After we finished our biggest house project to date - rehabbing our entire backyard - we decided to celebrate by having brunch and a bottle of champagne surrounded by all of our hard work. He surprised me by proposing with a custom uncut diamond ring designed by Concrete Polish Jewelry.

DIY PROJECT: backyard rehab

Nearly a year after we moved in, we finally started work on our backyard.

To be completely honest, the size of the backyard was one of the main reasons why we made an offer on our house - it's a big yard by Philadelphia standards. But to say it needed some work would be a massive understatement. It was filled with sand, astroturf, and old tires.

After a few days of clearing out the sand and filling the yard with clean dirt, we started working on the backyard, using inspiration that we'd seen as a guide. With lots of help from friends, we walked over 2500+ pounds of paving stones one by one through our house and into the backyard, sectioned off an area for our patio, filled with gravel, sand, and a patio base, and finally laid the pavers and filled with polymeric sand.

We built raised garden beds for evergreen shrubs and a trellis along the back fence to grow climbing plants like clematis and blackberries, and then planted sod between the patio and garden beds.

All in all it took a couple weekends and a lot of work, but we made such a difference between before and after! Next year we're planning on putting in a small deck off of the back of the house, and maybe a wood burning stove or outdoor fireplace so that we use it from spring to autumn!