A Southern Hallelujah: Backyard Transformation: Jungle to Paradise

When we bought our house over a year ago, we knew we were buying a bit of a fixer upper (can anyone else not think of Frozen when they say that phrase?), but as newly weds and first-time homeowners, we were up for the challenge. For the most part, the home has a solid start, it's just dated and when we bought it, it hadn't been lived in for a couple of years.

As newlyweds (I guess we still fall in that category, maybe?) and fairly recent college graduates, we don't have tons of money, but we've been working on projects as we can. First came installing a vent fan into the bathroom ceiling, then the wallpaper came down and paint went up, we've swapped out a few light fixtures, replaced the dishwasher and made other minor changes. However, we just finished one of the biggest projects since we moved in, doing a mini backyard makeover.

The first phase of the makeover was to tear out the old cracked tile from our screened porch, stain the concrete and make a few cosmetic changes. So far, the hubs managed to rip out the floor only to find that the concrete, or well part of it, had been stained before. So, now that project is on hold until we can pour another thin layer of concrete on top, so that we can stain it a nice, even color.

The second phase was to fix our drainage issue from the gutters, tear out the old walkway and replace it. While we didn't do any of this work ourselves since we didn't have the time, man power or knowledge needed, we did trust a local friend who just finished up and did an excellent job. His crew took out all of the old brick (and weeds), as well as some rotted planter boxes and created a new walkway, designed a patio area for our fire pit and some chairs, laid mulch for where we will eventually plant a garden and planted grass seed for the areas not getting a new walkway. It's an unbelievable transformation that takes our backyard from jungle to hangout spot. I hope to use it before the weather gets too cold.