It's Been 13 Years

The last time this garage had a major cleaning Rachel was 6, that is a scarry thought huh.. I put in on my list for the summer and we finally got to it. I believe it was James who organized the last cleaning for a merit badge on Family Life. (Boys, I am counting on you to correct me if I am wrong.) He got his Eagle when he was almost 14 so that has been 13 years. After doing yard work in the hot sun we were ready for some work not in direct sunlight, but it was still very hot. Our kids will realize what a change this is. Yes Dad was willing to rid himself of lots of "baggage"

First pulled everything out of the garage that wasn't on the top tier of shelf's. Man did we have tons of stuff. What you see is after half of it was put away. It took 3 long days to sort, organize and put away.

Before.........and........After
We recycled everything we could, which entailed many trips to various recycling centers with the last load to go to Boulder next week with Dan. I couldn't find any place closer that would take all the scrap metal we had.

The middle section of the upper tier of shelving. Everything in its place and ohhh so nicely labeled

The junk closet cleaned and labeled and things removed forever

Stacy dreamed up this "Sports Center" where we organized everything to do with Sports. Peyton loved putting the baskets on the shelves. We recycled the shelves from when James made them,(another merit badge project for his room) Then Stacy found a piece of peg board that we finished putting misc things on. This was a good move.

One of many dirt piles

OK boys remember all the wood stashed on the side wall of the garage. Well a day on Craigs list and it is all gone. Yippee. Dan admitted he wasn't very attached to it anymore.

This is Stacy's proudest part of her organizing efforts. She took scrap lumber and cut it to size and made shelves for all the boots. We refer to it as a "Ski Rental Closet" We give cheap rates to family members.

The clean and organised work bench and tool boxes.
The following is a list of the funny things we found in the garage while cleaning.

*3 trays (like you buy starter plants in) filled with small plastic cups, filled with dirt and dead plants. Each cup was clearly labeled a-1,a-2 etc.... If my memory serves me right, this was Alans science project in about 6th grade. Now that was a long time ago. Boy did we get a chuckle with that one.
*A small woven basket with a handle with a 12 inch piece of rotted rope in it.
*Old sprinkler setup , the manual one
* All the old fixtures from the kitchen and bathrooms.

I can't tell you how many times we just shook our heads in dis-belief of the things we came accross.

Lesson Learned: NEVER wait 13 years to clean the garage
Stacy decided in these kinds of projects a cordless drill is your best friend and you don't have to be a afraid of it.

The way I see it if Stacy can't find a job teaching she could hire out as a professional organizer.

The breezeway is equally cleaned and organized. My goal on Friday was to stay clean for 3 days, but Stacy manipulated me into cleaning the breezeway by noon. Oh well now it is done and you don't hurt yourself trying to get through. LIFE IS GOOD

The Magnificent Front Circle

I bet you are all wondering where we put all that rock so lovingly sifted away from the yucky dirt.

Here is where most of it went. It was nice to have the dirt covered for the first time ever. The remaining rock went to form a 18 inch path between the fence and the new bushes in the front.

This is what the front looked like 1 year ago and the man who dared to rip out the junipers while Dad wasn't looking.

New and improved front.
Too many man hours to even count, removal of about 10 yards of rock, 8 yards of dirt, placement of 41/2 tons of rock around the tree, 10 yards of redwood mulch (some of that went to the front corner) planting loads of different plants.

Side Note: Towards the end of this project we had a pile of 2 yards of mostly dirt with a few rocks that we needed to get rid of. Every time any of us looked at it we wanted to barf just thinking about shoveling it in and out of the trailer. Dirty dirt (that means dirt with nasty ugly rocks interspered in it) is difficult to unload on anyone.
On Monday I was driving by the Presbyterian church and noticed big tractors working there. We had noticed over the past year dirt accumulating there in massive amounts, but never saw any of it taking place. I decided I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, stopped and asked if we could dump 2 yards of dirty, dirt. His reply was "sure bring it down." I drove the 2 miles home quickly, Troy hooked up the trailer and we all, (Stacy included) started to load the dirt. The problem, it had rained and the dirt was more like mud and very heavy and we needed to have it there by noon, it would take 2 trips. Ugggg were is Dan when you need him?
The first load took 45 minutes just to put it in the trailer, and at least that long to unload it because Stacy and I were worthless and Troy did all the work. After a smoothie break we started on the last load. It was well after noon so we were trying to hurry. Half way done Stacy announces that her back is KILLING her and she can't do anymore and could I please call one of the good looking, strong young men in the ward. I did and this very nice, handsome, recently returned missionary showed up (in his red car and white shirt, OK a white Tee shirt) to help load the remaining 1/4 yard and then off he and Troy went to the dumping grounds. Meanwhile I was on a search for plants and returned to Troy and Stacy laughing. When questioned about the reason for such jovial behavior despite this dirty hard work they informed me that the nice guys on the big tractors drove up to the back of the trailer and scooped out all the dirt for them. That was such a nice thing to do, now I ask you why did they not do that when they saw an old lady, a cute young thing, and handsome Troy unloading it ever so slowly just an hour before? Oh well the dirt pile was gone and we were all HAPPY about that, the remaining small pile got washed away in the ensuing 3 massive rain storm. The rain also did a nice job cleaning the driveway of all our tracked on dirt.

