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UPDATED: backyard renovation - 100% done now with before/after pics

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Woah. Did an entire line of trees get removed? In the daylight pics there's trees. In that "night" shot there's a visible basketball court down the hill in the neighbors backyard. Is the grade falling down that direction to the basketball hoop?
 
vi edit said:
Woah. Did an entire line of trees get removed? In the daylight pics there's trees. In that "night" shot there's a visible basketball court down the hill in the neighbors backyard. Is the grade falling down that direction to the basketball hoop?
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hah, yesterday the neighbors cleared out a buncha shit between our houses - front and backyard. so there were trees there before, and yeah, there is a hill there. but that bball hoop is my neighbors backyard.

i'm happy they cleared all the shit out because we're doing a fence after this is done, and that means there will be less shit/clutter/trees over on that side of the house that will get in the way.
 
day 6 progress.

http://imgur.com/qQ7jbtU,IIHas2a,12hIU2G

the guys worked on friday and a little bit on saturday, even through some rain, so i felt bad for them. but it's starting to come together quite a bit more now, most of the retaining wall is done. i'm actually not sure if the steps in the wall are by design or if they are putting more stones to fill them in. but i'm thinking they are by design just because of the way the grade of the patio is as well as the height of the land behind the wall. they do need to put the caps on the wall regardless though.

you can see the conduit too that is sticking up behind the columns - that runs to my garage, which may be useful for some speakers or something in the future.
 
day 7 progress, and i also added 2 pics of the original patio in the OP that the demo guys took while they were doing it. it gives a better view of the size/look of the original cement patio we had.

http://imgur.com/zYXPU0l,RqXfx9l,WFTGDHr,43Y9Hn5

they are almost done and he said they will be done either tomorrow or wednesday. they have just a little bit more of the wall to do and put the lights and caps on it. then they have just a little bit more of the patio to fill in, then they have to backfill all of the soil and replace all of the damaged lawn they tore up with their machines on the side of our house, and do cleaning in general. there is so much dust all over the patio right now and you can see how it just looks white. but it's coming along nicely and i'm very happy with the work they've done so far. i must say too i'm REALLY happy with what they have done with the drainage back there, it's awesome how they are running most of it under the patio and under ground.
 
senttoschool said:
Cost for the project?
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more than we initially wanted to spend, but then said fuck it and just did it anyways since if we're gonna be spending a lot, might as well spend a little more. wasn't sure about the lighting because that was an additional $3k, and then my wife decided we had to have columns after seeing the demo site again, which were $3k more ($1500 each).

i'm definitely gonna get some pics of it all done with the land all flattened out and better lighting too. those pics from last night were at twilight so they aren't the best, and they were taken with the ip4 which has a bad camera in general.
 
Kaido said:
What make & model pavers are you using?
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make is nicolock. the color is one of their newest colors i believe too according to the company doing the work. the color is travertina. the pavers are stoneridge XL, and the wall is the colonial 6".

http://www.nicolock.com/products/pavers/paver-shield-pavers/stone-ridge

http://www.nicolock.com/products/walls/wall-systems/6q-colonial

we were looking at some other belgard pavers/wall as well, that were darker and reddish, but we decided to go with this since we just liked it more.

we saw a bunch of different ones of different brands though and those were the 2 we were pretty much set on and went with these.
 
purbeast0 said:
more than we initially wanted to spend, but then said fuck it and just did it anyways since if we're gonna be spending a lot, might as well spend a little more. wasn't sure about the lighting because that was an additional $3k, and then my wife decided we had to have columns after seeing the demo site again, which were $3k more ($1500 each).

i'm definitely gonna get some pics of it all done with the land all flattened out and better lighting too. those pics from last night were at twilight so they aren't the best, and they were taken with the ip4 which has a bad camera in general.
Click to expand...


Whatever the cost was you didn't lose much if any because of the extra value you gave the property. And in your area, a nice backyard is certainly going to be worth the expense when it comes time to sell.
 
mnewsham said:
Whatever the cost was you didn't lose much if any because of the extra value you gave the property. And in your area, a nice backyard is certainly going to be worth the expense when it comes time to sell.
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yeah i'm pretty sure we won't gain back all of the cost, but it's okay because the priority of our house is to make it how we like it and to enjoy it, not to raise resale value of it. but i'm sure it will bump it up a bit. now when this is all done we have to add a fence back there, then do some more landscaping once the spring comes around as far as mulch beds and plants go.
 
purbeast0 said:
yeah i'm pretty sure we won't gain back all of the cost, but it's okay because the priority of our house is to make it how we like it and to enjoy it, not to raise resale value of it. but i'm sure it will bump it up a bit. now when this is all done we have to add a fence back there, then do some more landscaping once the spring comes around as far as mulch beds and plants go.
Click to expand...

yup, that's the best way to do it. Add something you will enjoy and get use out of that will also help property value down the road. Looks nice so far, can't wait to see the finished project.
 
mnewsham said:
yup, that's the best way to do it. Add something you will enjoy and get use out of that will also help property value down the road. Looks nice so far, can't wait to see the finished project.
Click to expand...

yeah when we initially got rid of the 2 window wells that were in the original patio (you can see them in the old pics), i had my mom say something like "wont that ruin the value of the house, since there won't be light down there?" and my response was "i don't think so because 1 of them is covered anyways and it is dark from that one anyways (was covered when we bought the house, i think for drainage reasons), and the other one light hardly came in anyways. on top of that, the basement down there is my HT so i want it dark down there, and there is also another window well down there on the other side of the house where all the light comes in to the basement.

so basically i didn't care what it did, and just had them remove the 2 window wells, and it also now makes for a much cleaner patio instead of having to go around around it. and the 1 window well was kind of in the way when coming out of the garage door, which we do come out of often when grilling because there is a door right into the kitchen.
 
day 8 progress - almost there!

http://imgur.com/DO5Pq6B,FCWIGvq,2W2wqPM,8yNQWpL

So they finished up the patio today, and they still have the caps to put on the wall with the lights under them, as well as the steps. but i'm really happy with how it looks thus far! they backfilled the land behind the wall and fixed the grade on the side of the patio as well. they still have to fix the soil on the side of my house as well and then plant the grass and stuff tomorrow. but i THINK they will be wrapping it up tomorrow. they definitely weren't as close to being done today as i had anticipated considering he told me they may be done today. but it's okay because the initial estimate was for this friday.
 
day 10 progress - all done - only have evening pics for now.

http://imgur.com/tnupmYJ,2WvZgoG,MPrgFtb,Rpl5sGJ

so they finished yesterday and finished installing the transformer for the lights and cleaning up today. i didn't get any pics until it was starting to get dark when we first saw the lights on, and we were very happy with the outcome! it's going to take a while for the grass to grow in, but we love how it turned out already. i'll try to get some day pics tomorrow at some point. we're very happy and pleased with the end result though!
 
halik said:
Looks awesome! What did it run, if you don't mind me asking?
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$27k and some change

MagnusTheBrewer said:
Just a question regarding slope specifically, the rounded seating area. Does that have good drainage?
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the whole thing is angled about 1.5 degrees down to the edge of the wall (where it rounds and just ends). that is the natural direction that the whole yard is sloped so they kept it that way. you can actually see that it slopes if you look at the bottom of the wall as you progress from the rounded section down to the end of the wall.

and yeah, parties will be a coming!
 
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