Biggest advocate? or are you feeling lazy today? Well I suppose I am an advocate, but only because I was so shocked that it worked so well. Even my wife, who thinks my lawn care ideas are a little scary at times, sees the benefit and carries a bottle of soap into the garden with her if she finds some hard soil. I had developed a method to soften hard soil, but it took weeks for just a small area unless you invested heavily in soaker hoses. I had been reading morph and others raving about using a specially formulated concoction of soap powders that morph came up with. The problem with that was I didn't want a lifetime supply of powders. So I tried doing it with shampoo, baby shampoo to be specific. It worked fantastically over a large area, quickly, and seemingly permanently. After spraying with the shampoo (3 ounces per 1,000 square feet), then every time it rained my soil became so soft it was difficult to walk on. It was like walking on fluffy beach sand. It firms up again as the soil dries out. Apply like this. Use a hose end sprayer. If you have 3,000 square feet to spray, pour 9 ounces of shampoo into the sprayer. Fill it the rest of the way with water and spray it at any setting to evenly cover the entire area. It doesn't matter if you miss spot or go heavy. You can redo it any time. Morph has tried to overdo it by applying far too much of his soap and never encountered any damage from too much soap. Give it about 3 weeks and you should see a dramatic improvement. One of the guys on that other forum he mentioned had a limb fall off a tree and embed itself 24 inches deep into his soap-softened soil. How does it work? Tons of research has been done using surfactants like Cascade Plus (not the dishwasher soap) on golf courses. Those are focusing on a slightly different aspect of the wetting issue, but it is related. My theory is that the shampoo allows water to penetrate much deeper into the soil which changes the ecosphere down there. The moisture keeps the soil at a more constant temperature and humidity. This is the perfect environment for the beneficial fungi which live in the soil. Those guys are the ones softening the soil for you. You don't have to do anything as long as you are keeping them fed (organic fertilizer) and watered. You can find that other forum by searching for his name and mine in the same search. Find the forum where they do the soil tests and read how to get started. Logan Labsis the place to get the soil tested. Get the Standard $25 test. As morph mentioned, hard soil is often not clay but an imbalance in salts. If you treat for clay, the salt problem will keep the soil hard. If you treat for salts, and it was clay, then you haven't fixed it either. Get the soil tested and read. You didn't mention timing for when you did what you did, so I'm going to give you a general calendar for lawn care. NOW: apply a preemergent herbicide to take care of weeds that are about to sprout. The preemergents last about 3 months, so the benefit should take you through awakening in late March or early April. Also now, do not feel the pressure to fertilize the lawn. It will not need fertilizer until Memorial Day in late May. You'll see all the feed stores advertising fertilizer saying "NOW IS THE TIME." Now is not the time. Memorial Day is the time. Mid April: Spot spray weeds with something like Weed-b-Gon or Weed-b-Gon Chickweed, Clover, and Oxalis Killer. Those are different products. The WBG CCO is a stronger product. Late May: fertilize with your choice. My choice is organics from the feed store. I like alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow) or corn meal. In your area you'll find soybean meal much cheaper than I can get it here. Soybean meal is a better fertilizer, so get that in a 50-pound bag. Apply at a rate of 15 pounds per 1,000 square feet. You cannot over apply soybean meal either. If you accidentally double it - fine. If you spill the bag on the ground, use a rake to spread it out or a leaf blower to keep from smothering the grass. No harm done, though. That spot would become the greenest spot in the yard in about 3 weeks. Mid August: Overseed the grasses of your choice. I would stick with normal lawn grasses like turf type tall fescue, rye, and/or Kentucky bluegrass. Labor Day: fertilize again Mid September: Spot spray the weeds only if you feel the need. Thanksgiving (or there abouts): Winterize the lawn after it stops growing but before you get a hard frost. The roots will still be working underground to absorb the nitrogen and hold it for spring 2022 when the grass awakens. Use a high N like 45-0-0 fast release. Basically urea. Also what is your watering schedule. All I've said here sort of depends on regular watering. If you don't water and rely on rain to water the grass, then you can just forget all this and accept the weeds as a result.

This is an example of teals: https://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/color-overview/find-your-color/color-a-room/1746/living-room-7?q=teal&category=color&start=11&color=649&combination=OC-46,OC-46,OC-46&room=1746 I think a melon color would look good: https://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/color-overview/find-your-color/color-a-room/1746/living-room-7?q=melon&category=color&color=2033-70&combination=OC-46,OC-46,OC-46&room=1746 I think even some of these darker reds look good with a dark floor: https://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/color-overview/find-your-color/color-a-room/1746/living-room-7?q=red&category=color&start=11&color=CSP-1170&combination=OC-46,OC-46,OC-46&room=1746 I hope these ideas helped

Yes, the Gary Gragg videos. He has some beautiful trees, even though I find it a bit annoying to listen to him. I'm always thinking, "Get to the point already!" But, to your point, yes, the mounding and mulching is definitely going to happen here. Interestingly, the Japanese method mounds 60 centimeters above ground and uses a long rubber sheet that is that wide. They wrap it in a circle and tie it with some kind of nylon a bit more rugged than you would see on luggage at the airport. The soil then fills the circle and the tree is planted in there. five years in a 2-meter diameter circle, and then they expand to a wider area. We have an intense rainy season and heavy clay soil. I want to get those roots into the native soil, but I have heard some stories of the tap root getting rotted out after the trees have been in the ground for several years. I really don't want to have healthy trees for a few years only to have the rotted taproots be the reason they die. So, with that nightmare in the back of my brain, I keep coming back to digging a meter down and putting in some kind of drain to push water out and down the slope. I don't mind the rain going through the soil because I think avocados like that, but I want it to have a path to exit. Since avocados usually get a tap root of 1 meter, I figure I can dig down maybe 50 cm to install some kind of simple drainage system, cover with native soil with maybe 10 percent pumice and then build up 60 cm above ground with the same soil. I could add 25 percent pumice to the top 18 cm and heavily mulch.

I would paint the walls a color, not necessarily lighter, but something that goes with your countertop. And then maybe introduce some accessories with color. Your pictures are so small, and not expandable, that I have difficulty in seeing any details.