One of the hardest parts of working on the house is where to draw the line on a project. What might start with replacing an outlet can lead to hanging new drywall and if you’re not careful the room is completely remodeled before you stop to question how replacing an outlet got to this point. After tearing up a large section of the yard to trench in new electrical lines, I was torn on how much time I should spend shaping the yard back up.

The most recent mess

Obviously, I filled back in the trench and needed to get grass growing. But, one section of the yard was especially bad before I even started trenching. A portion of it was an old garden plot and the years of use stole away enough soil that the plot was sunk in. Another spot was mounded up over an old water line abandoned years ago… maybe to keep it from freezing. There were a half dozen other spots of old ruts, mounds, etc. I’m sure each spot had a story to tell, but the lawn mower was tired of hearing about it each time it tried to smoothly pass over. To sum it up best, while we wanted to put the kids’ swing set in this portion of the yard, it was simply too rough. While part of me simply wanted to fill in the trenches and move on to the next project, the other part of me wanted to shape up this section of yard while a part of it was already tore up.

I was getting a few tips from Lulu while eyeing up the grade

Ultimately, once you’re trying to grow grass, what’s a little more? I cut down the high spots (over two feet of dirt of top of the highest spot) and filled in the low spots (almost a foot and a half in some places).

Almost finished.

Despite Lulu shaking her head and telling me at one point that “the lawn looks terrible, Dad, just terrible,” the entire thing shaped up a lot quicker than I expected. (And eventually to Lulu’s satisfaction.)

Now for the grass seed

Now that this section of the yard is finally level, my only complaint is that you notice how much the section next to it should be worked on as well. Where to stop? Where to stop?