looking back at the last three months

so back in july, the hub and i finally decided to pull the trigger on something we'd been working on for about a year with a local architect.  we've lived in this house now for about eight years (!), and never really spent a lot of time in the back yard.  and so after a lot of back and forth, many changes and tweaks, the plans were submitted to the city for approval before finally breaking ground on a total remodel of all that unused space back there.

i almost forgot to take the "before" pictures:

it's not a huge yard, but there's still plenty of usable space back there, right?  we thought so too, and as things started happening and yard started clearing out it got easier to spot the potential back there.

along with the changes came this lovely porta-potty that sat at the side of the house.

pretty soon the patio cover came down:

and then the grass was gone.

it was a little alarming to see the back of my house looking like this for awhile:

and you know i had to do this at least once.

holy cow, it was a disaster.  and the guys were there every morning, monday through friday, right around 7am working all day till about 4:00.  i'm sure we're the favorite neighbor around here.

one day i looked back there and all of a sudden there was a giant hole!

within a couple of days it looked like this.

and our new patio cover was coming along too.

even when we weren't home, our camera system made it easy to peek back there at the progress.

the new patio cover is really sturdy.  it's basically built right in as part of our roof, with 5-foot deep footings.  that thing isn't going anywhere.  hell, if we have an earthquake that's where i'm heading.

it looked really nice once it was all closed up.

the hub and i went out one morning to pick out rock for the wall, and the guys got to work on it right away.

the girls would go back there now and then to stand in the empty pool and dream of when they could jump in and cool off from the heat.

pretty soon it was time to pick out pool tile (we didn't end up with either of these).

the bean was fascinated as she watched them start pouring the concrete for the patio.

and just like that, it started looking like a real backyard.

yup, that's astroturf.  no more watering or mowing the lawn for us!

spot the bean:

then there were bushes and lights and fun industrial-looking chandeliers that the old lady deemed "too hipster" for her liking.  heh.

while we were at disneyland for my birthday, the guys filled the pool.  too bad that one of them totally forgot that the hose was still on when they all left for the afternoon.  when we got home we were greeted with a lovely waterfall going down the driveway and a very, very soaked back yard.  all of a sudden we had an infinity pool...and i'm not gonna lie, i kind of wish we'd gone that route.  it looked pretty cool (if you set aside the fact that there was so much water everywhere).

the next day, the hub took a conference call while wading in the shallow end.

i rather enjoyed sitting on the edge of the spa and dunking my feet in, listening to the music on the surround sound speakers and watching the fountains run into the pool.

and the bean was the first one to jump all the way in.  the water was pretty chilly, since we were instructed to wait at least two weeks before turning on the heater for fear of cracking the plaster.  she didn't care though, she was just so excited to get in there.

and on saturday, we'll get to share it all with about 20 of the bean's closest friends (and some of their parents) as we celebrate her 11th birthday with our first house party since she turned 5.

this, of course, means tons of prep to get the house looking decent and finish off the last of the final touches back there.  wish us luck.