I just found your blog while doing my initial research on pool builder (found it in your Yelp review). I loved reading about your experience and seeing the pics along the way! Thank you so much for the wonderful insight. I have to say that your pool installation has made me so excited to pull the trigger on our own, and now when I need a break at work, I go to your blog -- my new "Happy Place".

Update: After several more hours of research, I think I'm down to a choice between Amerimax and Anlin. It seems that the Anlins may be slightly more efficient, but Amerimax has more choice and probably a lower price. People coming this week. As for California Deluxe, I can't find any published ratings, but it appears they are no more efficient than the other two, probably more expensive and the company has some shady sales techniques. If they call, I'll talk to them, but I don't see going that way. So any comment on Anlin vs Amerimax?

Do you need a lawn in the back? Marathon, once it is dead, it's dead. Some tufts will likely come back here and there if we get some winter rain, but it won't fill in. I'd reseed with the same, or else you have to kill off what comes up if you want something different and uniform. If you want to save water, you might be interested in trying a Kurapia lawn. I talked to a long time pro who replaced her lawn with it and is quite pleased. It does need to be regularly edged to keep it out of garden beds. Haven't grown it myself--I don't have or need a lawn.

The very best way is to hire a tractor (and driver) with a box blade. If it is a traditional SoCal yard, it will take about 30 minutes. Or you can DIY with some effort. Probably the hardest part is to figure out whether you need to remove soil that's already there. I'm going out on a limb here, because I see a lot more (LOT MORE) yards needing to remove soil, but I'm going to suggest you should remove soil. If the soil is higher than the surrounding hardscape, it should be removed down to, more or less, level with a slight crown in the middle for drainage. Once that is done you can deal with high and low spots. Assuming the grass is gone, then look for low spots to fill with sand. Smooth that off with a long 2x4 board with some weight on it. Or you can drag a piece of wire fencing around. I made a chain link drag with rope, wood, bag of sand (for weight), and fencing. It worked great for a small area. So with the drag you drag that around until it looks perfect. Then spray it all down with a mist of water to encourage the sand to settle without washing it away. Let that dry and fill the new low spots with more sand. Drag, water, and evaluate again. After about 3 cycles of that you should have a relatively perfect surface. Don't walk on that until the grass is down. Sand works better than topsoil for this because topsoil always has little clods in it. Even a 1/4-inch clod will make you scream as it creates a furrow in the sand. You can make it putting-green smooth, which is a great goal. After the sod is down, then use a roller to press the bottom of the sod down onto the surface of the soil/sand. Roots will not grow through the air to reach the ground. Of if it is a small area, you can achieve the same result by walking on every square inch of sod to press it down. Your weight is perfect for this. You might want the sand to be moist/firm when you do this. Dry sand might push around and defeat the purpose of leveling.