[00:00] In 2019, we moved into this house and our backyard was a blank slate of grass and a ficus tree. In 2022, we had a huge windstorm that took out our ficus tree and part of our back fence,
[00:14] which we decided to fix right away, but we wanted to give some thought to what we wanted to do with this backyard. So in February 2023, we decided to start working on transforming our backyard.
[00:27] We do live in Southern California and we wanted our backyard to be drought tolerant and get rid of all the grass. We just found it was too much work to try to keep grass alive all
[00:40] year long. Some other goals were to make our backyard into an extra living space because we do have good weather most of the year. We wanted this to be a place where we could eat outside and hang out.
[00:55] We also wanted to make sure we had drainage because we do not have any drains out here. So we decided to make some French drains so all the water could drain away in winter when we get the
[01:07] majority of our rain. We also decided to take our time and do all the work ourselves so we can make our backyard exactly how we wanted but also save money and we consider this sort of a therapy to work on
[01:21] our home and it's something fun that we can all do together. So here they've just dug a hole and they are going to put the drain along this concrete walkway here and my husband did use a sock drain. I don't
[01:35] have footage of that but he buried that under the gravel so when it does rain all the water can drain away from our house. Now Grant is just putting in a footing for the pergola that we ordered and he
[01:49] said that he put in a proper footing so he could build a wood pergola someday but we ordered one off of wafer and I can link everything down below. It was very affordable. Our goal was just to get
[02:03] some shade out here because six months or maybe nine months out of the year we get a lot of sun and we just need some shade and you'll see as the video progresses we also planted two trees but of
[02:17] course it's going to take a while before we can get some shade from those trees so we wanted shade right away so we could start using this backyard eating out here and enjoying this outdoor space.
[02:30] Two months into this project and finally Grant was starting to lay the tiles where we would put the pergola and it was just in time because spring was rolling in and the weather was getting really
[02:43] nice switching from rainy and cold to very enjoyable and as soon as he had all of this laid out we started eating out here all the time every dinner. I'm screening out the sand
[03:01] and of course not everything goes as smoothly as it looks in a video. There was a week where Grant had to take off working because he pulled his back. We also had a lot of rain in this time where we would
[03:15] have to stop for quite a few days at a time so that all added into this project taking longer as well as living our normal lives and working full-time jobs. This was all done on nights and weekends.
[03:30] Okay I know. Projects don't always go as planned either. This little white rock was a regrettable decision. It was something that just did not seem to go once it was put in and also as we walked over it
[03:45] it got kicked everywhere so we had to come up with a solution for this problem which we do solve later in the video. But we had to actually vacuum out all of that little white rock and we chose something
[03:59] else which I will get into. But now we are starting to build the pergola which was pretty simple. It did not take a lot of time but we did need all hands-on deck to hold it up at different points when
[04:14] we were putting it together. We also mapped out the path from where we would have the pergola to the rest of the yard because again we decided we did not want any grass and we also did not want to have
[04:26] fake grass because that also has its own upkeep that we didn't want to deal with. This structure took us about an hour and a half to put together. It was very simple following the directions and
[04:40] it really helps us achieve what we want to which is just to give us some shade. But we can also open the top so when it is raining or when it is cool out and we don't need to have the cover we
[04:55] don't need to have it shut. We can open it very easily and we've been using this for about four months now and it's really working great. We love it and it's just such a great place to spend time
[05:13] enjoying our family and hang out because if you've ever lived or visited Southern California we live inland and it can get extremely hot. We purchased some drought tolerant plants
[05:27] and I am just laying them out where I think they should be along this fence line. We decided to put the taller plants at the back so they can grow really big and block this fence here and then we're
[05:41] going to move that lower plant that's going to stay low to a different location where it can be reused and then we're putting all the plants that stay low to the ground but grow wide at the front.
