A tall fescue lawn in a northern California winter is going to look a bit bedraggled, and hardly grow much. The thinning of the grass is probably due to lack of sufficient irrigation suitable for best growth in the hotter months, in combination with insufficient top soil with organic content added before you sodded it, and not fertilizing often enough to encourage better health and growth of grass. How many inches of topsoil did you add before rototilling, and how often and which months do you fertilize, and what is the N-P-K ratio of the fertilizer you are using? As to whether 20 minutes of spray irrigation is sufficient for a lawn in northern California conditions, especially if applied 4 times a week on a flat site, if anything this is overwatering, even with heavy root competition from the redwoods and oaks across the fence. It looks to me that you need to build up soil fertility in both the lawn, and particularly for the citrus tree, which shows signs of nitrogen deficiency in particular, and is probably also not getting water in summer sufficient to get rooting deeper. Just adding a mulch with chicken manure in it, or mushroom compost or similar as a 4 inch mulch, ought to help the citrus tremendously. I'd also suggest adding some time release fertilizer such as osmocote and work into the soil in March, for longer term/slow release of nutrients, and check with a soil auger how deep your irrigation is penetrating with the irrigation you are giving it. The lawn can also be top dressed with a light screened mulch after having it aerated with a core type aerator, and the top dressing raked in to help fill the holes, but it might be better to simply use a sod cutter to skim it all off, add a healthy 6 inches of organic compost to the lawn area, and resod. Lawns here typically benefit from several fertilizing periods, at least once in mid spring and again in summer and early fall, or refer to the web site referred to previously for recommendations. You might also consider using a mulching lawn mower that chops up the grass blades so that they return to the soil, and preserve the nitrogen that is otherwise thrown away with each clipping. As to Ink's complaint about "cliche" eyebrow plantings around the edge of the lawn, I don't think you are really looking at other solutions if you mean to keep the existing lawn size and layout, but I do second Ink's opinion that the narrowness of the planting areas against the fence is rather dull and static. Planting of vines to cover the fence, and widening the borders to allow at least some layering of shrubs and herbaceous plantings is entirely possible if borders were widened to minimum 4 to 8 feet wide if you can give up some lawn space. The proximity of those large redwoods and oaks across your fence is definitely tapping into the irrigation you are supplying. The vigor of the trees, and even some of the plants in your own backyard indicates to me that yours isn't so much a soil fertility problem, as it is poorly timed fertilizing and no ongoing attempts to increase organic content of your clay soils via mulching with compost, as well as not checking to see if your irrigation schedule is adequately wetting the soil to sufficient depth to encourage better growth and plant health under drought/heat stress of summer. Having dealt with many California gardens under or adjacent to redwoods and live oaks, the soil ph is unlikely to be the problem, as I am willing to bet your soil is only mildly acidic or even close to neutral. We just don't have moist enough conditions year round to create acidic soils from dropped leaves in a suburban garden setting. The problem is the root competition of water, and any plantings you add will greatly benefit from adding tons of organic component, mulching with compost on a yearly basis, selecting plants that tolerate root competition with redwood tree roots, shade and constant debris, and closely monitoring your irrigation cycles to see that the plants are getting what they need. Beyond a soils test and a landscape design, you need some help from a good horticulturist who can advise you what you are doing wrong/right in your particular circumstances. I'd also make darn sure the natives you have on your plans are compatible with redwood tree competition, as well as potential overspray from the lawn irrigation. Fertilizing more frequently for plantings below/adjacent redwoods is extremely helpful, and if you prefer the organic route, stick with a good organic mulch that has some manure in it, and reapply a couple of inches every year.

Polaris, have you considered changing your bedroom to one without an eastern exposure? Maybe on the northwest side of your house. And at 4:30 in the morning, is it LIGHT which brings you awake? or perhaps the sound of birds beginning to stir, or a train whistle or a dude coming from/going to work? Everyone has a different sensitivity to light, and different preferences as to HOW we like to be awakened as well. My DH wakes up very early too, and cannot go back to sleep. He lies there and watches me sleep w/o a problem. I've seen these old movies where people use eye masks to black out the light. That is a lot cheaper than shades. But of course, no good for reducing the heat gain in your home. I am presently making some roman shades out of 90% shade cloth and Thermalsuede lining. They will go on the north wall of our bedroom, behind floor to ceiling drapes. On the west wall, with intense latitude 30 North sun beating on the glass much of the year, I am not making roman shades of the material, but I am mounting the same fabric in flat panels floor to ceiling behind floor to ceiling drapes. This exposure faces the street, so I probably won't be opening them often. The shade cloth is normally used outdoors. You could order it from Home Depot in various lengths, but I opted for the 100' roll which is quite wide. If you have a way to make a seasonal shade mounted to your roof eave outside, this would be the material to use. Either weight it at the bottom or better yet, skewer the bottom corners to tiedowns to keep it from flapping and waking you up too. But it would cut down the solar gain a LOT.

Wow, wdccruise. Are you the same person who tells folks who want marble counters, even after they admit it's high maintenance, "I understand. Italian marble is perfect for cooks who like to make homemade pasta sauce and drink red wine." Some of us care about function AND form. If all you care about is function and you like to be preachy about it, then you should hang out in the kitchen forum and tell everyone to stop wasting their time researching custom cabinets and which stone to choose for their counters. Instead, we should all listen to you and put in stainless steel counters and shelving like in commercial kitchens. Who cares if it's brutally ugly? I am truly sorry your life is so challenging that you like to rude and obnoxious to people on Internet forums who decline to accept your advice.

Rusugiru, if you don't like the shower door (not a 'good replacement') at the link, then you don't like it. I only searched for it & posted the link because you said: there are no good replacements for our space that don't cost a ridiculous amount of money because of needing to be custom made. And because this all started out with how to replace the old bulb seal and not how to update the shower door. I suspect that because you have one of those molded one-piece shower stalls, your options for door replacement are going to be limited. Limited to framed shower doors. The frame is largely self supporting and distributes the weight & stress evenly over the somewhat fragile stall material. vs high point stress load in frameless type installations. Explained with diagrams here: https://bascoshowerdoor.com/shower-doors-101/acrylic-and-fiberglass-guide