New Landscaping

Well, it's finally finished.  Ok, so it's actually not finished, but it's close enough; so we are going to post the pictures.  We've still got to repaint the block wall we had to tear down to get all the equipment in the backyard (the stucco is almost set for painting) and we have a few more minor items to address, but the yard is certainly pretty enough to post some photos.

I'll start straight with the good stuff.  In the backyard, we filled in our pool, tore down an old pergola, removed two 50' pine trees that were causing trouble and moved our gazebo to a better location. We put down sod over the area the pool and deck used to occupy, build a large stone paver patio with a fire pit, put down artificial turf in the sideyard and put down gravel and plants all around.  The  front yard also got a clean-up.  We trimmed up our pine tree, added gravel, a pair of new pots and colorful plants and a new (although very wimpy looking right now) dwarf cherry tree.  Cherry trees do quite well here in Albuquerque and we hope to have fun picking cherries in a few years.  Not to mention that we installed an irrigation system to sprinkle and drip on all the grass and plants.  The irrigation system has a very fancy controller that has moisture sensors attached so it only waters each area of our yard if it's needed.  We also bought five large pots to place plants in and ran drip hose through the bottom of all of those.

Here is a slideshow of the finished product:

And for those of you who know that this stuff doesn't come without hard work.  There is a whole litany of demolition and construction photos.

This project took over 5 weeks.  I can't tell you how proud I am of Tiffany for dutifully overseeing this project during the day and putting up with the inconvenience of it all (and the dog...oh how Jones hated the people in his yard for so long). 

We are so excited to get to play and use our yard as a functional part of our home.  Our two favorite parts right now are the seating area that wraps around the wall of the stone paver patio and the artificial turf.  The wall seating is actually pretty comfortable, is the perfect distance away from the firepit to get some warmth and is large enough that we'll be able to entertain quite a few people.  

The turf was a big surprise.  We wanted to put something in the sideyard that didn't need to be watered (saving us money in the long run) but we wanted a surface that the kids could play on too.  We had heard quite a few negative reviews from people about artificial turf.  It's ugly.  It looks too fake.  It feels fake.  It burnt my wimpy kid's feet at so-and-so's house.  Well, those people either didn't buy the good stuff or were just wrong.  We love our turf!  We did shell out for the highest end product available, but it was affordable (considering the scope of our project) and we couldn't be happier.  The turf does not get hot.  It feels the same temperature as the sod in the back, perhaps even cooler after a short rain.  The turf feels so soft, we can't get the kids and Jones to stop rolling in it.  Titus has asked to go play with his T-ball set on it more times than I can count in the past few days (even once when it was POURING the rain).  Yes, you can tell it's fake by looking at it (see the close up photo with my hand in the slideshow), but I personally think it looks great.

Enough from me.  What do you guys think?