Our backyard transformation...still in progress

My amazing husband, skilled father-in-law and generous friend have all been working very hard turning our hole formerly known as a backyard into a beautiful play area and entertaining area.  We're not quite done yet but when we are, I'll post pictures.

Y'all, I'm not kidding when I say our yard was awful.  At one point in time, we had 4 LARGE dogs back there.  There was barely any grass left, our deck looked like it had been through a natural disaster and it smelled like pee and poop.  It was so overwhelming we literally had given up on it.  When we bought our house, it was a beautiful yard, perfect for entertaining and enjoying nice dinners on the patio. 

We've tried MANY solutions to make our yard work for us and the dogs, but each one failed.  With our daughter nearing 2 and LOVING playing outside, we knew we had to do something finally.  Our yard is a pretty decent size and is a rectangle shape.  So we put up a 4' picket fence, dividing the yard almost in half.  The front half is the 'people' side and the back half is the 'doggy' side.  The best part of this design is the dogs are let in/out through the side door to the garage...meaning they never enter our half!!!  With the fence being a picket fence, they can still see us so they don't feel ignored.

We have some very gracious neighbors who gave us their old wooden swing-set...for FREE!!!  Oh my gosh those suckers are pricey and we knew that was what we wanted to get but it just wasn't in the budget.  This one needs a little fixing up.  We have to replace some of the wood, I had to spray paint some pieces and we bleached the swings...and it's looking GREAT so far!!!  It's a smaller set so it'll be perfect for the girls for the amount of time we'll be in this house.

Here are a few pictures of the yard:  

This is what it looked like when we bought.  So cute and quaint.  We loved it.

Here it is after 4 years and 4 dogs.  Pretty awful, huh?

Bye-bye sad and scary looking deck and hello new french drain!  Progress!!!

We've come a long way since this picture...there is GRASS in my backyard (that the dogs can't touch!) and the fence posts have been trimmed down and capped.  Once things settle down a little here, this is where the swing-set will go.  I cannot wait to see my daughter's face when her swing-set it up.  She's going to be so excited!!