Do a soil test for PH. It's a lot harder to add lime AFTER the grass is planted. Also, if you want to make your maintenance easier down the road...Till in some good organic matter if your soil structure is poor.

Yikes. As soon as you rototill, you will have zero soil structure. That's the fastest way to get poor soil structure is to rototill.

Adding lime is just as easy now as any time in the future. It goes on top. If you get a soil test, get the $25 test at Logan Labs in Ohio. Their test is very good and much more comprehensive than any county or university test (except UMASS). Post the results on this forum and morpheuspa will tell you what to apply, where to get it, how much to apply, when, and how often. Measuring the pH is not the whole story on lime.

I would rake off the mulch, then level as Tom mentioned. Water it good to settle any loose soil and relevel it. Repeat that until you have it level, and then spread the mulch back over it for the winter rest.

Spring is a poor time to seed new grass, but it's not the worst time. The first problem with spring seeding is the roots will not be heat resistant before the summer heat hits. If the grass withers and dies, it will be replaced with crabgrass. Still, crabgrass is at least green. The second reason with spring seeding is that's when the 2016 crabgrass will be germinating. When you water the new seed, the new weed seeds get watered, too. Crabgrass germinates first, so there is some tendency to think that the real grass seed is germinating. If you stop watering because the grass is germinated, all you will have is crabgrass. Still, crabgrass is green. The best time to seed new grass is in the fall. You avoid both of these issues.

On the other hand you could put down sod. You can do that just about any time sod is available in your area. Sod is an instant lawn with fairly mature grass.

lime moves through the soil VERY slowly mr. Antonio. Better to add it first. And incorporating organic matter with a tiller will help with soil structure in the long run. I do this with all my new seeding and sodding jobs whenever possible. It really shows when we do. much less maintenance down the road.

Lime is only needed near the surface where the roots are. Lime deeper than the roots is wasted.

There are different kinds of lime. You can't recommend adding lime until you have a soil test that shows which kind of lime to add. A simple pH test is good enough to indicate a need, but it is not good enough to indicate which kind of lime. If you use the wrong one you can bind up the soil tighter than it already is. For the OP, being in NJ they probably have a sandy soil, but we don't know that, either.

What kind of organic matter are you talking about? The best organic matter is the soil borne microbes, and the second best is the dead roots sloughed off by the grass every year. Mother Nature does not bury any other type of organic matter except that sloughed off by the plants and by the microbes. Burying peat, leaves, and twigs in the ground only prolongs the decomposition of peat, leaves, and twigs. They might contribute to structure in the sense that they absorb moisture and dry out again, but their decomposition requires nitrogen from the air. During the subterranean decomposition the process will rob nitrogen from other sources that would otherwise feed the plants.

What kind of maintenance is reduced down the road? Watering, mowing, or fertilizing? Or something else? I realize I can come across as confrontational (to say the least), but I am wide open to learning new things about soil, grass, and maintenance thereof. Professionals in this field always have valuable information. Getting them to share can be an issue, but if you're interested in helping, we would really like to benefit from your expertise. With regard to rototilling, the problem is that it turns a soil that already has a developed capillary structure, complete with some degree of organic matter (dead roots and microbes), and a stratified microbial environment into a pile of fluffy soil particles that condense down on themselves. That mass of fluffy particles has no structure at all in the beginning. Microbes only thrive at certain depths under the soil, so stirring them up kills all but those which happen to land at the proper depth where they started. Our experience has shown that it can take as much as three years for a mixed soil to return to a stable structure where all the fluffed up soil returns back to the original volume with good drainage and air circulation. And this presumes that you did not rototill sawdust or other wood chips in. Rather than tie up the OP's issues with a more detailed discussion, this topic would be great for a new topic. If you have before and after pictures, those are always helpful in making points.

I guess we shall see if it dies in the Spring and Summer. My guess is that it looks amazing.

If I had a chance to rototill and start over I'd definitely throw some of those water absorbing polymer beads in there. Anyone have any experience with those?

That's a good question, I am wondering that myself. I had a customer do that after we aerated his lawn but it's too early to see the results.

The ones I've looked at indicated that they need to be tilled into the soil 3-4 inches because they degrade and become useless when exposed to UV light. I was very tempted to add some as well when I aerated, but it said 90% would end up on the surface and be wasted. I imagine the constant expansion and contraction of those beads as they absorb and release water would help keep down soil compaction too and make for a fluffy top layer.

Ali - get the soil test from Logan Labs before you do anything, really. It's only $25 and you'll know everything you need to know before you make any further investment in your lawn. If you are high in magnesium and you add dolomitic lime instead of calcitic lime your lawn could be screwed. Too much magnesium is a problem that isn't easy to fix. If you are low in magnesium then adding calcitic lime will be the wrong thing to do. Get the soil test before the ground freezes and let morpheus analyze it for you.

Yes, you could probably do a lot of things wrong and still come out of it with a decent lawn... or something else could happen. Why take shortcuts when doing it right is so easy?

Oh, if you are interested to try, do a google search on the soil jar test. It will tell you (us) what your soil is in terms of sand, silt and clay.