Even the smallest backyard renovation can prove to be a major undertaking without proper planning. Taking on a full renovation with two young kiddos in tow is not for the faint of heart. Since this renovation project was such a huge undertaking at the height of the pandemic (my work hours being reduced to nearly half) I knew that the first order of business was to makeover the quaint backyard jungle that currently housed countless lizards, spiders, and, yes, a black snake.
If you are curious about my reasoning and why I would begin a full renovation with a small backyard makeover, it is simple, we live in Florida. The weather is excellent 99.9% of the time and having a place for the kids to jump and play while the rest of the home was a virtual construction zone just made sense to me.
This backyard makeover project took about 4 weeks to complete, though it is a work in progress, so keep checking back to see all the awesome updates if you are impressed so far.
Fence Build The team over at groundid Livable Exteriors did an excellent job with the fencing. The weather-beaten fence in the before photo belongs to the adjacent home so we were lucky to be able to use the existing fence posts. We used nine 6 ft. x 8 ft. Pressure-Treated Pine 4 in. Dog-Ear Fence Panels purchased at The Home Depot. The panels were framed with 1×6 pieces of wood and sprayed black used Dark Secret Exterior paint also courtesy of The Home Depot.
Rocks and Mulch Space was separated into 3 sections (mulch, rocks, and grass) using Proflex 6 ft. Paver Edging in Black. A 1000 lb. bag of white rocks was purchased for $30 from, you guessed it. In the interest of full disclosure, partial grass growing is a pallet of St. Augustine sod that was laid. The sod didn’t catch well and turned out very patchy. Let’s look at which so did work in this backyard makeover.
Sod Two times is a charm. The finishing touch that made it all worthwhile was installing the proper sod. We chose to install zoysia because it is a low-maintenance grass that is resistant to weeds and insects (recall the spider issue previously mentioned). Two pallets of zoysia sod were purchased from a local nursery.
