I got rid of my lawn with round up.

There is some evidence that spraying the glyphosates around aggravate lung problems. It is strongly advised that people with Asthma, Emphasema, Chronic Broncitus, the whole COPD thing, avoid areas where those types of materials are being sprayed. The glyphosates are not very environmentally frienddly either.
Covering the lawn with a light impervious material, in parts, will cause the grass that is there to die although some grasses will grow back, like Quack Grass even three or four years from now. Newspaper, Cardboard, a very thick layer of mulch all will deny what is growing underneath from access to the sun all plants need to grow.
I am told I have 48 percent lung capacity today so working outside can be difficult, but I find I can still lay down newspaper and cover that with wood chip mulch if I pace myself.

Gather all cardboard, newspaper, paper bags, and junk mail that you would have recycled anyway. Don't use any shiny paper, just plain paper. Wet your grass/weeds and put your cardboard/paper layer over it. Make sure to overlap the edges. If using paper, use 5-6 layers. Thoroughly wet the paper layer.

Next is the organic mulch layer. You can use any organic material. Use leaves and grass cuttings from your own yard. Get coffee grounds from your local Starbucks. See if your county or a local tree trimming company has any cheap or free tree mulch. You need at least 3-4 inches of organic materials. Make sure this layer is also wet.

Some people use bales of straw as their organic material, which becomes sort of like a raised bed.

I also have lung disease and try to stay away from chemicals as much as possible.

If the lawn area is large it will be a lot of work to gather all the organic materials to make the layers so thick. I did cardboard in one area and I was not happy with it. It just made a lot of mush that I had to then dig it all out. Round up you just spray, you can wear a mask or have someone else spray it. You wait until the grass sort of starts to die, you repeat the spraying. However, it took over one years time in total to get rid of it this way. Gardening and composting is a huge amount of work. Even if you you did use the cardboard and organics, you would still have to work it later on. Round up is easy fast and cheap. Even just collecting free stuff, even carrying bags of grounds from starbucks, is work. Once the lawn is dead from the round up, you could have a garden service bring in mulch to cover it up. You may be able to find a gardener on craigslist list who would not so expensive as a service. I don't have a problem with work, myself, but if I wanted a no work way, round up. But, people would rather sit with a yard filled with huge weeds because they won't weed it by hand and they won't use round up. I would not use it near plants that you want to keep. Round up is good for a big area or for weeds like bind weed that you can't dig out.

Tropical, jbander said that s/he wanted to do a little at a time and have it be as inexpensive as possible.

Sheet mulching is free, or almost free, and you can do a little bit at a time. Roundup costs money and still takes a year of spraying to get rid of every weed and grass, as you stated yourself. With sheet mulching/lasagna, you can plant right away in some cases.

Sheet mulching did absolute wonders for my terrible soil. I'm glad I have my Roundup handy for the corner where poison ivy keeps popping up, but I can't imagine spraying my entire yard with it. Jbander, if you have no qualms about using chemicals, I guess it's an option, but sheet mulching was not a lot of work at all.

If you buy the concentrate round up it mix with water it gets much cheaper. Don't buy the premixed round up. It would still cost less to use the round up on a lawn as opposed to buying or collecting 3 to 4 inches of organic materials to put on top of the cardboard. Yes, could get card board for free in the back of supermarkets, and maybe you could weight it down with rocks that are free. But, this would still involve lifting the rocks. Maybe you can get free big pieces of mulch for city collection but you still have to load it in bags and carry and home and unload it. I did free mulch I had never been so exhausted after 13 huge trash bags were loaded by me and distributed by me. I got one bottle of the super concentrate got rid of the whole lawn and I still have plenty in that bottle. I don't know if I will ever run out, now I use it so infrequently. You mix it with water in a spray bottle. But on the downside the lawn looked awful for one full year.

This sounds like a big round-up advertisement. Maybe that's Monsanto's advertising philosophy... There is not such thing as bad publicity...

Well the easiest way to get rid of/kill the grass is with a herbicide. However merely killing the grass is not the only objective for the OP.

I just delivered over 12 yards of wood chips to a couple in town who have only maybe about a 4 x 10 area of actual grass. The whole rest of their front yard is shrubs, wood chips and trees and it actually looks really nice. They re-apply chips every several years apparently.

Lloyd

Once I used the round up I did wood chips, but then I changed to microbark because it can be composed, but it costs a lot of money, maybe 300 dollars to get the main area microbarked. Round up is not a long term solution you will get too much dust and mud after the grass dies.

Great responses , I'm getting a clearer picture of what I can do, it looks like there is going to be a bit of up front work no matter what I do .My latest thought is putting down black plastic and cover with a few inches of red chips. And cut holes in the plastic and plant some spreading hew or spreading arborvitae and possibly some type of vine ground cover that I can also plant through cuts in the plastic. Is this a direction that I can think about or is there something I'm missing. This won't be for walking on very much I can put in a brick path across it, so I can get to my studio.

Plastic on soil will keep that soil from breathing and that soil will then become anaerobic. That plastic will also keep rain water from getting into the soil. Plastic is not a good thing to use to suppress plant growth.
For those that have no idea about lung diseases a mask that might prevent inhaling the sprays from plant poisons can cost $100.00 or more. Some of us have been genetically programed to have lung disease (look up Alpha1 antitrypsin) and not because we chose to smoke or work where we were exposed to toxins. If you know little or nothing about Asthma, Emphysema, Bronchitis, all the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease do not make inane suggestions about how we can easily protect ourselves.

