You're not in over your head. You're in over your knowledge level. Fortunately the knowledge required is well below knee height, so it shouldn't be hard to get you back where you need to be.

Watering properly is the key to lawn care. There you go. One simple element. Here's how you do it. We call it deep and infrequent. Deep mean one full inch all at one time. Measure one inch by placing cans like cat food or tuna cans, around the yard and turning on your sprinklers. Time how long it takes your system to fill the cans. That will become your new watering time. In a few weeks you will unset the sprinkler timer and reset for that time. But before you can do that we need to discuss infrequent. Infrequent means once per week when the temps get into the 90s, once every other week with temps in the 80s, once every 3 weeks with temps in the 70s, and once a month with temps below 70s. But you can't just do that. Your grass has "learned" to be watered frequently. You'll need to go gradually to infrequency required to give your grass roots time to grow down deep enough to take advantage of the deep watering.

There are any number of ways to get to infrequent watering. Watering more deeply and less frequently now is the place to start. If you are watering every other day now, set it for every 3rd day and water to get 1/3 inch (from your can timer test). Do that for a week and then move to watering once every 5 days. Water the full inch and watch the grass carefully toward the end of the first 5 days. If it look stressed at 3-4 days, water again immediately, but do the full inch of water. Continue watching it like that and before you know it the grass will be going a full week (or 2) without needing a drink.

One thing you will notice is the soil will dry out completely at the surface. That is expected. As long as there is water down where your new deep roots are, everything will be fine with the grass. This dry surface soil is going to prevent many weed seeds from germinating. Weed seeds need several days of continual moisture, sort of like you're doing now with your watering every other day. If you deny the seeds that continual moisture, they cannot sprout. Of course Mother Nature has Her plans for your rainfall, but you can control what you can control.

If you need to reseed, NOW is the time to get hopping on that. Your window of opportunity is now through about mid September to get it done for next year. If you have Kentucky bluegrass you may not need it.

Mow at your mower's highest setting unless you are reseeding.

Fertilize on Memorial Day, Labor Day, and again after the grass stops growing but has not yet turned brown. Stay away from weed-n-feed products. If you need a fertilizer use a fertilizer. If you need to kill lots of weeds, spot spray with a liquid like Weed-B-Gone. The weed-n-feed products have several issues that you don't need to deal with if you just don't use them. Also if you watch TV in the early spring and see the advertising for seed and fertilizer, ignore them. Just wait to fertilize on Memorial Day to do it no matter what they guy in the newspaper or on TV says. They selling you products. If you fertilize early the grass uses up more root sugar than it would normally. Then by May the grass is exhausted of nutrients and requires an extra dose (great if they're selling you products). Once it awakens in the spring the grass is going to grow like it's on rocket fuel whether you fertilize or not, so just wait.

If you want to apply a preemergent herbicide, put it down when you first see the forsythia blooming. Forsythia is an early blooming plant that seems to be a good predictor of weed seed germination.

There you go. A crash course in the basics. It's relatively low hassle when you know what to do and what to avoid.

Slightly less basic is to use organic fertilizers. Organics work completely differently from chemical fertilizers. The difference you'll notice first is that they don't seem to do anything for 3 weeks after you apply. All you have to do to compensate is to move your fertilizer schedule ahead of what I gave you by 3-4 weeks. A subtle difference with organics is you don't have to worry about applying too much. Organics can't hurt the grass if you overapply. Feeding organic fertilizer will improve the overall biological health of your soil. Organic gardeners never complain about their soil looking tired, dried up, worn out, depleted, or unhealthy.

Hope that helps.

dchall_san_antonio, thanks for the advice. You are correct that I am having weeds coming up very frequently everywhere and im sick of going out there an pulling them. It makes sense that frequent watering encourages their growth. As i lower the frequency of watering, wont the weeds roots dig deep for water as well though? Also judging by the pictures, would you recommend re-seeding or do you think just changing the water schedule will do it? IF re-seeding is required should i just spread seed and be done with it or get top soil and throw it over? Also if it a watering issue that im having why is the sunlight playing such a major role on my grass's health?

I would also observe your sprinkler system to see if it is operating as necessary. If it starts while you are asleep and is done before daylight you wont notice the head that doesnt pop up, doesnt rotate, is obstructed by a new shrub, is out of adjustment, etc.

Your brown grass should just be dormant so it should come back in the fall - I wouldnt overseed.

Most likely your grass in teh shade is doing well because it is getting the water it needs for its sun exposure and your grass in full sun is suffering because it is not getting enough.

FWIW I am also from NYC and living in the country now. Didnt mow my first lawn until my late 20s twenty years ago. Now my country neighbors call me the "lawn nazi" so you can adapt if you want to. Follow the advice on this forum and you will have the nicest lawn in your neighborhood.

Haha lawn nazi :D NO SEED FOR YOU!!!!!

Anyways, i did end up overseeding today, there are a lot of bald spots in areas which is encouraging weed growth. I agree with your assessment that the grass in the sun isnt getting enough water... I will crank up the run times for those zones, they are currently set to 10 min. I set a can of tuna out there and there was barely any water in there yet alone inch!!! Im going have to water daily for a week or so because of the new seed but then I will be stepping it back and hopefully getting to at least once a week by the end of the fall.... im a bit sceptical about this watering technique because everyone in my sub waters daily if not twice a day and theyre lawns are amazing.... but at this point i guess i have nothing to lose and the logic does make sense. Ive watched some videos and seems like all the pros are recommending twice a week or so. Does anyone water once a week with success? I feel like thatd dry out the lawn real bad. Plus I think id have to set each to 45min to get a full inch!

What you want is for the water to get down to where the roots are. In a healthy lawn that should be a couple of inches down. If 10 mins of watering barely wets the bottom of a tuna can then you know it's not down a few inches. To answer your question, yes deep and infrequent watering is effective. I have an irrigation system and almost never turn it on - only when I see that the lawn is stressed. If your neighbors are watering lightly every day I can believe that their lawns are nice and green but their desirable grasses (kentucky blue, fescue, perennial rye, etc) have probably been pushed out by a weed called poa trivialis (roughstalk bluegrass) which has very, very shallow roots and spreads like crazy. It will stay green and healthy with light daily waterings. But skip 2-3 days and it will go dormant plus it is an ugly light green color and it likes to lie down rather than grow upright.. It's a bear to try to kill, so if they have it and are happy with it that's great. Sometimes a little ignorance is bliss. You will know if you have Triv if you grab a handful of turf and it pulls up like Donald Trump's hair. You'll get green blades followed by 6-18" of long stringy brown roots that lay right on the surface of the soil (where they can take advantage of that light, daily watering you are giving them). Good luck