Have you priced out sod or are you just guessing at the cost? When my wife and I bought our house 4 years ago it was new construction so the builders definition of a lawn was much different than ours. When we priced out our options, having top soil brought in and than seeding and all that goes along with growing a new lawn it was about the same cost as it was for us to just go the sod route. Granted I did the work myself but price wise they were almost equal for us. Either way I would have been doing the leg work myself. I rented a commercial machine to till what we already had which I would have done either way so that cost was moot and than had a turf company deliver 12 palates of sod which was nice as I had them drop the palates in different areas of the yard so I wouldn't have to hump sod from the street or driveway the whole time. The nice part was when I was done it was instant gratification where as with seed it takes weeks and your not always guaranteed successful results. After tilling up what we had it literally took us a day and a half to roll it all out. Many of our neighbors went the other route and to be honest I still think we have the best looking lawn in the neighborhood. For me to go with seed I would have had to lay at least 2inches of topsoil so it still would have been PITA. Depending on what you currently have I almost always recommend bringing in at least an inch of topsoil when starting a new lawn from seed. In my opinion it gives you better odds of the lawn coming in thick and healthy.
