I just moved in to a house that was built in 2005. The previous owners did not do anything with the backyard when built. The front yard was sodded but the back was left as bare dirt and construction rocks and big rocks plenty.
After 7 years of neglect the back yard is comprised of green but it is mostly weeds and some grass over the complete area. There are many many small 1" rocks at the surface and there are some large cereal box sized rocks too.

What needs to be done to get a nice lawn? I just moved and dont have a ton of funds. I am also at the age where I dont want to spend all my time doing back breaking work either. haha.. So what are some suggestions and things I can start looking at doing?

Thanks

Ultimately I would like a yard that is fairly smooth so my kids can run and play and not twist their ankle. The yard had a rough grade on it when the builders left but it never had a final grade on it because the previous owners neglected it.

I wont bore you with my long painful journey to what is now a pretty nice lawn of KBG and get to what I would have done in hind sight. (I started to detail my journey and the learning process I went thru--ending in complete renovation, and although humorous (if you find a person repeatedly walking into a door jam humorous)--it was also long and boring)

I'm probably going to take it up alongside the head from the experts here, but in hindsght, I would have pulled all of the large rocks out, leveled the lawn with sand and sodded. If you don't want to sod I'll be happy to try to answer any questions you may have about what I eventually found to work in our circumstance. Please update with what you end up doing and how it worked out.

Thanks

The sand I used was a washed clean medium coarse sand.

If you take my suggestion and go with sod, a half inch of sand/compost mix for a 5000 sq ft area will cost about $300 (should be enough to level the yard and cover the stone and clay). 5000sq ft of high quality KBG sod will cost about $950. Landscapers commonly charge double the cost of material for labor. So, for about $3000 you'll have a beautiful lawn and all you had to do is write a check. (get some estimates)

I ended up seeding myself and although cheaper than hiring someone to sod, it is a "back breaking' route. Not sure if this is what you want, but if you want to read it, here goes:

After 2 prior dismal attempts and a lot of fruitless trial and error, I decided I needed to get serious about the process and read everything I could find about yard renovation and started from scratch.
Mid August I sprayed the lawn with Ortho, then:
1. I waited until the last week of August.

2. I scalped the lawn, killing off what little was there.

3. I removed all of the large rocks and filled the holes with bags of top soil. I didn't do much about the smaller stones as that just didn't seem very feasable.

4. I watered heavily (to soften the ground up)and the next day I aerated with the goal of having the holes no more than 3-4" apart. (took about 4 hours)

5. In approximately equal parts, I mixed sand, (was looking for a clean washed medium sand and settled on mortar sand -- some places label it as play sand) sphagnum, and compost in a pull cart and hand spread it with a shovel. (it didn't take long to realize this was going to be a heck of a lot of work and material) Fortunately, I had started with the front lawn (about 3500 sq ft) and although my goal was to get at least an 1" cover down, it was probaly closer to 1/4". The backyard (about 4500 sq ft), I gave up on the sand and just used some compost and peat mix and put it on very thin (cost and my back were killing me by this time) Took 2 days to do.

6. I made a drag out of chain link fence and pulled it over and over until the hard clay pugs broke up pretty well and the yard looked pretty smooth. (most of a day to do)

7. Next day I sowed 50 lbs of KBG seed. (25# Midnite and 25# of a mix of 6 improved cultivars) Rented a spot seeder/verticutter/slit seeder (whatever people want to call it) and set it to cut about 1/4 in. deep. Went over the yard twice in two directions 45 degreees to one another. (started in the morning about 10 a.m. after picking up the slitter and finished at dusk)

8. Next day. Put down a starter fertilizer 15-24-10. covered the whole lawn with a thin dusting of very dry sphagnum. (I've never gotten dirtier--tricky stuff but really helped hold moisture during the watering process)

9. Used tripod sprinklers to water 3 times a day until yard was moist. Soon discovered it was a pain to keep moving the sprinlers so I bought six of the spike type and 300 foot of hose with turn off attachments and daisy chained to I could water in zones. (plus, wife was doing the noon watering and she had trouble moving and readjusting the tripod ones) Took almost 4 weeks of watering before most of the seed germinated. (water bill that month paid for most of the cost of the municipality's water system)

10.By the beginning of October, the front yard looked pretty good and the back yard was so-so but better than what it was.

Aerated the next spring and overseeded (3# of KBG impoved mix per 1k sq ft), did reseeding of the larger bare patches in back yard, ran the slitter over it again (bought one) in just one direction, and put down starter fertilizer. Aerated and overseeded with a pound of KBG per 1k sq ft again last fall. I left out some of the fertilization and other amendments I've done since the grass germinated that first fall. Most people would be happy with the back yard and the front yard looks very good.
BUT it cost over $1k in materials, rentals and water plus a week of vacation and a lot of back breaking work.

Although I can say "I did it myself" and that there is a lot of satisfaction in that, considering all the work and money, if I had it to do over, I would pay someone to level it with a clean medium sand/compost mix and lay KBG sod.

I'll try to post some pics if I can.

I'd be interested in knowing what you do and how it works out.

A bobcat is a very tricky vehicle to drive. I would not ever let even an experienced bobcat driver on my property. Tractors (big wheels in back and small in front) and the tools they have are a much better option. Any kind of dirt work should be done by pros.

The best sand will be faceted rather than rounded. That's hard to see but it is easy to tell once it is down. Beach sand is rounded. Your feet will always sink into it. Chipped sand comes from recently cut stones. The sand on the bottom of an aquarium are an example although they are huge compared to the sand you're looking for.

Is your lot 2-3 inches below grade right now? You mentioned wash outs. That's a lot of sand/soil to bring in. When I bought my house the level of the soil was 6-7 inches below the level of the concrete due to torrential rains and soil wash outs. There were roots everywhere and no grass. The former owner neglected it for 20 years or more.

I used sand for a number of reasons. As my soil was rock and clay, I chose sand to help drainage. I also wanted sand in the plug holes to keep them open for both drainage and to give the grass something to root into. Sand is much easier to level and handle than topsoil. Originally I intended to do a 70-80% sand mix with the other 20-30% equal parts compost and sphagnum, but I got worried about fertilisty and got carried away--probably unnecessarily. Plus, After the neighbor put in screened topsoil around his new patio I noticed a lot of settlement which concerned me AND everything I read on the university turf sites said that any topdressing should be a coarser material than the soil underneath. Sand just seemed like the logical choice and from the results, the right one.