[05:56] So we just want to cover this with plants completely and we're also using a weed cloth underneath so that way we won't have weeds coming through and hopefully we won't have to water that
[06:08] often. Most of these plants said one to two times a week watering and it's incredible how these filled in just by the end of this video. I can't even believe the before and after of this
[06:21] and what we did was we decided to start isolating certain areas so we decided to work on this one side get this completely done before moving on to the next section so we could feel that
[06:35] sense of accomplishment and also see that we were getting this project done. I have another video that I will link down below showing all the projects we've done on our home so far transforming it
[06:48] from a 1950s fixer upper into a really cozy warm home so I will link that for you to watch if you're interested and we are using bark here to cover the weed cloth but as you'll see at the end of this
[07:02] video these plants have completely taken over and filled in this area which is exactly what we wanted and we are also trying to be very aware of drainage so you can see here we have a dug down an area
[07:16] and we're filling it with rock so when it does rain there will be a place for the water to be able to drain into. One of the best things about working outside on this backyard this year has just been
[07:28] getting everyone outside and working together so whenever possible we try to include our children in what we are doing to not only teach them but also give them something to do and let them have fun
[07:41] in the process and my one son just loved getting involved in everything he was helping to set out the rocks which would be the line for where the DG would go up to and the bark would also meet and then
[07:55] now my husband and my son are pouring some concrete steps in place he said that this would be the cheapest easiest way to go and it worked out wonderfully this is such a great path leading from
[08:10] our back door out into the yard and into that seating area where the pergola is. He decided to use an orange brown color to add to make this concrete step look more natural and I have to say it looks
[08:26] beautiful mixed with the DG around it being the same color with the natural rock it came out great and worked perfectly to port in place. When picking out what furniture we would have in our seating
[08:42] area we did have a little bit of a debacle where my mom and I bought something from lows and brought it home it was so terrible that we took it back it was the worst quality for still a pretty high price
[08:55] and that's when we started to search around and we found this really high quality furniture from Costco it was all about the same price as the lowest furniture but this furniture was way better you
[09:10] could tell the moment you sat on it that it was going to last and it was going to stand up to the elements so we put that together and that's when we were really able to start hanging out out here we had a
[09:24] comfortable place to sit and we also brought our table out so we could start having meals out here we're not sure if we're going to get another table eventually so we're just keeping it open for now.
[09:37] Now we're working on our three garden beds that we have my mom and I made these three garden beds a few years ago and every spring we throw some seeds in there and we're always amazed at what grows
[09:50] we have zucchini for months on end we're also growing red bell peppers and we have some squash carrots and cilantro we're growing mint which we can't even stop that from growing it's taken over
[10:07] and every year we try something new we have some lettuce growing this year and we have cabbage it's just fun to see what we can grow and that is one of my goals over the next few years is I want to grow
[10:22] more of our own food and living in Southern California I think we can actually grow a lot more year round I need to do more research on that and look into it but that is one of my major goals coming up
[10:36] here is to grow more of our own food the trees that we planted are an orange tree a lemon tree and in the front we planted an avocado tree and a lime tree we just want to be able to grow as much food as
[10:51] we can just to help our carbon footprint and also it's really fun to watch things grow and get to make food from what we've grown in our own backyard as this project progressed over the last few months we
[11:05] started to call my husband rock man because he was getting so much rock delivered but we were able to use a lot of the things we already had on this property so all these pavers were in our front yard
[11:18] and on our side yard we moved in here so we gathered everything into one place to bring it together and make this path from things we already had which saved us a lot of money because this would have cost quite a lot to get all of these pavers in different sizes and shapes and he just cut them down
[11:36] to fit where they needed and then added rocks in between and concreted the whole thing down which is fine because we know we want this path to be a permanent path and of course as he always mentions is nothing is permanent if we decide to change everything someday we can but we have a pretty
[11:53] good idea that we want our yard to be very structured and just set up so over time we can plant different things and change things out but have the general set up now we moved on to fixing some
[12:07] of the paths that my mom and I had just thrown some pavers down between the garden beds and they weren't even there was no DG under them just weeds we just threw something down so we could walk on it
[12:19] and didn't have to walk in mud and my husband said let's pull that up let's do it right and he is right for saying that so he took the time to actually lay out a flat foundation to put the
[12:32] pavers back down on so that way we don't have as many weeds coming through and it's also just a very straight path to walk on people won't be tripping on it like we were before and then we decided
[12:45] to plant an orange tree this was extremely hard to find because in our area there has been a disease on all of the orange trees so they weren't selling very many my mom called around and she was
