I am in Northwest illinois. My lawn was really good through about the middle of July last year. Even though I put down preventative grub treatment, still ended up with a pretty bad infestation. Got them killed off, but unfortunately a lot of the damage was already done. A lot of the yard is not coming back this year, and I want to do what I can to try to thicken it back up. We have a dog who certainly likes to run laps around the house and make tracks, and his urine certainly kills spots. I can deal with that because they are easy enough to fix over time and feel back in. 

My main goal for this spring is to try to thicken this back up. I core aerated last fall and overseeded, but I think I seeded too late because it did not really take. I have already fertilized and did a crabgrass pre-emergent. I have everything raked up now and was considering doing they really thorough top dressing of the lawn. I talked with the local sod farm and they advised that top dressing with a mix of topsoil and peat moss would be ideal. None of the supply places around here seem to have that mix in bulk. My best option seems to be either straight black compost or a mix of topsoil, black compost and a little bit of sand. The sod guy said that the sand isn't ideal at this stage for my lawn since it can cause issues with drying out. 

Anyway, the folks in this sub have helped me out before, so I was hoping to get input on what material people would use to top dress. I'm going to need about 10 cubic yards to take care of top dressing the whole lawn.included a couple pics of now vs last year.

Zone 5b Need to Thicken Lawn