BackYard Patio Landscape Design & Pool Removal in Edina Mn

so we're at the beginning stages of a pool demolition in a backyard transformation project basically what we have is a new couple moved into a house and the swimming pool hey Evan how you doing buddy hey the swimming pool there's Evan he's the one that we're doing the work for the swimming pool is not fitting their lifestyle or their needs and so we're going to get rid of it and then we're going to completely change the backyard but this is our path in you can see we have absolutely no access to this site um so we've got a lot of trees to clear a lot of brush just to gain access to it and can believe me it doesn't smell pretty back here this is the swimming pool now what we're going to do is we're going to just completely tear this out and then regrade reslope and one of the things that we have here is a couple oak trees Tre we have a couple really nice mature oak trees we want to save those and to do that we're actually going to regrade the entire backyard and eliminate these retaining walls cuz these retaining walls as much as I love building retaining walls for people they're budget Busters and in this particular instance we should be able to regrade this yard and eliminate the retaining walls see the retaining walls were here because there was is a swimming pool and they wanted to save that oak tree and they wanted to have a flat area for the swimming pool and so you have to create that sharp line well with the pool gone we have one less restriction which allows us to change the grades which allows us to eliminate the need for the retaining wall so I'm going to show you that process one of the things that I want to point out in the back drop is this line of brush this is Buckthorn that's the oak tree but the rest of this is Buckthorn it's it's an invasive species uh nobody really wants it and so what we're going to do as part of this project we're going to go in and we're going to remove that entire shrub line clear it up clean it up we're not cutting it we're actually pulling it out by the roots even doing that isn't ensured that it's going to get all of the Buckthorn out but it's much better than cutting it cuz when you cut it cut Buckthorn all you do is you give it an opportunity for even faster growth because now it's got all this energy Down Below in the root system and it can just start sprouting up and spreads even faster so we go and pull it up yank it to do this job because we have limited access we're going to be using one of our smaller excavators and one of our smaller skid loaders so let's go see what we've got for equipment that we're going to be bringing in you can see here this whole thing is going to change and we have to create a road right through here just to gain access into the site so we have a bobcat 325 is what it looks like this will be the machine that we're going to be doing all that clearing with removing the swimming pool definitely not our biggest machine but we bought it just because when you don't have room to get anything else in this thing will fit in there we have a 1000lb plate Packer which is how we make sure that when we place the soils we're getting it compact so we don't get any settlement and an S185 so there's the Bobcat we're going to be using medium siiz machine rubber tires Gets In and Out works fine so we'll show you the process as it goes we were at this site yesterday we show you how much things can change in one day the truck is bringing in dirt he's got probably 40 yards that he's uh brought in so far today alone and what we're doing is we're establishing the road into the site come on back he'll come back in we we'll watch him get this lad dumped and we'll go back to the site I don't like the sound of that throwout bearing clear he checks for power lines above them that's Twain I chewed him a new yesterday he showed up to my site 45 minutes late it wasn't a day to show up 45 minutes late kind of felt bad about it so I was teasing him a little bit today about it used to make up to him to let him know he's still important to me but you can't be late I don't think he'll be late again I can be pretty cor you're late to one of my sites to one of my pet peev I'm going to get up at 5:30 Drive halfway across town to meet a customer at 7 I expect my dump truck driver to do the exact same thing he's looking at me right now he's making eye contact NOP he's going he's going he's looking at me in the mirror [Music] you're good down sight's dumped so here's the road we built coming in to this site so he's got the road built we've got Blaine down in the bottom of the swimming pool what he's doing is he's grabbing the dirt lifting it up over the edge and then he's taken the mini a he's actually got that down into the bottom of the swimming pool we've removed the gunite clean that up and then we rip out the sides of the swimming pool we don't have a lot of space on this job site normally be great to come in from the outside one of those rare occasions when we actually work on it from the inside out so he crawled the excavator down into the bottom and he's right now using compression compaction leveling out the dirt and he'll grab and lift in the the plate Packer Bam Bam Bam Bam plate pack this thing up and so we're actually dumping right here over the side down into the swimming pool so you can see this one is what I call Bass Awards sometimes we got to do these pools like this as long as you get everything out you get all the compaction in you can actually see where he's removed the gunite punctured the gunite right along this Edge right there steel walls they get yanked out they get recycled there's $250 in steel walls every job every one of these jobs where I get to Steel walls that's a separate load and I know I got a $250 check coming back on it instead of having to dump fee I get a dump check P Twain hey Twain I got you on camera hey hey Twain yeah did I chew your ass out pretty good yesterday a little bit a little bit I had I had his bottom lip TW twitch and I'm looking at him and I see his bottom lip going like that like for real yeah Ser yeah I was like oh maybe I'm a little bit too hardcore on you you know I still love you brother I let you all right so we're we're at the Edina pool site right now and what you're seeing is the patio is exactly where the pool used to be so the skid loader the bricks the compactor that you see right over there that used to be in a a whole 9 ft deep when we first got here and now this customer is going to be able to walk off from their deck onto their patio the grilling area is going to be over here and then Stumpy's deck renewal is going to come out they're going to add on a deck and we're going to be able to step down onto this patio the backyard itself backyard transformation is coming along you can actually see where uh Drew and Blaine are standing used to be retaining walls uh in fact that's right where Drew got stung twice and he's allergic to bees so what we did to save some money on this project instead of rebuilding retaining walls we eliminated the retaining walls and we created a 3 to1 slope right in this area so it's a nice transition it saved the customer thousands of dollars in retaining walls where they really weren't necessary now when there was a swimming pool there you had to have a retaining wall because this flat patio went right it's maxed out on space and then it was cut down there now we have more yard we want to create that area that there is no trip hazards where if a kid is running along the backyard playing catch they don't fall over anything they can just run down the hill yeah balls will run down the hill but guess what else we'll go down that Hill sleds will go down that Hill nicely in winter time so this backyard is coming along this is the midpoint update um they're going to be cutting in they're snaping lining this Edge they're going to cut this uh with a saw this stuff is waste that's going to be tossed out and then it's the grading and the final clearing and then uh then we're on to the next project which is demoing a concrete swimming pool so that'll be a fun transformation project I can see the wheel spinning in Drew's head right now show me the money show me the money let's go okay so we're at the final stage we're actually done aren't we we're done we wrapped up and you can see we've got the deck in place the sod has been laid out over the backyard and um there's going to be a little bit of deck repair but other than that we're all wrapped up how'd everything go everything was awesome was great we really appreciated both of our um workers who were here every day blae and um Andrew awesome guys and super courteous so thank you even though it didn't the weather didn't cooperate with us very well during your project but no but it works it's done we got done we got through it decid I'm just going to walk through and show everything that was done thank you Elizabeth I appreciate all of all of your patience with everything during this whole process and having your whole yard tore up for so long that great app really appreciative patio's in place s has been laid out everything is completed so I think uh I think the project looks really nice