My backyard overhaul journal
 

You haven't seen much of me on the forums this whole summer - it's cause I've been super busy with my backyard. My tank has suffered from negligence. I have been dealing with cyano for about 2 months. Everything is still alive though. I have probably removed (sold) about a dozen super large colonies. Last week I sold a colony that I had to break in half to fit into a 5 gal bucket. Anyway, here is what I have been up to:

This is the backyard we started with
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_2645.jpg

This is what we want it to look like. We hired a landscape designer since we made many mistakes in our front yard with types of plants and ground covers (that eventually became weeds or too big etc). He came up with this concept which blew us away. We thought that we'd have a giant pond, but not THAT big. We loved the design, so we went with it.
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...me/photo-7.jpg

And the top view (scale drawing)
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_2725.jpg

So then came end of July and we started by ripping up the grass. We have a rental house that needed grass so we moved most of it over to the rental house (fairly easy since the rental house is less than a block away). The rain in July was horrible for trying to grade mud.....but alas we did finish it. A posting on Kijiji for free sod helped us get rid of the rest.
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_2683.jpg

Then began the work of laying out the flagstone patio. I NEVER want to do this again. It was tough to level out each one and fit the "puzzle" together. I had to excavate about 5" so that I could get a good 5" layer of road crush and tamp it.

This is it partially laid out (however, I ended up changing all of it in the end and re-laying it out)
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_2729.jpg

I was hoping that you'd throw this into the forum! Who knows when I'll be able to make it by again. Keep up the good work!

Next was digging LARGE holes for trees and planting trees. We ended up planting 11 trees and 2 large hydrangeas. There are still 3 more potted swedish aspens that we'll plant when the project is mostly done as we took a section of fence out so that I could get machinery in and out of the yard. The aspens will go against that fence once it's back in.

I had a machine to aid me in the digging
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_2731.jpg

I had to make 4 holes this big
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_2735.jpg

The tree company craning the trees in
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_2736.jpg
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_2737.jpg

Now for carpentry work. Have never built pergolas of any kind and there isn't much for cantilever style pergolas on the net, so here goes just taking it one step at a time.

Start with a pile of cedar
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_2740.jpg

This shows my cedar posts and my beam for the deck to support the deck/bridge
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_2738.jpg

This shows one of the pergolas and the start of the bridge, oh and the finished flagstone patio
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_2754.jpg

Wow looks sweet Dez but where are the kiddies going to play now :sad: Very impressive design, will be watching as well.

This was not part of the plan, but as parents we felt bad that the kids swing had to go away so I built them a sandbox off to the side.
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_2769.jpg

The pond is designed that the kids will be able to climb in and all over it. There will be a large stone they'll be able to step out to and stick their hands in the waterfalls. We have warm water going out to one of our hose bibs, next year I am going to make a simple outdoor shower so that they can warm up. They will have fun running back and forth across the bridge and they should be able to skate on it in the winter.

NICE!!! The design of the sand box will blend in very nice.: VERY COOL!

I thought you were going to put fish in the pond ?

This week, the digging of the pond has begun. Here is the rough layout
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_2840.jpg

Here are the guys laying out the liner to check for size
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_2845.jpg

Fast forward to today and this is where she sits
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...me/photo-8.jpg

I will only be heating the waterfall side of the pond, so on the other side of the bridge it will freeze solid :)

Ah gotcha! Looking kick ass :-). That waterfall is going to be rad!

Big rocks look nice man. Can't wait to see the finished product.

Amazing project. Really looking forward to seeing it complete. Gonna be gorgeous.

Great Idea. Looking forward to seeing the finished project!!

I am intently following this. Your yard will be lovely. :)

I think you enjoy making us all look bad. I look at your tank, look at mine... And sigh sadly. I look at the yard I rebuilt over the summer and look at yours... And I looks a drunk orangutan designed my yard compared to yours...

However, if you were smart Dez, you'd have made that a frag pond. No more worrying about corals so big you have to break them in half just to fit in a bucket. I'm a little disappointed.

In all seriousness though, wicked yard!

Ah ScubaSteve, my tank looks like junk right about now. Everything is red. Cyano cyano cyano. Frustrates me to no end.

About the yard, if we were to design it, then it would look nothing like any of these pictures. That's why we decided to get a professional to design it and that's probably the best decision we've made so far. Never in a million years would we have even thought of making our entire yard a pond. I can't wait until it's done, it's nothing but work work work all summer.

Thanks for the compliments.

Wow looks amazing so far :thumb:

Awesome Dez! Thanks for sharing! I can't wait to see it next summer when everything is green and blooming! :D

That's pretty impressive Dez, you've done a ton of work there.

Looks awsome Dez. Always wanted a backyard to build a pond in. Can't wait to see it finished.

Chris

Awesome!! I am green with envy right now :mrgreen:

And the digging continues today
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...me/photo-9.jpg

Dez looks amazing so Far, so you are hiring some one to do this or are you Doing this yourself

I'm doing everything myself except for the pond (due the fact that I don't have the machinery/man-power to move large boulders. Or a trailer to haul away dirt. The pond is only 1/2 done and about 10 trailers full of dirt has been hauled away.

We dug something up in our yard
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/photo-10.jpg

And the digger
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/photo1-2.jpg

And progress for today
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/photo2-4.jpg

That pond liner is tough enough to withstand all that eh?

how much more would it have been to put a pool of similar design in the back?

Man-o-man Dez, that's a nice setup you got going on there. I can help myself but to daydream of what it would look like in my backyard that is until my boss snapped me out of it.
Extremely jealous.
I want it. nice work buddy.

This is actually our 10 year anniversary present to each other, but it's been 11 years already. We got a whole bunch of gift certificates for the pond company for our 10 year anniversary. Can't wait for it to be done and we can just enjoy it.

Well, the rain last night set us back a bit, but it was "dry" enough to work in the afternoon. At the end of the day the pond guys were kind enough to help me lift my bridge joists in. The kids LOVE running across the bridge and all around the rocks. I think that this is a much funner yard for them than just grass. We can still do slip 'n slide in the front yard on the grass.

This is where she sits today
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/photo-11.jpg

That looks awesome!

You're going to have one heck of a time getting the poop from the far end of the pond to the filtration especially with the rocks on the liner bottom no?

Lovin it! Your son is too apparently lol.

Dez, that's going to be awesome! Very nice. And the best of all: no lawn to mow! :wink:

OMG that beast looks bigger every time! Did you take down a fence and invade the neighbors yard a bit??

PS. That somehow looks more than two feet? :-)

Ha ha, they shot it at 30" but I'll be able to adjust it to 24" if I ever get inspected ;). Aren't they great people those pond guys?

You have really out done yourself. Simply amazing. Can't wait till the finished project.

My wife and I can't decide on the deck top/fascia. We are torn between composite or cedar. If we did cedar than we'd just let it weather naturally cause we want maintenance free. However, composite looks kind of fake/manufactured.