Our Backyard addition

Way back in the spring of 1998 Tim and I got married and bought/built our house. The backyard is definitely a work in progress. We have done most of the work by hand and only when we had the money to buy the items/supplies needed. Progress has been very slow, since the majority of our disposable income goes to either buying new investment properties or fixing up existing investment properties. We made a BIG leap today, and I just wanted to share.

This first photo, taken in 2001, is of the North side of our house/backyard. The house you see on the left is our neighbor's house. The grass and small retaining wall that curves tot he right is ours. (Most of the manual labor and work we've done is on the south side of the backyard, but the addition that is the subject of today's post is the north side/play area, so you'll just have to wait to see another post that shows the south side progress.)

As you can see from the photos, we have a very steep yard. In 2004 we used our tax refund and some savings to have a landscape company create a large, flat play area with a big rock retaining wall. It cost WAY more than I want to even think about, but they did a great job and it finally gave us enough flat space to do something with. Our neighbors had moved a few years before and had given us their old metal swing set, which we moved up to the newly created play area.

here's a photo of the beginning excavation and another photo of the beginning of the wall; if you look closely, you can see Tim and Aaron (and Jasmine) up at the top of our property.














Now several years, many truck loads of wood chips and sand, and a few Little Type plastic play items later, we have once again spent more than we wanted and purchased a new play set.

Roll forward to Feb 20, 2008:

Here is a photo of the play area Wednesday morning... (the little tyke cabin is tipped upside down to get it out of the installers way)


And here is the play area a couple hours later... (I still need find a way to fit the cabin and some other toys back up there... but I'll figure it out later)


FUN EH? We would never have spent the full price they wanted for this set, but we bought it at the Backyard Adventures clearance sale and got it at 60% of the regular retail price. (It was one of their outdoor display models) I think it is still a ridiculously high price, but doable. Even with the 60% sale, we hemmed and hawed for about 3 weeks before we decided that as much as our kids love to be outside, it would be fun and a decent investment. (If you are in the market for a play set, they still have more sets available...)