Happy First Day of Spring... We're Getting a New Fence!

I hope everyone is enjoying the first day of spring!  This crafty house has been spending so much time outside (which is partly to blame for my lack of blog posting), that I thought I'd share some of our springtime plans for our backyard.  Since spring is in the air a little early this year, we're quickly getting into gear and spending some time (and money, unfortunately) fixing up the backyard early so we can enjoy it more.  We're simplifying the backyard by pushing back some gardens that were there previously and laying new sod where that was and then also laying new sod under some trees in the back and on the side.  We're also getting a brand new privacy fence!  We've been waiting to do this for a long time and finally bit the bullet after getting four estimates -- yes, four.  A privacy fence is definitely an investment and we wanted to make sure we did it right.  While our backyard is currently fenced in with a chain link fence and a neighbor's white picket fence, we thought it might be a little more comfortable with a privacy fence since we're on a busy street.  We also have an alley that runs through the back, so added privacy there is a plus as well.  I went to the city to get the permit yesterday and learned that we'll have to push the fence back a bit farther than we thought since 6 foot fences have to be at least 30 feet from the road (I guess that's understandable!).  Here are some before shots -- I can't wait to show the after shots.

This is a picture of our backyard looking out from our back door.  You can see how the alley runs through the back (our garage is the white structure in the back).  We have chain link fence on one side of us and the white picket fence belongs to the neighbors on the other side.  The dirt on the left is where new sod will go down.

You can see how we've pushed gardens back.  Everything has been pulled out, replanted and the old garden ground has been prepared for sod.  You can see the white string, which represents the new line for the garden.  The lawn in the back has been prepared for sod as well.  This is one area of the lawn that had problems because of the tree covering it.  We plan to trim back the tree a bit to allow the grass to grow a little better.

This is a view of our side yard looking into the front.  We're going to try to take advantage of having the side yard and push this part of the fence up so it becomes part of the back yard.  This part of the yard will also be receiving new sod.

As you can see in this picture, we are pretty close to the street, so it'll be nice to have a fence to help with noise and privacy -- you can easily see us playing in back from the main road.

This picture helps to illustrate the side yard that we'll be capturing from the front of the house.  The fence will come up to just behind the first tree.

This is a view from the front on the other side of the house.  We'll be bringing the gate up to the front of the house.  We'll also regain some pavement for the kids to play on -- since we don't have a driveway, there's limited space for chalk and bike riding!

This is what we've been up to......What are your spring plans for outside?