When we purchased this house, we knew that it needed a fair amount of “TLC,” both on the inside and out. Turning the basement into a separate rental unit and renovating the dark, narrow, roach-infested kitchen took priority. After that, smaller projects, such as cleaning, painting, and furnishing it demanded our time and financial resources. Finally, the great lead-debacle of 2007 forced us to invest ourselves in an unplanned project, draining both our savings account and our energy for house-related endeavors.
This summer, however, we agreed that the time had finally come to do SOMETHING about the backyard. Don’t get me wrong- we enjoyed its mud-pit beauty, with unique features such as a broken bench, random large pieces of plywood, treacherous cinder-block stairs, and an assortment of fun underneath the porch, including but not limited to some old crutches, broken Christmas ornaments, and a pile of wires. That said, we were beginning to fear losing a cat or child in the mass of weeds that blossomed in the humid summer weather.
So, this fall, we undertook the task of re-doing a backyard not much larger than a postage stamp. One weekend included weeding the waist-high jungle that had grown; the second involved renting a jackhammer and compactor to demolish and then rebuild our walkway; and the third consisted of renting a pickup truck to haul away debris and concrete. Weekend #2 was by far the most demanding, and we were fortunate to have the extra hands, eyes, and engineering degrees that come with Caleb’s parents visiting. We ended up ripping out our cinderblock steps in order to backfill the gap alongside the foundation of our house, which seems to have stopped the leaking we typically experienced when it rained. (The bonus was that we got a much nicer, less-terrifying set of stairs out of it, too.)
There remains work to be done, but for now we are quite happy with the progress (you can see pictures here). We likely won’t make much more in the coming weeks as our attention is on the arrival of Baby Brenneman and Baby Jesus, but maybe we’ll be able to show you more in the spring. Other new November pictures are also up.
Keep an eye out for end-of-the-year and Baby related news here!
