Are there any shady areas? If so, is it dense shade or does the grass receive at least 4-5 hours of sunlight?

What kind of grass do you have? How have you been watering (frequency and duration)? How high/low have you been mowing? Have you fertilized? if so, with what and when. How cold is it getting at night?

chefjbs, tiemco probably referred to that because warm season grasses typically are cut lower and more frequent then cool season grasses, and as such the type of mower (reel) for warm season is usually recommended (but also more expensive). If you were to not have the tree debris and didn't mind exercise the Fiskars 6201 push reel mower (ie non-powered) is a great mower at around $200 (can be occasionally found on sale for ~$150). For your price-range maximum and the tiny lawn (about the same size as mine) there is no need to go crazy on the price/features. I have a Murray mower powered by a 6.5hp Briggs and Straton engine I got 10 years ago for $150 and it is still running great. Yeah it's heavy, and it's not self-propelled, but it gets the job done reliably. For mulching you don't want to skimp on engine size (or risk stalling the engine/getting unclean cuts), but unless you can't deal with the weight of the mower there really are no other reasons to spend up (IMO of course). Save money on the mower, and spend a couple bucks on some good replacement mulching mower BLADES (I personally use Gator mulching blades but there are many different types), and you will be quite happy. Just keep up on proper maintenance, as no matter how much you spend, leaving gas in over the winter, never changing the oil/air filter, using dull blades,etc. will make any mower choke prematurely. HTH

Wow! That's a lot of work. It does look normal for bermuda sod this time of year in the DFW area. That's about the end of the good news. I wish you had asked a LOT more questions before you went to all this trouble. For example the chances that you have any clay in your soil are almost nil, and that impacted a lot of what you did. You might have hard soil, but not because there's clay in it. An imbalance of salts in the soil act just like clay. In either case, though, it can be fixed so you can enjoy digging in it. The hard soil can be corrected by spraying it with shampoo at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. What you have done with the rototilling will do nothing to fix the hard soil. Once the soil settles (in 3 years), it will be hard soil again unless you restore the soil biology. Shampoo helps with that. Rototilling was a mistake. As the tilled soil settles it will become bumpier and bumpier. It can take 3 years for the settling to stop. Since bermuda is mowed at a very low mower setting, you're going to see scalping marks as you bounce your way through mowing it. What I would have suggested would have been to spray out the existing grass/weeds with RoundUp (during the growing season, not the dormancy season), chopping the dead stuff out with a verticutter/powerrake, or similar tool. Both of these steps are easy, quick and don't affect your soil structure. That would have left your soil ready for sod without the ramifications of a full rototill job. Keep doing what you're doing. You do NOT need to saturate the soil. All you need to do is moisten the underlying soil so the roots will knit into it. Every weekend try lifting a corner of a piece of sod to see if the roots are connecting. Once you're happy that they are you can back way off on the watering. Bermuda is VERY forgiving with this transition step. Set out some cat food or tuna cans and time how long it takes your sprinklers to fill the cans. That will be your watering time from now on. My sprinkler takes 8 hours but some take only 20 minutes. You need to do this test for your system. What you will have done for this test is to apply 1 inch of water all at one time. Then, since this is bermuda, let it sit for a week and evaluate it. The roots will continue to grow in because the soil is moist several inches deep. Check the soil after a week. If it is still moist on top, let it go another week. If the surface is not moist, then water it another full inch. In either case, the next time you water try letting it go dry for 2 more weeks. Again, this is bermuda. Once the roots are in the ground, you're going to have bermuda come hell or high water. Letting it dry out is beneficial for several reasons, so get the grass trained. You do not need to fertilize a new bermuda lawn until you have mowed new grass for the second time. Fertilizing before that is a waste of time and money. The grass needs to have working roots or the fertilizer doesn't do anything. Bermuda loves a monthly dose of high N (low to zero P and K) fertilizer. Along with frequent chemical fertilizer apps, at least once a year I would suggest using an organic fertilizer like corn meal, alfalfa pellets, or Milorganite. The application rate is 15 pounds per 1,000 square feet. This will ensure your soil biology does not get depleted. You'll use less chemicals with the occasional dose of organics. Hope this helps. Sorry I don't have better news about the rototilling. If you want to get a soil test, please resist the urge to get one at TAMU. The best soil test facility in the US is at Logan Labs in Ohio. Their basic $25 test would cost you upwards of $65 at TAMU for the same battery of tests.