Is it over yet?

The Before. . .

Oh my gosh. . .we have been working until there is #1. . .no energy left, and #2. . .no daylight left, trying to get our backyard ready for Chuck's company party that we are having at our house this Saturday!

We had one last year, and it really wasn't that big of a deal, however this year, we were in the middle of our major backyard renovation project.

Our project included. . .

• Having 5 yards of sand delivered


• Moving said sand to the spot where we. . .


• Built a new paving stone patio with a built in burn pit


• Edging all along our back stone driveway


• Picking up 2 yards of mulch


• Landscaping around new patio


• Taking down old deck


• Tilling up ground under old deck


• Picking up 30 rolls of sod


• Laying 30 rolls of sod in rain


• Finishing around bottom of pole barn


• Having 1 ton of gravel delivered


• Moving most of gravel to pole barn floor


• Spreading out rest of gravel on driveway in spots where it needed it


• Building treehouse for boys with old deck wood (still have to build the actual house part of it, but treehouse deck and railing are up)


• Filling in low spots in yard and spot planting grass


• Finding old septic tank on accident because half of lid was broken. . .breaking up remainder of lid and filling in old septic tank.


• Making new patio table for new patio with reclaimed wood that Chuck scored from work (still working on table)


• Cutting off ends of old deck railing torches to be stuck in the ground (arranged) throughout the new landscaping to ward off mosquitos.

Yeah, we are pretty tired! With the exception of our camping weekend, we have been working nonstop on the front and back of the house for like 7 weeks. Needless to say, I am asleep every night before my head hits the pillow. I feel bad for my hubby since he works a full day at work, and then comes home to put in another full day in the yard.

I'm so excited that we are literally days away from it being completed. He still has to work on the house part of the tree house because we didn't have enough deck wood for that, but he did get the base and the railing up. I was happy that we could recycle the wood. What we couldn't use for the treehouse, we cut up and stacked to use in our burn pit for the party!

Give me a couple of days to put on the finishing touches and I will post some after photos! Stay tuned. . .