Part 1 – The Clean Slate

In November of 2018 my fiancé and I purchased our first home, but it needed a ton of work! We were excited about our new home’s location, proximity to downtown Denver, and the oversized lot it sat on. However, that came at a price. Almost everything needed at least a little elbow grease, an update, or a major clean up.

Luckily for us, the house already had a great layout. The only thing we needed to do before moving in was a fresh coat of interior paint (to cover up the lovely mucus colored walls), and some new bathroom hardware to zhuzh it up a bit.

The house exterior on the other hand, where to begin… well, let’s just say it needed a lot of love. For starters, the landscaping was a hot mess. Neglected for decades by both the previous owners, and the college students who rented the home before we purchased it.

This beautiful corner lot had so much underutilized space, namely due to the very strange exiting fences. In fact, at one point these fences segmented our lot into four different yard spaces. This made our backyard feel significantly smaller than it actually was, and it wasn’t functional. To make matters worse, the existing chain link fence gave us zero privacy or sound blocking from the street. It literally felt like we were living in a giant fishbowl!

Let me give you a little tour of what we were dealing with here…

The Year of Exterior

Clearly we faced quite the uphill battle with this mess. But we looked past the years of neglect, and focused on transforming our backyard to bring out its full potential!

So, where to begin? As I mentioned in How to Start a New DIY Project with Confidence, I made a list of projects in chronological order. After spending several hours researching, I came up with a plan to maximize our space and make the most out of our backyard.

Basically, it boiled down to this: Unify our weird, previously segmented backyard! Remove all the old fences, and build a new six-foot privacy fence along the property line.

Since we closed on the house in the Fall of 2018, that meant we couldn’t really do much yard work right away. We decided to wait for the frost to melt that spring before jumping in on our big project.

In the meantime, we started working on our budget and timeline. The laborer (my fiancé) wanted to get a new puppy for his birthday in July. Frankly, this yard was not suitable, let alone safe for a little pup.

That gave us approximately 4 months (March-June) to turn this Frankenstein into a Franken-fine!

Henceforth the year 2019 came to be known as ‘The Year of Exterior’.

I applied for a fence permit in early March, and we were off to the races! Ready, set, GO!

Out with the Old in with the New!

We decided to hire a fencing contractor to remove the existing fences and build a new 6’ privacy fence. To be honest, we probably could have done this ourselves, but decided to hire a fencing contractor for a couple reasons.

First, the Colorado Front Range gets extremely high winds and windstorms that roll over the foothills. After a big storm, it’s not uncommon to find your fence blown over, and your trampoline or trashcans three blocks down from your house.

Because we live on a corner lot, we wanted to make sure this baby would stand the test of time. GST Fence guaranteed our new fence would withstand any storm (or they would come build us a new one).

Second, I was working 60-80+ hour weeks at the architecture firm. Truth be told, we didn’t have the time, resources, or tools to build a huge fence on our own.  I know, I know, not a great DIYer attitude!

Before you start judging, I actually ran the numbers. I compared quotes from fencing contractors, with the cost for materials/tools alone. In the end, it would have only been a few hundred dollars cheaper to build the fence ourselves. With that in mind, we decided to take the easy (lazy) route and hire someone to make the fence happen.

If I’m entirely honest, I wish we had waited to build the fence until after the demolition work was done. In hindsight, renting a bobcat to demolish everything at once would have been a better idea. If we had used a bobcat first, it would’ve saved a lot of time and hard labor (oops, lesson learned).

Finally! The old fences were out, and the new fence was in! Our backyard already felt ten times bigger than it did before.

The Great Purge

I think it goes without saying that the demolition work was both the best, and worst part of the project.

We ripped out the nasty juniper bushes, and removed all the invasive ‘demon trees’ as we call them. Technically they’re called the tree of heaven… more like tree of hell! They self-multiply like crazy, and prefer growing in sidewalk cracks or along foundation lines. Oh yeah, and the pollen smells TERRIBLE in the spring!

Once the Trees were cleared, we rented a jackhammer from The Home Depot to remove all the strange concrete patches throughout the yard.

We found the best strategy was to punch holes every 6″ or so, then pry the pieces of concrete loose with the strike bar. The whole process took about 3-4 hours.

While removing the concrete, we found a shallow, hidden electrical line. The previous owner had encased the electrical wiring in concrete to run power from our old electrical panel to the detached garage. It’s a miracle neither of us were electrocuted! But I digress, that’s a story for another time!

Once the larger concrete patches were out, the laborer and I went ham on the remaining demolition work (mostly the laborer). We removed the ugly patio fence, and had a ball destroying the creepy murder shed with a sledgehammer.

Once the demo work was done, it was time to clean up the remaining rock! We tacked down new weed tarp, and laid new metal edging 3′ out from the house to create proper drainage at the foundation. All the while, sifting through the existing rock for rogue screws and nails.

The Dumpster Dilemma

The backyard was slowly scraped clean piece by piece, and we piled up the junk in the corner as we went. Leaving me with the task of figuring out how to dispose of the giant pile we had accumulated (something I did not think through when we put the fence in first, learn from my mistakes!).

I got quotes from dumpster and junk removal services to dispose of our garbage pile. To no surprise, it was going to be expensive, especially since the bulk of it was rock and concrete.

The cost to remove the concrete alone, was comparable to hiring a landscape company to dispose of it for us, and do the remaining finishing touches! what a deal!

Landscapers to the Rescue

At this point, it was June. Our deadline was quickly approaching, and the laborer and I were completely exhausted. We decided to hire a landscaping company to get us across the finish line, and I’m so glad we did!

Gregorio’s Landscaping was great! Removing this pile would have taken us days (if not weeks) of backbreaking labor. But once Gregorio’s team showed up, this monster pile was gone within a few hours!

At long last, the clean slate we had been waiting for! Once the giant pile was gone, a huge weight was lifted from our shoulders. The house itself felt lighter after getting rid of all the junk that had weighed it down for literally decades.

Clean Slate- Check!

Creating a clean slate is a crucial first step for any DIY home improvement project. With that said, setting the stage is always just the beginning, and we still had a long way to go. Now, for the fun part I had been anxiously anticipating, designing a beautiful backyard!!!

In part II of this two-part series, I dive into how we transformed this clean slate into a beautiful, functional backyard space. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Bonus Space (top of the sidebar) and check out A Jaw-Dropping Landscape Transformation – The Beautiful Backyard Makeover – Part 2 for more amazing before and after photos!

If you enjoyed this post and want to read more, check out The Bonus Space for helpful posts and DIY home improvement projects to increase functionality in your home. You can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest for more fun tips and tricks!

If you have questions or want to share a helpful tip of your own, leave a comment below or email me directly at melanie@pillartoposthomes.com