Greetings gardenweb lawn nuts!

I did a lot of reading, a handful of posts, and a lawn renovation 6 or 7 years ago. I since left and came back and have bought a new house in east TN. I can post some pictures later on but first I'll just tell you a little about my lawn and ask a couple of questions.

In east TN the grass of choice is TTTF for most people, but the hot, dry summers we tend to have don't make things easy. We have a lot of clay in the soil and a lot of enemy intruders, the worst of which tend to be crabgrass and common bermuda. In my new house I have a small front yard, but I'm not sure about sq footage-- I'll estimate that when I get home. It takes me only 10-15 minutes to mow the front and both side yards. It is obvious that the lawn has been pretty good at some point but there is has been and continues to be a battle to keep bermuda out of it. It appears to me that the previous owner gave up and stopped fighting it, so now the bermuda is interspersed among the TTTF throughout most of the front yard. If it weren't for the bermuda I think I could really make the lawn pop just with proper cultivation and overseeding.

But oh, that bermuda . . . she is a beast. For about 24 hours after I mow (at 4") the lawn looks pretty darn good-- even, thick in most places, and a nice moderate green. But the seed heads from the bermuda come back in full force almost immediately. I expect this to worsen in July and August (though it's already fairly hot by our standards-- high 80s or low 90s every day). The only thing worse than the unsightly seed heads is the bermuda's attempt to invade my flower beds. I'm staying on top of that with spot treatment of glyphosate but obviously that is not an option in the lawn unless I'm ready to kill the whole thing. So, I plan to wait until Fall to do much, but the strategy is what I'm looking for feedback on.

I want a TTTF lawn and am considering an attempt to mix thermal blue in there with it too, in the hopes that if I can keep it alive the blue can spread into any gaps in the TTTF and help keep the turf thick and full. That part of the plan is optional and certainly open to critique. The bigger part is eradicating the bermuda. The way I see it, I have two choices:

(1) Attempt to fight this battle gradually and without killing the existing TTTF to start over. I have purchased a product by Bayer that is supposed to selectively target bermuda and was going to do multiple applications, perhaps in August and September, before overseeding in September/October. I'm 100% convinced that this will NOT eliminate the Bermuda. Life is simply not that easy. The hope is that it hits it hard enough to have a very successful overseed, and that I can keep fighting a weakened stand of bermuda next year using the selective herbicide again. The TTTF will NEVER outcompete the bermuda so I would have to stay on it until there were no signs of it trying to come back.

(2) Kill it all and start over. It's a small enough area that I am willing to do this if it's clearly the better option for long-term success, but I'd like to avoid it otherwise since my better half won't be too happy with a month (or more) of a dead front yard. I could glyphosate the whole front yard, maybe multiple applications over a few weeks, and see if I can't grow a new TTTF lawn in a (hopefully) bermuda-free space. Of course, there is some question of whether several applications of glyphosate will completely do the bermuda in anyway, but I'm sure it would be more successful than the Bayer product.

Thoughts? Advice? If you need more information, pics, etc. I'd be happy to provide that. Any input is welcome, and I thank you in advance.