After much planning, estimating, digging, hauling, welding, grading, planting, adjusting, and obsessing, my back yard is complete. I’m thrilled with how it turned out and am excited to share the first pictures of it today. But before we get to that, here’s a 2-minute timelapse video that shows where we started, and how we got here.

Before:

After:

Shouts out to Humzah Khraim of Seasonswood Group here in Atlanta for a beautiful design and a job well done—if you’re in Atlanta I highly recommend working with him.

Now… I’ve got to buy some furniture for this back porch. 🤣

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We’re getting so close, I can taste it. This will probably be the last photo I share until we’re done, to preserve a little element of surprise. Can’t wait to show the finished result.

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It’s getting pretty close to planting time, and I can’t wait.

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Haven’t posted in a few days because not much has happened for a few days. But today, things really started to take shape. Before, my back yard undulated like hills on a putt-putt golf course, for reasons passing understanding. The new layout deals with the slope by terracing the yard with this cool cor-ten weathering steel (you can see the same stuff used in my neighbors’ garden on the left).

I’m still kind of blown away by the changes, though it’s still basically just a mud pit. But I can finally visualize the end result now, and I think it’s gonna be good.

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Well, we’ve reached the point that I’m having to take the pups to the front yard to do their business, as the back is a muddy wreck. But it’s pretty exciting to see it happen. I bought the house and moved in while they were still finishing the original back yard, so I’m familiar with Georgia red clay. This time I’m so much more excited about what’s coming next, I don’t even care.

This guy’s not impressed, though.

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Somebody call Ron Paul, because it’s happening! Time for my ugly backyard to get a little uglier before it gets more beautiful.

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Well, it’s official. My ugly backyard is about to become a lot less ugly.

Sadly, there was one casualty in the process—turns out there wasn’t room in my budget for the concrete work I mentioned before. Still, they’re going to be building some planters out of cor-ten weathering steel, which I think are going to be amazing.

This is my ugly backyard. I wanted to get a complete view of it now, because I hope to be making some pretty substantial changes soon. In the meantime, I’m just confusing the h*ck out of the doggos with all these roped-off areas.

Back to thinking about house stuff for a little while, as I’ve started working with a landscape designer. These are some options for concrete finishes in some stuff we might be building. Yes, I realize how boring a literal picture of concrete is, but this is the kind of minutiae I revel in. And I hope it becomes part of a before & after that’s as satisfying as this one (before, after) soon.