Remove Lawn, How difficult ?

The difficulty would appear to be the upkeep on a 2000sf garden. "Garden" as in U.S. definition of edibles, not U.K. version of yard.

I think your plan is missing a lot of the growing season for this year, but you have not specified your location. Mulch will not keep all weeds away, and fabric just makes it harder to remove them when they appear.

Yes, it can certainly be a DIY project!! But I would revise to use a sod cutter rather than rototill. Faster and less soil disruption, which you really want to avoid :-) The only complicated portion is figuring out the design and plant selection, which often requires a skill level not all homeowners possess. But you can easily consult with a landscape designer for a hour or two for a very modest fee to help you out.

If you use any landscape fabric, confine it to only the underlaying of any pathways or other hardscaping....never in any planting beds.

Jim, is there something wrong today? You are coming out with a lot of almost rude and certainly unhelpful posts!!

Are there large boulders or small stones in your soil? If it’s small stones, and you have a good quality rototiller it’s not a big deal. I have done our 1 000 sq ft yard with clay soil and rocks three times already. I would suggest using Roundup to kill weeds and grass once you have tilled. The hardest part of the job is leveling the land with a rake. I would suggest you ask a landscaper to design your layout. Depending on your skill set you might need help for the hardscape but tilling and planting is definitely doable as diy. Good luck with your project!

Thanks for the replies!. We are still in the planning phase. The landscape companies here (northwest) all seem very busy, many don't even respond to messages. That's why I am trying to gather some information here.

The current plan is to have raised bed vegetable gardens in the backyard and shrubs/flowers garden in the front yard. We know this is a big project and likely very expensive, that's why I am trying to figure out whether we can cut the cost down.

Gardengal...thanks

Thanks again. For a sod cutter, I assume we will have to remove the soil from sod then get rid of grass?

Depending on what kind of grass you have you could just leave it. Cover with cardboard or layers of newspaper and top off with compost. Google Charles Dowding for the method. Don’t use landscape fabric except on paths, as stated above.

And you don't have to do it all all at once. You could do a couple of beds and see how you like the amount of work involved.

When working as landscape professional, I would use a sod cutter. Landscapers prefer to work with bare soil, easier to grade, mark and install plants and hardscape. Mulch is installed after plants and hardscape. This will give you the most professional looking result in the sort term. Long term, it won't matter how you prepared your beds.

Even after using a sod cutter, the site still needs to be carefully raked to get the areas the sod cutter missed. Cut too deep and you end up with lots of debris, too shallow and you are not really removing enough of the grass to keep it from coming back. Many weed will survive sod removal.

At home I prefer rototilling or lifting sod with hand tools, covering with cardboard (for temporary weed block), mulching and then planting and installing hardscape. This eliminates the lifting and disposing of the sod. I also hate losing the topsoil.

I have also used the same method suggest above of just covering the grass with cardboard/newspaper but I top it with mulch. This is good when you are doing your prep work a long time before you plant.

I am going to offer a dissenting opinion.

If a sod cutter does what i think it does, you are going to remove the top couple inches of whatever organic material had been added to the soil over the years by the growth of grass, or was naturally present. I have created NUMEROUS beds in my garden by just thoroughly spraying the area with properly mixed "roundup"/glyphosate, letting the grass die off, and mulching. No soil disruption at all, and no hassle. You can short cut the dead grass if necessary to help level off for the mulch but around here the dead grass is going to pretty quickly break down anyhow. I've never had the grass start growing back. And no problem digging through the dead grass roots...yes... maybe a little harder, but I'd find another crew if the landscapers told me they had to work in "bare" soil.