They do sell weed blocking fabric which would be better then plastic to use to block weeds. I don't have much faith in it. I don't think round up is harmful. I don't wear a mask myself, when I use it, but I don't have lung problems either. You don't have to be so rude as to say it was inane to suggest wearing a mask. I wear dust masks all the time around the house if I am dusting. I am not a doctor. I am not giving medical advice.

Some people just hate round up, and nothing can be done to change their mind. So, they will think up all kind of awful things about round up. I have had people tell me things like it will kill birds. Sometimes if you don't like something you would do better to look at the facts of a product rationally rather then demonize it.

how about a goat...

I am not a fan of Roundup or any other broad based herbicide. It may be easy, quick and inexpensive but what are the longer term consequences of its extensive use in both the immediate and extended environments?

I have a wonderful friend who is closer to 90 than he is to 80. He is a big fan of Roundup and when I voiced some concern about its enivironmental impact he told me quite clearly, "its my land and I can use and do whatever I want to it."

I too have some concerns about the volume of chemicals used nationwide and worldwide. On the other hand, right now we're just talking about killing a lawn once, not 'long term consequences of extensive use'.

Jon dear, what about a goat?

every time I see the title of this thread I have the urge to reply with "smoke it" ... so I'm gonna get it over with and get it out of my system ...

Smoke it.

Tropical, a dust mask is not going to do anything for someone with any lung disease when spraying any kind of material. Dust masks are barely adequate to keep an Asthmatic from inhaling the allergens. To help keep the volatile mists from being inhaled an, very expensive, mask with a certain types of HEPA filters will be needed.
I find that even as common as Asthma is most people do not have a clue about it and have even less knowledge about other Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases, COPD.

I would not use black plastic or fabric cloth, unless you spread it for a short-term and you don't put anything on top. The plastic will eventually fall apart and become a nightmare to remove if mixed in with soil and mulch. The landscape fabric will also become a pain as organic matter accumulates on top and your plants and weeds will grow into the fabric. Also a nightmare to remove.

A one time application of Round up to prepare a larger area for seeding a prairie or meadow is probably the easiest way. The OP could wear a good quality respirator to protect his lungs. If applied according to instructions, on a calm and sunny day, it will dry quickly and have the least impact on surrounding plants or wildlife.

On the other hand, I've had a great experience creating garden beds by laying down a paper layer and then covering with an inch or so of either wood chips or leaves to kill weeds. It takes longer for the weeds to die off however, but it enriches the soil, preserves moisture and the worms LOVE it.

You may want too look at converting your lawn to a fine fescue mix of slow and low growing grasses. They do well in Minnesota. A few nurseries market their own mixes, but they are basically a mix of certain brands of sheeps and chewing fescue. You can mow them once or twice a year, or not at all. They grow very slow and max out at certain height.

If you buy the seed mix, they will have instructions on the best way to kill the existing lawn and convert it to a slow-n-low growing turf.

Here is a link that might be useful: no mow

Herbicide will work & you can get a good organic chemical mask with vents for about $ 20.00 dollars.
But Cardboard boxes will do also, I just put out a small truck load in my blueberry patch.
I will have pic's after I have covered the paths.
This is my first time doing this.
Where is all the "No-Till" guys & gals to say how great this is?
I would like to use wood chips,but I have coffee waste & will use it.

The $20.00 masks are no better for those with Asthma then the $1.00 dust masks. The protective masks that will do the job for those of us with Asthma make using chemical sprays too cost prohibitive. For many of the vapor particles from these sprays we often really need activated charcoal filters to prevent an attack that could result in hospitalization.

The cardboard is labor intense & would stop the Asthma members in my family.
So maybe op should get someone to do the work with/ for them.
Family,friends,church groups could help with this.
I am helping friends put in a raised bed garden this Spring.
I think we gardener should do more then just talk the talk on line. As do many of you who have been in the trenches for many years know & do yourself.

Roundup and a whole bunch of other weed killers, including the supposed long term ones are not nearly as nasty as some think.

I have a crushed granite driveway parking lot and last summer I put five different kinds of weed/grass killers on it to kill weeds. Not one single one came even close to killing all the weeds, including areas that were repeated ly resprayed.

They can be annoying on a lawn when one gets careles and over-spray gives a temporary brown spot, but unless one uses agricultural/commercial grade spray, I believe they are over-rated.

The only thing I ever used on the drive-way that lasted a full year was old gasoline that had become to much like varnish.

As I wrote in another thread, IF you can get help and have access to a rental store. Rent a sod-cutter and cut the sod off and either haul it away or have them dig a pit deep enough so that a covering of dirt can be put over the stacked sod, even if three fourths are above grade, as it will turn into a dirt mound quite quickly.

The sod-cutter idea ia a good one. Perhaps there would be someone on Craig's List who would be willing to do this for you in exchange for the sod. It seems like it would be win/win.

The dead sod can be hard like a rock, and it does take years to break down. You can't just dump some coffee and wood on the lawn and expect it to magically disappear.

Sod is dead within weeks, days if the weather is too hot, and does not take years to break down.
I have laid enough and had to throw away dead sod that sat to long because the owner bought it too early, too often.
Take a roll of sod leave it lie for one year, then go to try to pick it up it will break in half as the middle will have rotted.
The out side is like any mulch pile, it is the last to go.

One odd-annoying thing, at least around here-- sod rolls now are inches wider than they were thirty to forty years ago but sod cutters still cut to the old size.

What I mean is not "the sod on a roll", but the dead hard lawn that you stopped watering. I think I meant to say the thatch, so I said the "dead sod", assuming it was sod lawn to begin with.

Someone just suggested that if you can hire someone to roto till the lawn it will go away. I don't know anything about roto tilling. But, that does sound fast if money is not an issue.