Backyard and Covered Patio Renovation

Ever buy a home from a family member and it needed Several renovations?? We did! And boy is it a ton a of work!

My husband and I bought our house from his parents. We knew a lot of work was going to be put into the backyard, so it took us a while to organize this project. Because the area is large, we decided to start with the yard first, then move our way to the patio. 

In the yard, we had an in-ground spa that his Dad got used 👀 from his high school friend and installed the spa himself. It was in no condition for use anymore, so our first order of business was to tear it out and fill the hole. 

It sounds super intense, but taking out the spa actually wasn’t bad at all. My hubby used a sawzall (reciprocating saw) and cut it out into smaller pieces in no time. We pulled the piping out from the ground and noticed the palm tree roots surrounding the spa area grew into the plumbing, which is why it was leaking. To fill the hole in the ground, we borrowed a Bobcat from my Father-in-law to level the entire lawn (all 2400 sq ft of it) and push dirt into the hole. Believe it or not, it only took one day to complete (cut out and fill). 

Once the hole was filled, we hired a tree trimmer to trim the 24 trees we have in our backyard, which also took one full day and 10 workers to complete. Shout out to Red Hill Tree Trimmers because they were amazing (see pics below). 

After the trees were trimmed, we looked at several ideas for a fire pit area to replace the spa. We wanted to do this renovation on a friendly budget, so we decided we wanted a wood burning fire pit, not gas (easier to build, more affordable and food taste better on it). The materials were very basic: brick, stone adhesive and sand. The materials cost about $220. For the ground, we chose stabilized decomposed granite because I love the camp fire, natural appearance. We priced out DG in our area and found a stone yard with reasonable pricing ($700 total for the square and trail around the fire pit area). We have palm trees in a planter around the pit, so we purchased black mulch on sale during Memorial weekend from Lowe’s ($2 a bag, required 13 to fill the planter) for this area. Total cost of our fire pit area was $946.00 (not including furniture). 

Once the fire pit was complete, I hired a landscaper to replace the irrigation system in the yard, excavate and lay the sod. They completed it in about two and a half weeks (rain). We chose Marathon fescue because we wanted green grass all year round. It also has minimal maintenance (fertilize few times a year and mow once a week). 

Overall, we’re extremely happy with how the yard turned out. I’m so glad we kept a large grass area as well, since this year we are expecting our first baby! 

For the covered patio, I had pinned so many pictures of what looked similar to my patio (built-in BBQ and a huge table area). We hung a TV outside for entertainment, because we spend a lot of time outside since the yard has been compete. I purchased my outdoor wicker sectional and bistro lights from Amazon Amazon Outdoor Sectional (saved all of my Christmas gift cards for it). We have two area rugs that I purchased from Target on sale $42 ea. for 5x7 (Vacation Tropical Outdoor Rug Green - Threshold™). The table and chairs were purchased from Ikea a few years back, but I’m pretty sure they’re still in stock (Applaro Table). The accents for the backyard (such as striped cushions, pillows, silver wood tables) were purchased from HomeGoods. 

I think the biggest transformation to the space was painting and refinishing the built-in BBQ. The BBQ area was built with brick, but did not have the concrete top or the actual BBQ in place when Van’s parents bought the house in ‘89. My Father-in-law poured the concrete counter and placed the BBQ himself into the brick form. All’s we did was repaint the lid to the BBQ with high temperature black spray paint and hand painted the brick with Dunn Edwards Swiss Coffee (matched the trim of our house). 

The entire backyard renovation that we’ve completed so far cost us $9.046.00. By doing as much as we could by ourselves (taking out the spa, filling the hole, painting the shed, laying and vibrating the decomposed granite, cleaning out the planter and building the fire pit), we saved thousands of dollars and we couldn’t be happier with the way it turned out. Of course we would’ve loved to hire a contractor and get an amazing yard with a big fat loan, but where’s the fun in that? 😊 

When we complete the hard scape by the fence and rebuild the pergola, I’ll post another update. -Julie