What will the yard be used for? I suspect there are active children in the scene. Any pets?

Is there any shade?

I've heard of North Carolina and South Carolina, where's East Carolina? Cape Hatteras?

Spring is a poor time to seed new grass. You can use sod all year long, but seed in the spring is going to lead you to a yard of weeds by July. There is a reasonably effective way around the weeds. Basically you wait until late March and water it like a crazy person (that means daily). In a week to 10 days you'll have all the weeds sprouting. Then hit them with RoundUp to kill them all. Keep watering to get any stragglers up and growing. Then spray again a week later. Then you could put seed in. BUT, spring seeded grass usually does not have a strong root system for the summer heat, so there's a problem. If you are willing to go with bermuda, you could seed that in late May through July. Soil has to be hot, so spring is not the time to seed bermuda.

More topsoil will change your drainage. I would keep what you have unless you have low spots that need to be filled. I would make a drag and start leveling the sand and get some practice. You want the surface to be perfectly profiled with drainage built in before you seed (or sod).

Thanks for the quick reply dchall! And thanks for your contributions to the site. I should clarify that I'm in eastern NORTH Carolina (greenville). The area will be used mostly by my kids. No shade, no pets (though my son behaves like one sometimes). I hope I didn't shoot myself in the foot, but figured it was best to wait until after winter to plant seed. Also read alot about the area of the trunk sinking over the years as the remaining trunk rots. Anyway, I'm not opposed to bermuda, so sounds like I should wait a few months to plant some bermuda seed? Thanks again for the help!

Glad you're open to bermuda. It will work and you'll never need to seed again. Even with bare spots at the bottom of the slide, once the kids take a break from sliding, the bermuda will come back by itself.

If you were trying to have a really nice bermuda lawn you would fertilize it heavily every month with a high N low P and K fertilizer. You would mow it at the mower's lowest setting twice a week, and deep water on an infrequent basis. Since this is a play yard, you can certainly do what you want, but that's the basics of good bermuda care. That process keeps the turf dense and dark green. Allowing it to go unmowed will thin out the grass and allow weeds in more easily. Perhaps you don't want to be putting chemical fertilizers on the ground every month. Instead you could use soybean meal or alfalfa pellets at a rate of 20 to 30 pounds per 1,000 square feet.

Come on DC, don't be scaring off all the bermuda hopefuls! Once a week is plenty of mowing & only golf courses fertilize every month. You also don't have to buy a fancy expensive reel mower, a rotary works fine unless you want to cut at 1/2" or lower. Other than that, all the advantage DC listed are spot-on BUT go with sod instead of seed--Just trust me on that one.