Backyard Revamp

We love many things about our new house. In fact there are not a lot of things we do not love (ok a few odd paint choices aside). While we love the size and shape of the backyard, we have questioned why there is not a larger seating area or why the shed was not further back to the fence. The shed issue was bothering the Hubby (well only after I cleaned out all the weeds and it looked like this).

Trust me this looked so much better then the over grown weeds in the whole area. So once the area was cleaned we went to Pinterest for ideas. I will say we found nothing that really excited us at all :( We had talked about a sandbox, but I did not want Hubby to build anything that the girls would only play with for a short time. Then we came across the Horseshoe set we had received as a Wedding present! (Yes 9 years ago and it has been in the box with no place to go since then. So hubby came up with the idea to make a horseshoe pit with a sandbox inside (not to be used at the same time!)

One Sunday, Hubby and his dad set to work on building this amazing frame work for the horseshoe pit/sandbox. In this picture you can see the back part is the horseshoe pit itself. It front of that you have the middle section which will be 1 of the 2 sandboxes (1 on each side) and the outside edges will be river rock. 

Close up of pit number 2!

Then the stone arrived

And it was time to fill the pits

Here is a close up of some of the stone once we wet it to show the really color once it is cleaned.  

Next came the sand.....

I think it is obvious that this was the girls favorite part!

We filled in the rest of the space with some wood chips to level the ground out. (And a pool noodle for added safety on the horse pole) 

Hubby added some backstops that are also planter boxes for me to put some herbs in. 

Since there was more room behind the shed we added a picnic table from Lowes.  (You can not beat the price on this for the quality) The table will be used for the adults playing outside, snacks for the pits and for arts and crafts outside!

There is a phase two of the backyard revamp that is in progress now!