Improving Garden from Weeds to Grass

customerunhap

Hi all,Reluctant Gardener here.
We have a new property and relatively small area of grass in back garden maybe 18 feet by 18 feet, which is pure weeds/not in a good condition.
So bad you could not have friends and their kids over.
I am looking to do a DIY job on it over a three or four day period to get it right, but from my limited knowledge it would be next spring before it would come right.
In terms of process of what I need to do to get it cleaned up, please correct me if I have any of these steps wrong/need gaps filled in.
-Get a good decent shovel and dig up the visible layer, turning it, taking out stones and weeds and binning them.
-Get a heap of weed killer and pour all over the place.
-Then get three or four bags of topsoil and spread.
-Then get grass seeds and plant?
-Is the above correct?
-How long will it take to do the work?
-Is it not a skip and dump job for the top layer?
-Where/what is the best shovel?
-Any other equipment needed?
-It needs to have been raining for a few days prior to works or grass will be like a rock to cut into?

GinSoaked

Just get a mower and cut it bit at a time at the highest cutting and rake off after each bit. Won't be that long before you have your 30 square meters sorted. Bone dry is fine for cutting down long grass and weeds. I'm assuming it was a lawn at one stage. Do obviously keep an eye out for anything dumped in the garden.

My advice is not to dig anything out to start with, you may have really poor thin soil which you don't want to be throwing away.