It takes so little to encourage me...

All props for this post go to a new commentor on my blog. Jess left a comment basically saying "if you're going to talk about it the least you can do is show us what the heck you are doing" ; ) I'm not sure she knows me well enough to know I am embellishing or taking artistic liberties with her innocent enough comment but it was all I needed to write this post.

I mentioned early on in my blog that we put in a pool last year. I don't write about it to brag but to merely state how overwhelmed we have been finishing off the landscaping and cleaning it all up after the winter. The pool was done at the end of July but what the pool company failed to tell us is that only the POOL was finished. We have done hours and hours of back-breaking labor since then to make it look finished. It is amazing how little tons and tons of money buys you. I won't shock you with the final amount the pool cost us but what would really shock is you is how much more we have had to do on our own to complete the look. Let me just say, Sam is from NYC where their idea of landscaping is asphalt and I lack in the inspiration department.

So we discussed it, talked to friends and went to Lowe's to figure out how we wanted to cover all the dirt that was left. The contractors don't throw even a seed of grass down on their way out with the final check. We decided on river rock around the retaining wall and on the side of the house so we wouldn't have mulch too close to the pool. It turned out really great.

But as you can see, we had exposed dirt very close to the pool. And what is worse is they had pressed it down hard so the only thing growing up was weeds. Here is a picture of the side you can't see (it would be left of where this picture is taken) where there was a huge drop-off due to the pitch after the grading.

You can't see it well because I didn't like that side so I didn't take many pictures of it. But this year we decided to sod the whole area in the spring so it wouldn't be all dirt and our landscaper said we wouldn't really be able to do sod on the grade so we needed to build another retaining wall. And we did.

The black dirt is where they planted shade grass because the sod won't take right under the tree. Here is another angle:

This was literally as they were laying the sod so it looks a little rough but it came in great and we are really loving the results. Don't mind the overgrown look. We haven't been able to cut it yet due to the fragility of the sod and new grass.

And there you have it. 60 bags of 40-pound bags of top soil to fill in that spot between the pool and the retaining wall. It was back-breaking and exhausting but well worth it. I am finally feeling like I can go out there and sit still without jumping up and down to fix this and that. Told you I had issues ; ) Thanks for the idea, Jess. If only I were so easily encouraged in other areas of my life.