Diamond Valley Acres: DIY Backyard Pond and Simple Kitchen Makeover

We decided to create this blog as a means to chronicle the exciting new journey that we have embarked upon. Having lived in apartments, in a rental home, and in our own cookie-cutter tract home, we have always felt that we were missing something. My husband and I have always loved projects (in the span of the 7 years that we lived in our last home, we re-did the floor 3 times, re-did the cabinets twice, repainted the walls countless different colors, and maxed out every inch of our postage stamp, cul-de-sac yard). When the opportunity to build a custom home on 3 acres of land presented itself to us, we jumped at it with enthusiasm. We thought there would be no better outlet for of love of DIY than to start from scratch on 3 acres of barren dirt!

My parents live in an adjoining property, and we have been staying in their guest home for the past years, while we prepared and saved to start our own build. While the guest home was fine (although a tad small for the 6 of us), I couldn't bear the thought of such a long stay without any redecorating. Here are some photos of where we started out two years ago:

As you can see, functional - but ugly...and brown.

After a few coats of paint, some hardware and cabinet door removal, and a little glued-on bead board paneling for the cabinetry...

We had made our living space more comfortable, but we were still left with acres of brown dirt staring at us everyday. We loved the small, pre-formed pond that we had put in our previous tiny backyard, and always yearned for something more substantial. We researched for weeks on the best method to use to tackle putting in a pond. It seemed that all of the answers we found were both costly and time consuming. We decided that we would do things like we always do, OUR way. We improvise, we talk each other into what seem like ridiculously impossible ideas, and sometimes they fail miserably - but sometimes....sometimes they work.

Since I wasn't willing to shell out $10,000 for the materials and labor to build a concrete pond or for a seemingly indestructible pond liner, filter system, etc... I looked in the plastic sheeting department at Home Depot. It was here that I came across what I hypothesized might be the perfect solution.

100 feet by 20 feet and under $100!! For that price, I thought it was worth a shot. We laid out a general idea for the shape we wanted, and then my husband hopped on the tractor and started digging! Once we had reached the size and depth that we wanted, we sent the kids into the hole to toss out any sharp rocks or other possible sharp hazards that might damage the plastic. In hindsight, I probably should have used some kind of underlayment, but I was impatient and cheap.

After all of the potential dangers were removed, we started rolling out the plastic. We decided to double it, since 6 mil wasn't terribly thick, and since we didn't have any kind of sand or other barrier between the liner and the dirt, we thought we would be better off laying it down a little thicker.

It took quite a while to fill, and we estimate it holds about 4,000 gallons. We ordered a scoop of pea gravel to cover the outer of the edges of the pond, and added a few larger rocks that we scavenged up ourselves.

It was my 15th Wedding Anniversary present and I couldn't love it more! We are two years out now, from its installation, and it has held up beautifully! No tears, leaks or visible deterioration of the liner at all.

These are some photos of last spring - just to illustrate how much "life" grows around any kind of water.