In this video you'll see how we DIYed the
installation of our backyard turf. Follow along! Our yard used to have a pond in it, so we
did have to level it out before we started the process. Then we installed
bender board to define the shape of the lawn. For the turf we went to Broadmoor
landscape supply here in San Francisco and selected a turf that had multiple
colored straight and curly blades including brown blades which really
matched California grass since we don't get any rain during the summer months.
This makes our turf look super natural. Next we installed weed cloth.
This step is optional but recommended and since our yard grows tons of weeds
we thought this would be a good idea. Installation is really easy. Just cut to
size, leaving a small lip around the edges, and overlapping any seams. Then
nail down the perimeter with two prong stakes. We had the turf delivered on a forklift.
For the roughly 450 square feet of lawn that we wanted to create we also ordered
two tons of decomposed granite which will serve as our under layer and 450
pounds of sand which will serve as our infill. Along with some decorative rocks
and mulch for our landscaping, all of that is what you see in those two white
bags. I thought the two tons of decomposed granite was going to be the
biggest pain to move to the backyard, but it was actually the turf itself which
was too heavy for us to carry. We had to unroll it and cut the turf in half on
the sidewalk in front of our house before being able to transport it and
even then we were barely able to move it but we did it it just took us a while
and a lot of sweat [God that's still heavy]
Decomposed granite allows you to level the area and gives a solid surface
for the turf to sit on so that it doesn't end up with sunken areas down
the road. We found conflicting information about how much granite you
need, but the two tons of granite that we ended up ordering provided an inch to
two inches of depth and it seemed to be enough. Spread the decomposed granite
evenly and make sure your surface is graded so that rain can flow where it
needs to go. Use a 2x4 to level and a tamper to compact it down. The pros
usually use a plate compactor but we bought this $30.00 hand tamper and it
worked out fine. Let's Google this. I don't know. I think maybe just a light mist. Let's try it. It looks good! Alright, I'm upstairs in our house which
looks down into our yard . . . last night we put out the turf to let it air out a
little bit since it's been tightly wound up and today we're just gonna rough cut
it to size and get all the little all the little pieces that we need. Rough cut
your pieces so the seams align but the edges overhang by at least 2 inches. OK, now we're doing the edging. The grass comes too high above the edge
and so it looks kind of funny. So we're gonna have to . . . like this whole edge it
just looks like buzz cut hair cut all around the side. See how much better that looks? So we have to cut here to get around the beam. This blade is dull. Oh I need a new blade. Change your blades frequently, it makes a very easy job of this. Next it's time to tape our seams! First
we apply this seam tape. We put it all along the decomposed granite and then on
top we apply the glue. There's two kinds of glue that we know of. There's
this one that comes in this liquid gallon format and we're gonna apply it
using this $1.99 trowel. This gallon of glue was $80. The other
type of glue that we know of is a glue that is applied using a caulk gun so that
would have been probably a lot easier to apply but that's not what we
were given by the turf supply store so we're going with this. We just finished the seaming and I put
bags of sand down to weigh it down. I'm a little concerned about how the seaming
went, because we didn't put a lot of glue down so who knows all these seams
could just come apart tomorrow. Where I thought we had too little glue it ended
up being perfect because the glue expands as it cures so my recommended
trowel size is a 3/16 of an inch tooth in this part of the turf we used a
quarter inch trowel tooth size and it was a little too much. You can see the
glue has bubbled up which makes the seam visible. The next step is to nail down
the edging with six inch galvanized nails. Every six inches we will put one
of these nails the only thing you have to be careful for is making sure you're
not nailing in the blades of grass. You'll see what I mean. Okay this is the final step. Infill! You
can use sand or you can use these rubber pellets that they sell. All you need is a
shovel and a broom! You can get much more sophisticated tools, but this is all you
need. You need one pound of infill for each
square foot of turf. Shovel it through brush it through and then you will have
turf that is soft and also with bristles or blades that stand up straight. That's
all there is to it! Okay we're done with this project. It's
starting to rain a little bit so I got to make this fast, but we're super happy
with the results. The total cost of the project was $3,800 we could have saved a
little bit of money by picking our second favorite turf . . . that would have
saved us about $800 or so, but we went with this one because it looks so
natural. The other thing about turf is that it comes in 15 foot rolls or the rolls are 15 feet long, and that meant that we have been left with a lot
of offcuts. Some places do sell in 7 foot rolls which means that you could be
a lot more efficient with your cutting, but we didn't have that so now we have a
bunch of turf that we aren't using and that we paid for. If I could do anything
differently I would purchase this s-seam cutter tool that they sell just to make
the seams blend in a little bit better and the other thing is I would highly
recommend having more than two people to move your turf around as you're trying
to position it because the turf is really heavy. But other than that you
guys can do it yourself, thanks for joining and see you next time!
