Our backyard - back wall edition

Finally! I think we are finished with our backyard revamp.
After installing fake grass, mulching the palm trees, getting patio furniture, and building a succulent container garden, we did the last and final touches: repainted the far back wall of our backyard and covered up the hideous alley+corner.

2 weeks ago, my good friend Savannah came over and helped me paint the back wall.  It was dirty, chipped, and had random splotches of pink.  I picked out a cute beige-tan color at Home Depot the day before, called "weathered sandstone", and we got to work!  Jeff watched Caitlin while S and I got to work; she made sure I didn't half ass the task (grr!).
Our 2 hours of hard work paid off.  The wall looks terrific!
Here is the before and after.  (by the way, the paint color ended up coming out WAY lighter than on the color swatch.  liars!!).

who knew a fresh coat of paint makes a world of difference.
we didn't even repaint the red trimming.  It just looks so much bolder contrasted against the clean coat of beige paint

Next is the creepy corner of my backyard.
There already is a filthy alley there, that we covered up with 2 succulent shrubs a few months back.  But the wall adjacent to the alley needs a lot of TLC.  The wall has paint (but it doesn't look like paint.  It looks like someone previous painted a layer of plaster on the wall) that is peeling away and falling off towards the bottom.   To fix it would require scraping the layer of plaster off, sanding the wall, then putting on some new coats of paint.  It's really a lot of work.  Not to mention, this "wall" in the back of my yard is actually the side of my neighbor's house. WTF! Only in LA do houses not come with real partitions.  To put in so much work would require the approval of my neighbor, and I also feel like I shouldn't be fixing my neighbor's house unless I'm getting paid for it!
So, we did the quick easy solution:  add even more succulent shrubs to cover the wall!!  We purchased 3 pots of firestick succulents this weekend and moved some of my succulent containers (from my container garden) to the wall as well.
I think this area of my yard looks a lot better.  

ooh, that new paint job on the right looks fantastic

All the work on my backyard is completed just in time for us to host Caitlin's 2nd birthday party in March!  (We are getting a bouncy castle in our backyard!)  It's a great excuse to show off our new yard to our friends and neighbors too =)