It's always been a dream of mine to have an amazing backyard. I've always wanted a backyard we can play with the kids, entertain our friends, watch movies under the stars, grill amazing food and grow our own veggies. I want our backyard to feel like an extension of the inside our home. Since our home sat empty for almost an entire year and was a construction zone, our backyard was thrashed (trashed is probably a more accurate word) just like our front yard. We had several trees in our backyard, after much debate decided to remove many of them. Most of the trees were unhealthy or too close to our phone lines (hello old home with low hanging phone & cable lines) We decided we wanted to start with a clean slate and bring more shrubs and a tree of two over time, but I'll get to more of that in a few.

Progress pictures are always most fun we you see where we started right? I looked though my phone and computer and sadly was unable to find pictures of our backyard with the trees in place after moving back home, anyways in the pictures below clearly shows the sad state of our backyard. Here's a wide shot of our backyard taken with my iPhone, the french doors on the left lead to our master bedroom, to the right of the french doors are Avery's twin windows (so happy we went that route!) and the door off our patio leads into our mudroom / laundry room area.

After removing those trees, we decided we want and expanse of lush green grass with a border along our fences for shrubs and possibly another tree in the future. The backyard underwent major prep work: grinding tree stumps, soil prep and sprinkler system overhaul and finally sod went down. We went thought a local company called Delta Bluegrass for our sod and bought over 2400 sq feet of sod for our front and backyard, we also had them do the installation. The installation of the sod was seamless and quick, when we installed sod last time Hasani did the installation, but since we had so much sod to install this go time, it only made back breaking sense to get the job done quick.

Here's our backyard now (some of the pictures are recent and a few, a few weeks after the sod was installed) Our sod has grown in nice and thick, and so so green! We planted shrubs in the garden bed in front of Avery's bedroom windows. Ideally I'd like to add even more flowering shrubs this Spring.

I love hydrangeas, in the past I've planted a few only to watch them die days later. I decided I'd try one last time and planted two hydrangeas on either side our our french doors. I planted them in October, they looked dead over the winter and now are growing back, and getting bigger each day! I fell in love with Limelight Hydrangeas after Pinning these pretties, I want to plant some Limelight Hydrangeas along the left side of our back fence. I love the size of those hydrangeas and think once they take off and grow, they would add so much color and privacy. If they do well, I'll be planting more and more!

This Spring, we'd love to add a vegetable garden (more details & location coming next week) along with making a trellis for vines and added privacy. We bought a fire pit and not need to select a perfect location in our backyard. We also want to add patio furniture for outdoor dining and lounging along with potted plants.

This weekend Hasani and I are taking advantage of our Spring weather will be doing lots of yard work: pulling weeds, planting flowers, shrubs and prepping for our vegetable garden beds.

What do you think our backyard transformation? Are you working on any yard related projects this weekend?

I mentioned last Thursday, that I have yet to share a proper updated photo of our home now that we've moved back in July 2013. I've shared little snippets here and there on the blog, but not a full current shot of our home. Looking at old pictures of our home when we first bought our all peach rancher in 2009 compared to now its crazy! So much has changed its hard to believe its the same house we saw so much potential in. I just knew back then it was our little diamond that needed to be cleaned up and shown some love.

I haven't shared these pictures of our house back then in a while, so here's a reminder of where we started. The house was literary all one color peach, including the trim and garage door. All peach everywhere. they're must of have a clearance sale on peach paint! The 'grass' was full of weeds and have no sprinkler system, which honestly is a must for the 100+ degree weather in the Summer and early Fall months in Sacramento. The brick around the garden bed was falling over and the front door was badly in need of a paint job, it even had colored pen scribbles on it. Here's our home way back in 2009 just a few weeks after buying it.

2009

After buying our home we quickly went to work on transforming the outside of our home. We painted the outside of our home ourselves a medium light grey painted the trim white, added black shutters, new mail box and painted our front door a pretty shade of red. I think the biggest bang for our buck was deciding to paint the exterior of our house, the fresh paint instantly made our home feel more modern and fresh. Just like paint is a game changer inside your house, its also a huge game changer to the outside of your home. We also killed the weeds and what little grass existed in our front yard and had a sprinkler system installed, we also added shrubs and flowers. Below is how our home looked in 2012.

2012

In July 2012 the unthinkable happened, our home caught on fire (read more about the house fire here) For several months our home set in vacant mode, while my husband and I met with various contractors, dealt with our insurance company and waited on permits to be approved. Finally in January of 2013 our home began the rebuilding process, here's a look at our home a few weeks after construction began. The garage was a complete tear down, and looking at those pictures remind me of how far we've come and thankful we're back in our little rancher again, making it our home.

January 2013

We moved back in our home in June 2013, the outside our home still felt very unfinished. Our pretty lawn was & sprinkler system was thrashed from construction and debris and months of being unable to water it (system heads etc were broken and for safety reasons our water remained shut-off) Even though our lawn was a hot mess for months, I loved coming home! For our siding we choose to do a combination of shingle siding and lap siding and paint our home dark grey. I love this shade of grey depending on the light it goes darker or light. We also painted our new front door a pretty shade of chartreuse. I swear this go around in our house, every room is getting a little sprinkle of chartreuse, but that's a post for another day.

July 2013

Now finally here's how our home currently looks! Our sprinkler system has been repaired and sod has been rolled out, if you follow me on Instagram then you may have seen little peeks here and there.

March 2014

Sadly since the picture below was taken, my sweet lemon tree slowly died and dried out, the little lime tree we brought for our master bedroom patio is alive and well and sprouting new buds. I took advantage of Home Depots return policy and bought a new lemon tree on Sunday.

We still have list of projects we plan to tackle slowly to the front our house this year and next. We've been debating on adding shutters to our windows, we plan on upgrading our basic house numbers to more modern ones and moving the location. And of course we need to add more shrubs and flowers to our garden beds! I'd also love to build a small pergola over our garage, which I think would add to the charm of our little rancher. I've pinned my fair share or pretty pergolas above garages, so we'll see. I also want to bring in some simple seating to our small front porch area again.

My family and I are so happy to be home!

What outdoor projects to do have planned for Spring / Summer?