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I got so excited about finally sharing the backyard tour reel video that I promised you guys along with the story of how we got here, but my caption got too long for Instagram, which spurred this impromptu post of our desert backyard oasis: 3 years later.
Every part of our home has a story to tell, and for me, this one will always be about the power of being brave enough to persevere in spite of the negative opinions of others and refusal of support. Due to the magnitude of the work that needed to be done in this backyard and the lack of time, we reached out to landscape designers to take on this project. The first one came, looked at the yard, looked at my three pages of vision for it, and said this: “What you want to be done here is going to take a long time and will cost you $40k just for clearing out the old grass and to plane out the ground, and that won’t include fresh soil, the plants, fountain, etc… etc…and left me with the dreaded ‘good luck’ with that vision of yours that will never happen attitude.” Then we called a second landscaping design company. After seeing the pages of my design layout, you can tell he didn’t feel too confident that he could do the work, so he decided to ghost us after sending an estimate of $8k for only the astroturf. We proceeded to call another company. The person they sent out took a look at my design vision and said, “You have expensive taste… what you’re wanting is going to cost a lot.” She proceeded to suggest a ‘simpler layout’ that would “save money.” That meant fewer trees, a couple of pots here and there, and it still would run us around $30k. They asked us to drive to their office to look at some work they’ve done with the kind of pavers they used – so instead of using bricks as we wanted in our design, they insisted we use pavers instead since that’s what they had an abundance of and their guys didn’t know how to lay bricks. After a couple of weeks of endless back and forth with them trying to convince us to use their pavers and a design layout that veered very far from our vision for the different spaces of the yard, they told us, no, we won’t be able to do your job.”
Understandably, we felt chagrined and helpless. Getting the backyard done seemed impossible. Not having the tools and a truck big enough to haul all the plants and materials, how could we transform our yard from just a dream to reality? So we put it on pause, until our world unexpectedly came to a standstill due to Covid, where being stuck at home impelled us to get it done by enlisting the help of another “landscaper” that turned into another nightmare which I shared in the backyard makeover post that’s currently in stories right now. It’s a must-read!
The lesson is, to be brave enough to believe in your dreams according to your vision and purpose and not let the negative opinions or the underestimation of you from others crush you. I’m here to tell you that perseverance and patience pay off.
P.S. We achieved our vision for way less than all the outrageous price quotes thrown at us.
