about $300 less than the bid a local lawn guy gave us for the job.  Now our yard looks so much better, and we get to brag about our landscaping skills – not too bad for about $100 and only 3 hours of work!

What landscaping projects are you thinking about tackling in your yard this spring?

The problem was that our house is built on the top of a tiny little hill (and I mean tiny – we’re in the middle of a city for goodness sakes) – that means that our backyard slopes down towards the alley and we could see straight into our neighbor’s backyard from our backyard . . . and our bedroom and everywhere else – and the neighbors could look right into our backyard . . . and our bedroom . . . and everywhere else.  Not exactly the little private sanctuary that we were hoping for!!  We needed a taller fence, and fast.

Our existing fence posts were metal and set in a concrete retaining wall, so we realized that it would be a huge and costly endeavor to rip those puppies out.  Instead of tearing up our backyard, we chose to replace just the wood slats of the fence with 8 foot wood slats and keep the existing metal fence posts – the issue with the short metal fence posts was easily remedied by adding a little metal fence toppers to the top of the existing fence posts.  The fence guys just removed the metal caps from the top of the 6 foot fence posts, added a two-foot metal sleeve to the fence posts and then capped the now-8-foot-fence-posts off with the old metal caps – easy!!

Here’s a pic of what the finished product looks like from the alley:

I love that we were able to reuse the existing metal posts, saving us both money and a big hassle.  The extra two feet of fencing makes a HUGE difference in the privacy that we have in our backyard, which is really great.  As you can see from this pic, nothing less than an 8 foot fence (the tallest allowed in our city) would have given us any privacy from our neighbors.  Not that they aren’t lovely, but seriously.

What steps have you taken in your home to gain a little privacy from the neighbors?