Killing lawn and starting again

Hi, brand new to the forum, and not particularly experienced in the garden; although I'm pretty handy in general.
The lawns at our house are rubbish so I'm in the process of killing off all the grass to start from scratch by reseeding.
The front lawn I've already killed with Glyphosate; planning to dig it all over adding a couple of bags of sharp sand (left over from the patio I just finished). In the next good weather I'm going to get the back lawn killed off too, with the plan to add sand into that when I dig it, too.
What I don't really know what to do is to get the lawn level, at least relative to itself. Currently the back lawn is really lumpy & bumpy and I get a bit of standing water when it rains heavily. I have about a ton of topsoil which I dug out when building the patio, so I plan on raising the surface level a bit. In conjunction with the sand I'm hoping to reduce the puddles.
On a budget (essentially using just what I have around) how can I best get the soil level and prepared for seeding; and so that it won't just get lumpy again when its used for BBQs, kids playing/bikes etc?

 

I did this a couple of years ago, except I didn't bother poisoning off the existing grass first on account of the fact there wasn't much because the ground was so done in that not much would grow in it (even dandelions struggled). It was severely compacted.

After breaking it up good and proper (multiple passes), I dug in loads of spent mushroom compost. It doesn't have to be that, I just wanted the cheapest bulky organic matter I could lay my hands on and following a recommendation from here, that's what I used.

This is what I bought:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/60-x-50-l...rden_Plants_Fertiliser_CV&hash=item3f234f1865

There are of course lots of other suppliers.

Its quite important to get the ground right first, because unless you're willing to do it all again in a year or two, this is your one and only chance to get it right.

Levelling it is a pain. There's loads of advice available better than mine, but what I would say is it is vitally important to compact it down BEFORE you declare it level, because it will settle and sink and become lumpy if you don't.

EDIT: Welcome to GC by the way.

 

The ground seems perfectly good to grow in, just what's currently growing is, or has become, rubbish.
Its the levelling I'm having trouble with; when it comes to compacting it down to seed in, I want to get it flat. Every time I've tried walking on it, weight on my heels as I've heard, it ends up lumpy & bumpy again.

 

Yep, it does that. It will keep doing that until its fully settled. I once heard of a recommendation to use a whacker to speed up the settling process, but I only heard that from one source, whereas most seem to recommend a heavy roller.

Personally I wouldn't worry too much about getting it absolutely perfectly flat, as long as it is close enough, but professionals would probably disagree. My view is that as long as it is close enough, then the regular top dressing that you'll be doing anyway as the new lawn establishes will help iron out any small bumps and dents.

 

I agree with what Clueless has said. To get the soil level it's been known for rope to be tied to each end of a ladder and then drag it across the area, takes two of course. If you only have bumps here and there then it would be best to use a rake to even those out and then tread down again. It's almost impossible to get a 'bowling green' level to any lawn without hard work and frustration in the process. If you look at what you have got and think a lawnmower would go over it without snagging then that's fine.

 

Lawn mower doesn't go over what we have; that's part of what I hope to remedy. I hope that I can manage to get something reasonable to use by the summer...