I'm getting super excited about the warmer weather - as I'm sure everyone else is, too! Taking care of the outside landscaping is a very important part of home ownership. The outside of a house almost always reflects how well the inside of a house is taken care of. This is true for the front yard more than anything, but I'm going to focus on our backyard right now.
We had an awkward, unusable, overgrown side yard. It wasn't very big, but since the backyard was already small enough, we wanted to make as much usable space as possible.
First step: Demolition! This is essentially the biggest, most labor intensive part of landscaping. The picture below is after we trimmed a HUGE, overgrown, evergreen tree and we were taking the root ball out. The tree had originally covered up the entire window right above Matt. No wildlife (trees, bushes, etc) should ever touch a house.
This is another picture of the side yard that just shows how the landscaping was just plain awkward.
Once we removed all shrubbery and blocks, we used a tiller on the yard. Then we raked the dirt to be at a slope away from the house and then tamped the dirt down.
Yes, I know a magical fence just appeared. We usually have several projects going on simultaneously and our Mending the Fence project can be found here 
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We decided to edge underneath the overhang of the house with rocks and Windsor stones (recycled from demolition) since grass would not live underneath the overhang and it would be impossible to mow even if the grass did live. We placed landscape fabric underneath the rocks to prevent weeds from growing.
Next, we laid top soil down and raked it out as a base for the new sod to take root.
Then we started laying down sod.
All sod was now set in place.
The side yard really expanded the backyard space (aka more stomping ground for Teddy)!
Teddy absolutely loved the brand new sod!! He immediately fell asleep on his new grassy bed.
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