House Projects Crossed Off the List

Well, one-by-one I am slowly crossing off projects on what seems to be the ever growing list of house projects. As you may recall from Plumbing Disaster No. 2, my yard looked like a tornado had come through. Literally. I walked out each morning for work expecting to see two stripped stocking legging sticking out from under my house. Frisco thought I was crazy when I asked him if saw the Lollypop Kids. Anyhoo, one thing at a time - right.

Project no. 1:
Well, I called around and found a handyman that would haul away all the roots and stumps and for me. He even went around the yard to get the roots and sticks that didn't make it into this nasty pile. Now you see it...



Now you don't!




Now I just need to figure out what to do from here. There are still lots of chips lefts from when the stumps were ground down when the tree were removed last summer (summer '08) and I the ground needs to be leveled off some to make mowing easier and I need to bring a whole bog load of topsoil to plant new grass properly - cha-ching. I just don't know how I'm going to afford all of this right now. I was talking to a friend, Ellen, at knitting yesterday and she made a great suggestion of having what she calls a "Garden Party." Apparently her church has them. You invite friends over to help you landscape and when all the work is done you have a party afterwards as a thank-you. I told her I would have to talk to her more about this because this sounds like an idea :)

At least this little guy is enjoy my backyard even if I am not!



Project no. 2:
I can cross off my list is the nice hold in my basement slab that the plumbers left behind as well! This was a lovely reminder of what needed to be done every time I went down into my basement to clean the litter box or do laundry.



Yesterday, I went straight home after meeting up with my Saturday morning knitting group because Kozykitty's husband, David, was coming over to help me patch up my basement slab. Actually, he did most of the work, while I asked all the questions and watched and be very grateful. Two hours later, the hole looked like this:



Afterwards, I gave KK a ring and told her to come over for a late lunch or an early dinner. While we were waiting David was giving me some suggestions for the backyard. All it cost me was a Miller High Life, a Chinese Dinner, and time spent with friends - well worth it. Thank you David!!!

Project no. 3:
After KK and David left, I decided to start tackling the front yard. You may recall that the plumbers left it in quiet a mess. They really did a very shitty job with the yard the 2nd time around. There were rocks every were!



And rocks are not good if you intend to plant grass. The rocks are good for filling up hole that is in front of my porch though. Not that these rocks were going to be enough, but they would be a start and someplace easy to put the rocks :) So, I got out the rake and tackled the front yard. Looks a lot better doesn't it?



I raked the rocks all up and pushed what I could under the piece of blue plywood and next to the ramp to fill up the hole. I'm calling around to get estimates for replacing the concrete walkway now.



My mother keeps trying to suggest that my father will come down and do it, but I don't think she understands that this isn't a small project, nor is it really a one man project. Of course when I try telling her this her response is, "well you and I will help him." and my thoughts to that are *great and I'll be in jail for man-slaughter because I'll end up killing you both before the day is over* That is just a disaster waiting to happen. So you can see the rush in getting the estimate for the concrete work. How do you tell your Mother - "Mom, if you really want to help, just write me a check for the contractor."

That is it on the house projects for now. I am sure more will be coming :)