[12:57] able to find this orange tree so we're just moving some dirt out of the way and we're moving it to the front yard where we're going to do some other work in the future so make sure you're subscribed because I will be having more before and after videos on our yard and our home but we're digging a
[13:12] large hole we did all the research on the proper way to plant this orange tree with the right type of nutrients it needs and the right type of soil so we're doing that here and even though
[13:24] it was cold and raining on this day we decided to get this orange tree in the ground before anyone could make any comments on it because we wanted to work on the backyard as well as grand so we got it
[13:37] in there and then we decided to work around it after that and now onto the solution for the rocks between the pavers easy hold my husband grant did a ton of research on how to keep the rock in place
[13:51] and it's a type of glue that holds rocks together and if it's done right you should actually be able to power wash this without the rocks coming out so he's just mixing the amount they said to
[14:04] with the rock and then carefully pouring it in between the tiles and he did find out as time went on doing this project that he needed more of the glue than they initially said he would need so he did
[14:18] go back over this again with the glue and it's been holding up really well when we walk over this now the rocks don't fly out at all it's holding up he said he's going to give it a little bit of time
[14:30] and then he might go over it again with another coat of the glue just to make sure it's really set in there but that looks way more natural and is working so much better than that white rock that was getting kicked all over the place at this point we have been working on the yard for four months
[14:46] in our spare time of course on weekends and nights but we're finally getting around to working on this section that is surrounding the orange tree our goal here is just to put succulents and drop
[15:00] tolerant plants to make this look very beautiful but also self-sufficient where we're not having to go in and do a lot over time here we didn't want to get plants where we would have to plant them
[15:14] every single year we just want something that's going to fill in and be a one in done for a long time we did want to have a path to the tree so once it gets bigger we can step up and be able to pick the
[15:28] oranges and my hope obviously is to have a beautiful tall tree here that will give us privacy from stirring straight into the neighbor's yard and also give us some added shade and just some
[15:45] tall greenery because right now everything is quite low in this yard so we want to have some tall plants and that's another thing we did was we tried to pick some plants that will grow
[15:57] with varying heights so lower ones and then bushes that will get quite tall and that flax you see there is going to get really really big the one that we planted on the other side has already
[16:11] become about three feet tall so there will be some varying heights as time goes on it has been amazing to watch this backyard transformation happen right before my very eyes and filming it has
[16:25] been wonderful to look back and see how far we've come but I always say that in almost every one of my videos is chipping away at projects really does help you to accomplish a lot over time and I do a lot
[16:41] of videos about simple living and decluttering our homes and I hear a lot of people have comments saying that it's too much it's too hard but what I always try to share in all my videos is that
[16:58] just doing a little bit at a time really makes the difference and you can do one thing per day and by the end of the year you're going to have transformed your home or your backyard or your amount of
[17:14] clutter that is in your life and that's what we're doing here and also I want to point out that not everything is perfect we are trying to make our home and our lives as enjoyable as possible
[17:29] but we aren't going to let the idea of perfection get in the way we're going to have a lot of trial and error and learn from that but also enjoy the process we decided it would be so fun to add an archway
[17:45] over the path and we're putting that together here it is not finished by the end of this video but we have a lot of projects that we're still going to be working on and there will definitely be
[17:59] another video showing all the other things that we're going to accomplish in this yard like finishing this archway we're going to have a plant growing over it we also have the whole other side of our
[18:13] house where we plan to do something with that area right now it is just a whole bunch of dead grass that we want to get rid of and we have an air conditioning unit back here that we want to cover
[18:26] but one step at a time and husband's from New Zealand so he's doing a hawka here and then a hawka bra because he's a surfer there will be another video showing the finishing touches on
[18:39] this archway as well as the rest of our yard but here we go with the final before of what our yard used to look like and where we are right now with this yard and how we have transformed it so I'm just
[18:54] going to take you around and show you how big all the plants have grown so far just from when we first planted these a few months ago to now and our garden has taken off we've been eating tons of food
[19:08] from our garden the trees are already getting bigger everything is starting to grow and fill in and here's an example of how the pergola opens it's very easy to open and shut this so if we need to
[19:22] have shade we close it and if we want to see the sky we open it at night I'm so excited to watch everything fill in and grow watch these trees get big and add shade to our backyard and overall
[19:38] just watch everything develop over time and see where this yard will be in a year or two if you like videos about simple living home makeovers transformations make sure you hit the subscribe button
[19:54] and I'm going to leave some videos here on the screen for you to continue to enjoy until my next video comes out thank you for being here and I hope you have a wonderful day I'll see you next time bye