Backyard Boogie

So here's the thing. I am broke. I spent all of my capital, I mean all of it, on my interior renovation. And the outside was just a dirt pit. It made zero sense. We added glass doors to all of the back of the house. And our view was a dirt patch.
When we got burglarized it also became apparent that we needed a fence. So, I thought we could just put in the fence...but that seemed silly. We maybe would do it in stages, fence for safety, then patio, then grass. So with this strategy in mind, I hired a landscape designer. I reasoned, I would pay this, to make sure we didn't install things that we would need to just redo later. I met with a few and settled on Vanessa Rutter of Foundation Design. BEST. DECISION. EVER.

Firstly, she got what I wanted. Her design was flawless. The plan was so exciting, we decided to do it all at once and just be done with it. We asked our current contractor and the contractor she worked with to both bid. We went with hers because we wanted her to oversee it and I know how difficult working with someone else's vendor can be.  SECOND BEST DECISION EVER. Jose Luna. A God. Both of us living here in this house are punchy about deadlines...maybe because the front of the house took F O R E V E R. They said about two and half weeks. Suuuure, we thought. But I'll be damned if they didnt finish in LESS than two weeks. So quick, I didn't even have time to blog about it! So here it is:

So this is how it looked when it all began:

The view from the kitchen door before we took up the tile.

This was our "backyard". Pay close attention to that trellis. YIKES. 

The grey concrete is where the addition would eventually live.

 This is the view of the nothing-ness is where my master bedroom is now.

That damn trellis. GEESH.

This is the dirt patch after we took up the 4 different cement tile combinations we had back there. 

You may also notice the HUGE step it required to get inside as our house is elevated.

I don't have a picture of our cement fence. It wasn't special. But the now, the now IS special.

This is them building out the stairs and the patio. Behind it is the secure fence, 8 foot high now. 

This is them digging up the lawn for the grass. 

This was after they poured the cement. OMG. I was so excited.

AND THIS. THIS is now.

Can you stand it? To save money we went with baby plants, mostly drought  resistant succulents. The trees by the gate will eventually grow to 6 feet plus for another layer of protection from prying eyes and prying fingers. I have to say. I LOVE this space and I probably have exactly one month of good weather to enjoy it.

xoxox,

Summer