Summer Projects: The Backyard

I have been off the blogging radar ever since the weather had become stable enough to start my outdoor projects. The list of items to get done started small but like most years it keeps growing.

The first thing we wanted to do was to improve the drainage in our backyard with a french drain since the Spring of 2011 was very wet and we weren't able to use the backyard until June. This was very disappointing for my wife and two girls so we started this job in early May.

We had a guy we know excavate the trench (thank goodness) so the worst of the job for me was lugging 3/4 drainage stones from the driveway to the back of the house. As it turned out I had ordered way too many stones and we now had to figure out what to do with them. "Let's build a new deck." we both agreed.

That of course meant that over the Victoria Long Weekend (a Canadian holiday) I had to dismantle the existing deck. I haven't laid any new sod down yet since we still have some excavating to do, but at least the trench is gone. So that is how the backyard project looks currently; I would say that we're at the half way point. We want to get it all completed in June so we have the rest of the summer to enjoy it all. Wish us luck!

What summer projects are you working on? What would you suggest I use for decking boards?