Guys, it’s finally here! Our backyard went from dirt and rocks to a beautiful green modern look! It was a week’s worth of hard labor for 2 people who had NO IDEA what they were doing, but it all came together, and turned out better than we expected! Today, i’m sharing with you every step of what we did, all the materials we needed for this project, and the total cost of what we spent for our backyard (not including any furniture/outside decoration pieces).
Before deciding to do our backyard ourselves, we had a few companies come to our home to give us quotes for what we wanted. Pretty much for everything we did in our backyard, companies were quoting us around $10-$15k. So after several quotes and visiting companies ourselves, it all came down to us making the decision to do it ourselves. We wanted to take on the challenge, especially since so many people that we knew did their backyard themselves and said it wasn’t that hard.
So here is how it all started…..
Before starting the project
First thing first before even looking and having companies come to the house, was deciding what we wanted. What are main focus points that both my husband and I wanted, what did we want for our kids, and what did we NEED to have for our dog. After deciding those points, I drew up plans. Many many plans. Option A… option B… option c… etc. I definitely recommend drawing up a few options because you may become like us and decide to change your mind last minute on the layout… and that’s exactly what we did.
I also couldn’t tell you how much Pinterest has helps when it came to the design and look that we wanted for our backyard. You’ll hear me say this in probably every post that has to do with our home that I’m always referring to Pinterest. 1… I think it’s a great source to find the theme and style you want and 2… it’s a great source to be able to find out how certain people did things or where they purchased things from.. in case you want that same exact product. So… I couldn’t recommend Pinterest enough! I’ve linked my Pinterest page here in case you want to take a peep or follow my page. Here you can see what type of styles and inspiration I love!
The next step that we did was wanting to visualize our backyard, so we can see how we wanted to move forward with our plans. Since we have a blank slate in our backyard, we drew a line of where the fire pit and outdoor dining patio area will be (also using tape/yarn/string would help too) and watered down the dining sections. This step really helped with visually seeing how it will look, rather than just seeing it on paper. Doing this actually made us change the width of how big we wanted our patio dining to be (which is the wet area in the far right corner). So I highly recommend doing this step. Also, since you are hear… it’s the perfect time to measure everything out. Doing this is important if you are doing the backyard yourself so you know exactly how much of whatever you need to get. But I would also recommend taking measurements even if you are hiring someone to do your backyard…just because you don’t want to be ripped off and have the company “say” it’s this measurement, when in fact it could be smaller. Get my drift? I’m not trying to say all companies do this, but we had a company come out and measure our turf area and COMPLETELY measured everything wrong and gave us the wrong quote. He measured everything off… so at the end we would be coming more out of pocket because his measurements were off. So, all I can say is… it doesn’t hurt to measure for yourself.
Another thing we did was did a lot of research on the type of turf we wanted. We visited many places locally and took home many samples. Compare all your sample… even step on them with your feet. It may sound silly, but seriously, feeling them with your hands is much different then standing on them with your feet. The thing to know with turf is that the higher the number with the ‘turf face weight’ the better quality and thicker and softer it is. The highest face weight it goes to, I believe is 92, we purchased 80. So we did choose a more expensive type of turf. However, the softness, thickness, and the look was worth it! But there are several different types of synthetic turf to choose from depending on what you need it for, and then the different types of face weights. So make sure you do your research!!
Prepping for the project
Prep work… ahhh yeah you didn’t think we were going to just have them dump tons of rock and turf at our house without doing some prep work before right? Haha. NOPE. We wanted to be smart about doing this project, especially since it was our first time. I knew that if my husband and I didn’t prep before all the deliveries were scheduled to come that we would really be regretting EVERY. DECISION. MADE.
A visit to Home Depot, which now seems to be our favorite store since we are there almost every day. We came to buy a rake, some edging for the border, and found 2 different types of rock for the border that we really liked. So we brought both to see which we like best. Originally, we wanted white border rock, but we fell in love with the black polished pebble rock more! It gives the yard more of a modern/clean look!
Also, my cousins boyfriend had a wheel barrel, shovels, and push broom, and they were kind enough to lend us theirs for the project…. that saved us around $80+ bucks! So, if you have some friends or family that are kind enough to let you borrow… ask! Thanks Jess & Javier! 🙂
Next my husband raked all of the rock into the back right corner which is where our gazebo and outdoor dining table will be and wet it down. This gave us more of a visual appearance of how big we wanted this space to be for both areas. Which i’m so glad we did, because we ended up having to adjust the length of the dining area.
