Just bought a house surrounded by mostly lawn. I’m starting by sheet mulching my lawn with cardboard covered by a thick layer of wood chips. Hopefully the underlayer will be ready for planting next spring. Going to fill in between the food plants with clover, sweet peas, and lupine for nitrogen fixing. I’m looking forward to the transformation.
You might have heard of this already, but for anyone else who might come across this comment, there's a site called https://getchipdrop.com/ where you can sign up to get a free truckload of wood chips from arborists that just did work nearby. Just beware that you can get a TON of chips dropped off so be ready to move all that matter lol.