Why do you want to change?

I have some shade on the side and section of the rear and the bermuda doesn't do well in those areas, as well as some bare spots. I also perfer the plush look better.

I'm not a real big fan of bermuda in our area. It goes dormant early in the fall and doesn't green up again unitl sometime in Arpil leaving you a brown lawn for a good part of the year. It does have it's benefits such as repairing itself.

When I did my reno in 2013 I had 2 large patches of common bermuda which many said I would never get rid of it completely. So far it hasn't come back. Here's what I did to kill it. First, I fed it with a fast realease, high nitrogen fertilizer in mid July and watered that in well. Luckily we had plenty of rain that summer and by the end of July it was really dark green and healthy. That's when I nuked it. You want it to be as healthy as possible before killing it. I used plain old 41% glyphosate from Tractor Supply. You can buy the 2 1/2 gallon jug for about $60 so it's pretty cheap. It doesn't work quite as fast as RoundUp but that's actually a good thing. Seems most of the RoundUp products have something in them that causes wilting in about a day. The stuff from Tractor Supply will take about a week to show any signs of damage but this allows it to be drawn into the roots so you get a more complete kill. Once it starts yellowing you can begin watering often to germinate any weed seeds and green up any of the bermuda that wasn't completely killed. After two to three weeks spot spray anything that's green. You should now be ready to seed.

The Tractor Supply glyphosate claims to already have a surfactant in it but I add some in anyway. At the time I did mine I used baby shampoo but have since found out that an actual surfactant may work better. Tractor Supply should also have that too. Just follow the label and add the amount per gallon they call for.

Good catch! Guess I left that part out. I didn't rake anything. Instead I mowed as low as my mower goes 1 1/2" with the bagger. Providing the roots and all are dead you should be ready to seed. You will want to get your seed down by mid September and water lightly 3 times a day. The goal is to keep the top layer of soil moist (just moist, not wet). With tall fesuce you'll want to put down 8 to 10lbs of seed per 1,000 square feet of lawn. If you get the watering right you should have germination in a week. Keep watering lightly 3 times per day for 3 weeks and then start backing off. I did my first mowing 2 weeks after seeding. After the 3 week mark you can overseed any thin spots. By mid October it should be pretty thick. By next spring it should be really thick!

Ed, the reason I asked why you wanted to get rid of the bermuda is that some people are misinformed about it and think they will gain something that is impossible by changing.

Before complaining about the clay, and especially if you're going to use clay as an excuse, spend $25 for a soil test from Logan Labs. 95% (seriously) of the people coming to this forum claiming to have clay do not have clay. They have a mixture of salts in their soil that makes the soil act like clay. Usually it is easy enough to compensate for the salt imbalance and restore the non-clay workability to the soil. Look at a few of the soil test posts on this forum and read the replies from morpheuspa. You get much more from a Logan Labs soil test than you can ever get from a local county or state soil test.

Even if it turns out you do have clay, you do not need additional topsoil. Adding topsoil with seed and even topdressing with topsoil for no good reason has become common around the country. Here is a picture of the effect of topdressing 1/4 inch every year for 40 years...

The soil is piled up so high they had to put in landscaping borders to keep it from washing onto the concrete and street. The only reason to add topsoil is if you have a low spot you need to fill. Your soil chemistry can almost always be corrected with the $25 soil test and the soil biology can be corrected with occasional doses of organic fertilizer.

Adding compost is an expensive and back breaking way to get the same effect as adding organic fertilizer. In my neighborhood at local prices I can fertilize 15 times before it costs as much as one dose of compost. And before suggesting you use fertilizer when you seed, I would wait and see what the soil test tells you about what fertilizer you need. Certainly organic fertilizer can be used any time, but if you need specific blasts of other micro or macro nutrients, only the soil test will tell you. Hopefully you can get the soil tuned up perfectly before you get around to seeding.

dchall is correct. Here in NC we do have quite a bit of clay in the soil but in reality it's not solid clay and it's very usable soil with a little help. There's no need to add topsoil UNLESS you have low spots or have drainage issues. If you haven't been feeding with organics, compost is a quick way to jump start the soil microbes but isn't completely necessary. Our local waste water treatment plant sells compost for $10 per yard, and even cheaper if you buy a dump truck load. If your lawn isn't too big and you have something like this in your area go for it. If you have a large lawn and it would require tons of labor to spread it out then maybe not. That's completely up to you and how much you want to put in it.

My fertilizing regimen consists of an organic feeding in early May of alfalfa followed up by milorganite a few weeks later. From there, I'll do either alfalfa or milorganite in mid September just after overseeing. Then I begin with urea late September/early October as often as possible with a final urea application once the grass stops growing (usually around Christmas) for a winterizer. My lawn has never looked better. For years I was stuck on the Scott's program which typically puts you fertilizing at the wrong times. After doing a lot of research and with help from the folks here it's made a huge difference.

Dchall also has a ton of good advice. Some of it sounds kind of crazy but it does work. His baby shampoo trick for hard soil really seems out there but after trying his method I can say without a doubt it does exactly what he said it would do. Morpheus also has a ton of great advice. Sit back and do some reading. There's a lot here to learn and plenty of folks willing to share their knowledge.

How about that, morph! Now it's MY shampoo trick. I got the method from morph and thought it was his trick for a year or so. Now I'm not sure where it came from. I do know there are surfactant products used mostly by professional sports teams and golf courses to soften soil, so the Genesis is in those products.

Not sure who actually started it but I do remember a couple years ago reading about "shampooing" the lawn to soften the soil written by some crazy guy out of Texas. Figured I would waste a few buck and give it a try and couldn't believe how well it works. Makes the lawn smell really good for a couple days too!

Last year I found that used coffee grounds also help in an indirect way. Worms absolutely love them and will gladly aerate the soil wherever you put the grounds out. I usually get two to three 5 gallon buckets per week and put them out wherever the lawn seems to need a little help. I've got worms everywhere now and often see them late in the evening just crawling around on top of the grass. Good stuff!

Sniff.

Surfactants as soil softeners and water penetrants have been around for decades, at least. Andy started with the shampoo, I just stabilized and cheapened the formula, plus expanded it to include some other surfanctants.

Technically, baby shampoo is the poor little brother of the formal formula, which is both cheaper and works better--but does require ordering SLS or SLES online as it's not something you'll find locally.

Bermuda grass spreads by underground stems (rhizomes) and
aboveground runners (stolons). It seeds pretty aggressively too.

Because it's so tough and persistent, you can use an
herbicide (glyphosate) to kill it.

Spray, strip off the dying sod and irrigate to generate growth
of any surviving rhizomes and then repeat the process at least once.

If you haven't got any solution then try to get some professional help. I am providing you some reliable sources that you can try once:

Have a look at these options:

Sources: http://www.thelandscapecompany.com/services.php

http://goodalllandscaping.com/

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Please let me know if any of these was useful.