Right besides the dining area to the left is where the fire pit and seating will be, so we made sure we had enough space for this too.
Right before starting the backyard process, we made a plan. We new that we didn’t want this project to linger for weeks, so we made a goal to have it all done within a week. Sounds crazy right? So, we scheduled for the rock/chat to be delivered on a Monday and then we scheduled for the turf/sand to be delivered that same week on a Wednesday.
Day 1… To see video footage of the backyard progress, visit my Instagram (@asimplepieceofme) and it’s in my highlights listed “backyard”
Woke up bright (actually it was really gloomy out) and early to a ton (literally) of chat being dropped at our house. Luckily the driver (with us tipping him $40 bucks) was able to drop the load of chat and our Arizona river rock (for the fire pit) on the side of our house near the back gate. We were very lucky to not have neigbbors beside us yet. So, if you’re able to do this… do it! It saves so much time and energy just by having it near the gate.
So, to make things easier for us and to be able to get done a bit quicker, my husband loaded the wheel barrow with all the chat (using a shovel) and then he wheeled it to the back. I would spread it all out through the backyard, making it leveled… or as leveled as I could get it.
Spreading out the work like this made the job go by a whole lot quicker. In fact, it took us about 2 hours to complete this. Then we moved onto filling the boxed area with the remaining chat that was left.
Once we finished dumping all the chat in this area, we got the 2 pieces of 2×6 boards, one board was 14ft long and the other 12ft long. If you don’t have a saw at home to cut down the boards to your desired length, make sure to have Home Depot cut it down for you. It’s free!
To bind the boards together, he used a L-angle wood support and drilled them together using 4 1-1/2″ wood screws. Doing this created the base for our dining area.
We then leveled all the chat inside the area and started to figure out what type of design we wanted our pavers to look like. Luckily we had one of our close friends there, and he came up with the design of our pavers, which we loved!
Our next step was to compact and flatten all the chat down to make it hard for the next day. So, we rented from Home Depot a lawn roller. However, it was completely worthless. It literally did nothing for us. We ended up having to take it back and rent the real thing.. an electric flattener (unfortunately it’s not listed online for me to link). Renting this thing was 100% better then trying that other lawn roller.
After compacting down all the chat, we had to wet the chat to let it harden.
And the last thing for the day was laying down film in the fire pit area. We wanted something to go here so that was any loose chat doesn’t get mixed in with the Arizona pebble rock. We nailed it down using fabric garden staples, which honestly sucked! Our dirt is so hard here in Las Vegas, that the staples kept bending.
After nailing down all the film, we dumped about 3 loads of the river rock, leveled it all out. At this point, we were done for the day.
Day 2…
Another day, but this time rainy. Today, we focused on the pavers for the outdoor dining area. Honestly, this was the hardest part for me. Hundreds and hundreds of pavers that needed to be placed perfectly and tightly otherwise it’ll be messed up. Since we didn’t have enough chat to level the top of the wood off, we had to buy several bags of sand to make sure it was all leveled to the top and so that the pavers would line perfectly from the pavers on the side and not shift.
My husband took over doing the pavers on top, since I had a difficult time getting them to be tightly together; and I glued all the pavers on the side and the first top row to the wood using this adhesive.
After glueing the pavers down, we poured plaster sand (a little bit softer) so we can brush it into the grooves of the pavers. After brushing and brushing all the sand into the groves, we sprayed it down with water to harden the sand. This helps it all become solid, so when you walk on it, the pavers don’t shift.
Unfortunately, we ran out of pavers, so we couldn’t finish this section until we picked up more from where we ordered it. However, this whole process took all day to do, even being short pavers. So we were done for the day.
Day 3…
It’s time to install the turf! All turf materials were delivered bright and early. Unfortunately, they couldn’t drop the load right by the back gate, and it was way too heavy for my husband and I to drag the rolls to the back. Luckily our close friend lives down the street from us, and gave us a hand.
We first laid down the largest piece. which fit perfectly. One recommendation when installing turf yourself, is seeing if the company that you are ordering the turf through can make the cuts for you. They normally allow 3 cuts free of charge. We had them cut it down to: 15×37, 15×21, and 15×11.
Once we laid the first piece down, we started to hammer down all the edges with 9inch nails, to secure the turf down.
After laying the first piece down (which was our biggest piece 15×37, we then moved onto another part of the yard. Doing the 15×11. Since this one didn’t fit perfectly, we had to make some adjustments to the size. So we used a razor blade for any parts that needed to be adjusted and cut down.