Thanks to Marion at UCAR and Troy who contributed plants to fill in all this space. All are low maintenance and low water usage. THANKS to Doug, Heather, Andrew, Clint and Aubrey who gave me b-day money for plants which I put to good use here.

Stacy refurbished the original light poles and made them look like new. I still need to made an address plaque to hang from them, but that will wait for awhile. We took the 28 large rocks we discovered buried beneath the junipers and spread them around on the beds while saving a few really promising one for the future water feature in the back yard.
So it is finished. We like it and its drastically different appearance from that we had looked at with great distaste, (only LaVon had distaste for it) for 21 years. I will not miss shearing those ugly overgrown bush for a minute and I am sure Dans allergies will be much happier next year.

Part 2 Concrete

Since we moved into this house in 1987 the drive way has needed to be replaced. It was a huge driveway and were just never had the money but it has always remained on the FIX UP list. We had estimates several times in the last 10 years but they were always more than we were willing to spend. With the recession, 2 things happened. Concrete prices per yard dropped significantly and contractors were bidding bottom dollar to just get work to do. Thus it was finally time to replace the driveway. The added push was that we had the front part already ripped out so they could work on the driveway without having to ruin new landscaping, and ruin it they would have.

This is not to show you how cute Stacy is in the new skirt I made her but to show the best part of the driveway some 6 years ago. The tractor doing its magic. They had this whole driveway ripped out and hauled away in 3 hours. It was amazing.

The driveway was poured in 3 sections on consecutive days.
This is the West wing, grated, re bar installed and the finished concrete.

Here is the top flat part. It was the hardest to pour because they didn't have gravity on their side to pull the concrete down, plus in many places the concrete was 7 inched deep.

Next came the East wing and when they finished the driveway it was the prettiest thing I had seen for awhile. OK that's a bit of an exaggeration but I didn't realize the driveway could look so nice and make such a difference in the appearance of the house.
It only took 33 yards of concrete for this massive driveway.

Opps I guess there are no pics for this part. My camera is in the shop and I depend on Rachel for pics. Use you imagination or just flip the images from the West wing to the east and there you have it.
Should you ever need concrete work done we would recommend these crew They were awesome and so easy to work with. I was most thrilled when they helped move the remaining rock and hauled it and the dirt away.

I had forgotten what the front of the house looked like when we moved in other than there were lots of junipers. When I found this pics with cute Alan posing for the first day of school (don't you just love the shorts) I suddenly remembered why I was so glad to have it all re-done

Stay tuned for part 3. Its exciting for sure.

Putting it back together

So we started the massive task last June, as in June 2008. Clint had big dreams for this yard, and great ideas he did have. The first one being to rip out the Junipers and the rest is history.

Thanks to all who have lent a hand. Its looking pretty darn nice.

THE WORK CREW

CLINT The main force behind this massive undertaking.
THE TWINKS: Really detest this rock shaking party

The reluctant and very helpful FATHER, PEYTON our source of entertainment esp when Opa is walking her around explaining all the nuances of this project

TROY, we couldn't have put this yard together with him. STACY is thinking I HATE DIRT!!! And me, who helped a lot but just can't work like Dan, Clint and Troy.
I did keep the food and cool drinks coming however.
Part One: Northeast corner

The beginning July 2008. Bushes come down, fence is power washed and re-stained and
treated. The stumps come out. How can the summer be over and we still have so much to do here.

The newly improved corner. We formed and poured 60 feet of concrete edging and planted lots of green stuff. Some of the plants look a little shocked from their transplant experience, but they are looking better. We now have in place of 4 ugly junipers, 2 clumps of Shasta Daisy's, 8 Day Lillis, 5 Nine bark bushes, 3 Purple Spireas, 2 May Night Sage, and several others I didn't catch their names, they were free, so we were happy. When everything matures in a couple of years this will be beautiful (I hope)

Stay turned for Part Two,

I know it is almost to much to take in all at once so I'll space it out a bit.