You can smooth it out with an iron rake. Do not till. You might start by mowing what is left with the blade very low.

How did you remove the ivy and berries? I ask because they are tenacious.

It is best to make a plan before you start any work. I would say after design that you build the deck first and then do the planting.

Lots of videos online showing how to seed lawn.

The ivy and blackberry bushes will need either really careful digging out and removing of all roots or some short-lived herbicide spot applied. Otherwise they will return. Or if you aren’t in a hurry and it is sunny, put a layer of clear plastic down in the areas with those two plants, sealing the edges, and let the sun, dryness, and heat kill them over the course of a year. This will kill other plants there as well as some of the weed seeds.

Have you dug any holes to see what the soil is like? Clay or sand or construction debris or nice loam because it was a farm field in the past?

Not sure why emmarene said not to till. Perhaps she thought photo 2 was the current status. If the soil is reasonable, after killing weeds, I would add a layer of compost and till it in to remove gopher holes and mix in compost in all areas except where the deck or patio will be. Having the extra organic matter in the soil will help whatever you plant be more resilient. Or alternatively, plant a fall cover crop such as winter rye and till that in next season a few weeks before the best time to plant grass in your area. It can be mowed as a rough lawn for a while.

You don't till a lawn because the soil level will settle unevenly and make a lumpy, bumpy surface. In a garden area, that is fine. In a lawn, it is somewhere between uncomfortable and intolerable.

Generally, the prep of a new seed bed for a lawn involves a grading rake and/or rolling. Both will effectively level out any lumps or bumps that might occur with tilling. Been involved with enough new construction lawn installations to be able state this with a fair degree of assurance :-) And remarks that it takes 3 years for soil to settle after tilling are bunk!! It is just not true and rainfall/irrigation will usually take care of much of it in the first few months....grading and/or rolling just does it faster and more efficiently.

However, tilling is never a requirement. Often times, just a decent layer of soil, compost or better yet, a soil/compost mix spread evenly across the area after all the weed issues have been addressed will suffice.

Depending on location, it is getting a bit late in the season to seed a new lawn and have it properly established before cold weather sets in. And spring seeding is often ill-advised in many parts of the country due to weed proliferation at that time.

If your pH is very low (<5.5, you didn’t mention pH, though) tilling will make your initial application of lime much more effective.

" If your pH is very low (<5.5, you didn’t mention pH, though) tilling will make your initial application of lime much more effective. "

True, but fortunately, calcium perks. :-) For the four inches or so we're concerned about, it's of no great consequence. Use a nice, small sieve size and skip the tilling. And at very low pH, calcium is so soluble that it'll perk fast.

I would generally agree...most people should discount tilling as something to do in their gardens. However, experts can still do it in very prescribed circumstances and it's actually a good idea. cf: https://www.turface.com/resources/article/tilling-field-fairway

https://usaturf.com/hummerturfgrass/our-field-equipment/equipment-item/soil-tillage/

Adding soil and raking it smooth, then overseeding is the simplest way to go. As far as whether or not it's too late in the season, that depends on where you are. If you're not sure if you're in the window, give your local cooperative extension office a call. I know that here in VA we still have 90 degree days ahead of us so fall overseeding season hasn't even started yet (because the weather here sucks? yes).

I'm also on team no-till. In addition to the great points that morpheuspa mentioned, I think it could be a disaster with a neglected yard. You're bringing more weed seeds to the surface, and if there are weeds that spread via rhizomes you'll just be chopping them up into more weeds, not killing them.

OP, you don't really want to end up with what we see in the second picture. That's just an intermediary stage. I would stop doing any and all work in your yard until you have DESIGNED the deck, lawn and "flower bed." Once you have a design on paper, you'll be able to calculate your direction and figure out a logical plan of attack. Without it, you could be doing some needless work.

Also, take into account what surrounds your yard. Since you have ivy in the yard, does it also exist in the adjacent yards? If it does, depending on what your yard ends up being, you may be creating a never ending maintenance nightmare. Creating a plan is getting everything figured out before turning the first shovel of dirt.

gardengal said, And remarks that it takes 3 years for soil to settle after tilling are bunk!! It is just not true and rainfall/irrigation will usually take care of much of it in the first few months....grading and/or rolling just does it faster and more efficiently.

In my experience in Texas soil, it takes 3 years. Maybe in the PNW (gardengal's region) it can be handled with a roller, but in my area the soil settled for 3 years. The easy way is to avoid the issue and level by scraping the surface without rototilling.

You can spray the entire area with RoundUp once and follow that up with daily light watering in an attempt to sprout every weed seed out there. After a week of that spray the RU on anything new that germinated. By doing that you will not get new weeds coming up with the grass seed while you're starting the new area.

That yard you showed in the picture was likely scraped off with a tractor and a box blade. That's how landscapers do it. For a yard that size with no obsticles in the middle it would take an experienced guy one pass. So in less than an hour it could be done. If someone tried to do that with a Bobcat or SkidSteer, it might take all day and it would not be as good as the 1-hour job with the proper equipment. We have a new house going in in the hood, and the other day it took a Bobcat all afternoon to flatten a 20-ft driveway. So the point is if you're paying by the hour, get someone who uses the right equipment. Then again, you need to get the equipment through the fence, so there's that factor to consider. Here's the right equipment (not the SkidSteer).