When it came to 2 pieces of turf that needed to be seamed together, we had to lay the seam tape down first, nail it to secure it down, added the 3300 sealant and was told to lightly spray it with water to activate the glue, then carefully lay both parts of the turf down. You want to make sure its as close as possible, so that was the seams look as one; then nailing down the edges. You will do this process for all 2 pieces that need to conjoin together.
Day 4…
While my husband went to pick up our large order of black polished river rock, I started on the black edging near the fire pit and along the wall borders where the black rocks will be laid. I used in total about 90 feet of this edging for all the borders along side of the walls. I will say though that the spikes that it comes with… aren’t good! Almost all of them broke once I hammered them down. Luckily, we had a lot of nails left from the turf, so I used those to nail down the edging, which worked a lot better!
Once he got back, we started working on the turf. Doing the same process as we did on day 3.
After a majority of the turf was laid and nailed down, that’s when all the industrial sand gets poured. A good rule of thumb is for every square foot of turf there should be about 2 pounds of sand. Seems like it’s a lot, but this will secure the turf down and help the blades stand to make it more real looking. Once you pour the sand down, you will have to sweep it out evenly. Unfortunately, we did it the hard way and used a push brush to do this process, but you can rent a power sweep brush at Home Depot to make things a lot easier for you.
Day 5…
Our bodies were pretty exhausted, so we decided to take most of the day off and just relax. However later in the afternoon, we did stop by a different rock place to pick a few more pieces of pavers, that we needed for that corner we didn’t finish the other day. Unfortunately, we couldn’t order the pavers from the same company we purchased all our other rocks/pavers because of the pandemic. The show room was closed to the public, so they could only deliver the pavers… and it would of cost $100 just for delivery; which wouldn’t make sense for us to pay when we only needed about $15-$20 worth of pavers. Luckily, they were kind enough to recommend a place that would allow us to pick up the same exact pavers we needed; which actually worked out perfect because it was down the street from where we lived.
When we got home, we decided to finish off the pavers. We laid the last bag of sand, leveled it, and laid the last few pavers. After we repeated the process, as we did in day 2 and added the remaining plaster sand onto the top of the pavers and swept it into the grooves. After we sprayed it down so it will harden over night.
Day 6…
Today we made it our goal to finish the last part of the edging, near the dog potty area and to fill it with the remaining black river rock. We also finished the last section of turf near the sliding glass door!!
AND WE ARE DONE!!!!! YAY!!
Seriously in love with every bit of our backyard. It came out so darn good for 2 people who had no idea what we were doing. Now to start filling the areas with furniture!!
For now until we find the furniture we want for our dining area and fire pit area, we are just using a foldable table and chairs, which totally works for now!
However, we did buy our fire pit already and WE LOVE IT! It goes perfectly with this area and we can’t wait to see the final outcome once we fill it with furniture.
What we needed/used for the project
Keep in mind all the material below is for a backyard sized at 35ft long by 40ft wide
– 1100 sq ft pro 80 turf
– 45 ft. seem tape
– 50 lbs. nails
– 25 bags of 16 grit sand
– 3 10oz seam glue
– 1 40lb zeodorizer for pet area
– 8 1/2 tons white chat
– 49 Tropicana square 45mm pavers
– 125 Tropicana rectangular 45mm pavers
– 1 ton Arizona river rock
- 35 bags Black river rock
- 90ft Virgoro Black edging
- 1 bag of plaster sand
- 2 rolls Weed block barrier
- Electric flattener (rented through Home Depot)
- 2 shovels (borrowed)
- Wheel barrow (borrowed)
- Push broom (borrowed)
- 1 Hammer
- 1 Mallet
- 1 L-angle wood support
- 2 2×6 wood beams: 10ft & 14ft
- 4 1-1/2″ wood screws
- 10 Quikrete all purpose leveling sand
- Dripless caulk gun
- Knife cutter
- 3 landscape block adhesive glue
Total cost for everything $3,963.79– This includes all the items above, to some of the items that didn’t work out, the equipment rental, pavers, turf, delivery fees, etc.
So there you have it… all full reveal from start to finish of our backyard. I am so glad it’s over with, and my body sure did make sure I knew what type of project we took on, but it was all worth it. Seeing the kids play in the backyard everyday, having dinner, and making s’mores is what it’s all about. Also not to mention the thousands we saved on this project!!!!
Now the fun part… looking for furniture!
XOXO
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