Home Tour: Backyard

We haven't finished the backyard, we still want to set up a storage shed we bought and make a play area on the side.  Plus I have a little garden I want to set up.  We have made a lot of progress so I figured I would post about that.

Here are pictures of what it looked like on our tour of the home before we bought it.  While we loved the view I really didn't like the backyard at all.  It had a bunch of weeds and bushes covered with bees plus the patio was so uneven Quentin couldn't walk on it without falling down.  

The sun in New Mexico is intense, it is hardly ever cloudy and in the summer we couldn't go in the back yard until the evening (when these pictures were taken).

Here is the before picture of the side of the house.  The neighbors had already lengthened the wall between us so we wanted to take out the fence so we could have access to the side of the house.

Here are the current pictures.  I'd like to plant a little garden perhaps in this area over by the bush and tree, but I may do it on the other side of the house.  We haven't changed this side really.  We bought the grill at Lowes on Black Friday.  We waited and waited for the grills to go on sale, but they never did.  I guess because the weather is so nice here.  

We bought a coupon for landscaping so we got a pretty good deal on the patio and a new wall on the side of the house.  Albert took out the tree and bushes himself to save money.  

We bought the pavilion from Target.com and Albert put it up with the help of the missionaries.  He filled the posts with rocks since it gets really windy here.  I'm really excited to spend more time out there during the summer since it will be more tolerable with the shade. The pavilion helps keep the sun out of the living room as well. I want to get a dining set at some point too.

We opted for Old Town bricks in a herringbone pattern.  It was more money, but since we plan on being here for awhile we didn't want to regret our decision by getting something we didn't really want because it was a little cheaper.  We also extended it to the wall so we have more room and less weeds.

Here is where we want to put in a play area.  We looked into getting nice fake grass, but it would cost $4000 to do just this little area so we're thinking of alternatives now like rubber mulch or the cheap fake grass. We took out the tree and fence and put in a brick wall.  It's been great for more privacy and security.  We also put in a little shed for our outside tools.