What order should you do a backyard remodel in?

Why plan the whole backyard remodel before building any of it?

Because most of what makes outdoor living in Pasadena pleasant (light after dark, water for the plants, a place to cook) depends on lines buried long before those pieces arrive. A grill needs gas, a fan needs a circuit, planting beds need irrigation, and every light needs a wire route, and most of that runs under paving laid weeks earlier. If the plan does not show where the kitchen, the lights, and the beds will be, nobody can put their lines in the ground at the right time.

The plan also fixes the heights, working from the house outward. A finished patio has to sit below the door threshold and, on a stucco house, stay at least 2 inches below the weep screed (bare soil has to stay at least 4 inches below it). Many older Pasadena houses stand on raised foundations, a few steps above the yard, which leaves room to work; a house on a slab can leave far less. Those limits decide how much soil comes out, where steps land, and whether a low wall is needed.

Asked what to do first in a backyard renovation, we give the same answer every time: draw the whole yard, including the parts you will not build for years. On a hillside, the invisible work can dominate. On our Estate Pool & Grounds project, grading and drainage were the bulk of the job, and the turf was laid over graded ground on a base that was compacted and drained.

What happens first once the crew arrives?

Demolition and haul-off, once the site is set up for everything that follows. Old concrete, tired lawn, roots, stumps, and abandoned sprinkler pipe come out, down to the soil the new work will sit on. Whatever path the bins, the machine, and the wheelbarrows use becomes a construction road for weeks, so it is usually one of the last surfaces finished. Often it is a narrow side yard, and the gate width decides whether a small machine fits at all.

Mature trees need thought before any of this starts, because raising soil against a trunk or trenching through the roots can kill a tree slowly. Pasadena protects some mature trees on private property, native oaks among them, so ask the city whether a large tree is protected before the plan touches its roots. Settle a few other things before the first machine arrives.

• Fence off the root zone of every tree that stays.
• Locate the sewer lateral, water line, gas service, and any buried wiring.
• Photograph the walls, fences, and paving you are keeping, so any new crack is easy to spot.
• Agree on the haul route and where the bins will sit.
• If you are counting on a lawn rebate, check its current terms before the old lawn comes out.

Why do grading and drainage come before anything you can see?

Every surface takes its height and slope from the ground beneath it, and ground is the hardest thing in a yard to change later. Of all the backyard makeover steps, grading and drainage are the ones you never see again and the ones that decide whether the rest lasts. The residential code wants the ground to drop at least 6 inches over the first 10 feet out from the foundation, and everything built near the house has to carry water away from it, not toward it.

Water does not soak into the expansive clay under large parts of the San Gabriel Valley; it sits, so it has to be led somewhere. The pipes that lead it run under the future patio and lawn, which means they go in before either. Where the water is allowed to end up, including whether a curb outlet needs the city's approval, gets settled on the plan, before the first pipe goes in.

On a slope, this phase includes the walls that hold the grade. On the Menlo Backyard, where a sloped lot became three level terraces, the white stucco retaining walls went in first along with the drainage behind them, and the side yard was rebuilt so water runs away from the structure. The lawn level, the raised dining deck, and the sunken fire pit came after, on ground that was already level and drained.

What goes in the ground before the patio is built?

Every line that will ever cross under paving, whether you use it this year or not. Once the paving is down, a new line means sawing concrete or lifting pavers, then rebuilding a base that was compacted once already. So the trench phase covers the whole plan, including parts that exist only on paper.

Sleeves under pavers are cheap and save the most grief: lengths of empty pipe, larger than seems necessary, laid under paths and patio edges so a future wire or water line can be pushed through instead of dug in. Leave a pull string in each and mark both ends. Before any trench is backfilled, photograph it with a tape measure in the frame, so years later nobody has to guess where a line runs.

Two details govern the backfill. Buried gas and electrical usually have to be inspected before the trench is closed, so backfill waits for that visit. And a trench that will sit under paving has to be backfilled in compacted layers, not shoveled full; a loosely filled trench in clay settles through the first rainy season, and the pavers above it sink in a line that traces the trench exactly.

