When we first moved into our house in the suburbs, the backyard didn’t seem quite right. It was muddy, and it looked like a corporate office park.

This is part of our 100 Things in 2016 challenge. Here’s the full list.

Then we found out that nearly half of our landscaping labor cost was going to hauling grass clippings up the slope out of that backyard, and we decided to make a change. Here’s the “before” version:

Step 1 was to kill the grass, which meant we had this for a month or two:

Step two was to lay down a weed barrier and dump a load of cedar chips on it. Here’s the end result (with a winterized trampoline for scale):

The end result is a much lower-maintenance backyard that still looks great, and won’t hurt when you fall down on it. We’re loving it.