• Gas pipe to wherever a grill, fire feature, or heater will stand.
• Electrical conduit for outlets, a fan, a pump, or the lighting transformer.
• Landscape lighting wiring routes to every bed beyond a path or patio.
• Irrigation mains, with valves placed where you can reach them.
• Empty sleeves under every walk and patio edge.
• Drain lines for the yard, already sloped to their outlet.

When do walls, steps, and structures get built?

After the underground work and before the paving. Seat walls, planter walls, steps, a deck, the footings for a pergola, a fire pit, and the base of a built-in barbecue all need digging, forms, or concrete, and the heavy deliveries that come with them would crack or stain finished paving. The paving then runs up to these fixed edges and is cut to them, which looks planned in a way a wall set on top of a finished patio rarely does.

Anything that will carry wire or pipe gets those lines built in as it goes up. A lantern on a stone pillar needs its conduit inside the pillar before the stone goes on, and a built-in barbecue needs its gas and power stubbed up inside the base before the counter is set. When one material repeats across the yard, the way composite deck treads serve as stairs, bench seating, and wall cladding on the Menlo Backyard, order and build those pieces together so the boards match.

Why does hardscape go in before landscaping?

Because hardscape is the heavy, dusty part of the job, and it sets the edges that planting and turf finish against. Plate compactors, saw cutting, and pallets of stone would crush new plants and grind grit into new turf, so the soft work waits until the hard work is done. Turf is cut to the paver edge, never the other way around.

The fine details depend on that order. Turf ribbon inlays in a paver driveway, like the ones on our Estate Pool & Grounds project, stay a consistent width when the pavers are set first and each ribbon is cut to its gap. Flush stepping stones in turf, like those on the Menlo Backyard's upper and lower levels, work when each stone is bedded at final height on the compacted base before the turf is rolled out and cut around it.

Planting beds need one more step once the crews leave. Weeks of boots and wheelbarrows pack clay down hard, and roots struggle to push through it. We loosen and amend the beds after the hardscape is finished, not before, so the soil work is not undone by the work around it.

What goes in last, and why wait for it?

Irrigation laterals, planting, and turf, then mulch and light fixtures. The irrigation mains went in early, but the lines that feed each plant go in with the planting, so emitters land at real plants instead of guesses. Rock or bark mulch goes on after the drip and the plants, because finding a buried emitter under a layer of rock is slow, miserable work.

Light fixtures come last for two reasons. Crews kick and crush them, and they should be aimed at what is actually there: the canopy of a tree, the face of a wall, the edge of a step. With the wire routes already in the ground, setting fixtures goes quickly, and leaving a little slack in the cable at each spot lets you move a fixture later as the plants fill in.

Before we call a yard finished, we run every irrigation zone and watch it, turning any head that throws water onto a wall, a fence, or paving. Spray that hits the base of a stucco wall on every cycle soaks it right where it is most vulnerable.

How do you phase a backyard over two or three years?

Phase by layer, not by corner, if you can. Phasing a backyard project works best when the first phase does the disruptive work across the whole yard: demolition, grading, drainage, and every line and sleeve the finished plan will need. Later phases are then mostly building on prepared ground, and nothing finished in the first year gets dug up in the third. The catch is that phase one can look like very little for the money: graded soil, capped pipes, and a drawing.

When the budget covers only one area, finish that area but run sleeves and capped stubs to the edge of the next. Do not close the machine route early, since a new fence, a gate narrower than the machine, or a finished side yard path can lock out the equipment a later phase needs. Graded ground left bare through a rainy season washes into the low spots, so cover it with mulch until its turn comes. Some pieces wait well.

• Planting, which is easy to add and easy to change.
• Light fixtures, as long as the wire routes are already in.
• A pergola, if its footing spots are kept clear.
• An outdoor kitchen, once its gas and power are stubbed and capped.