F is most excited about the prospect of massive demolition at the start of this project. I would chalk that up to the occasional HGTV show binges when we travel and she has access to cable TV and a remote. Every morning she asks me a question about the removal of items. This morning it was the fence. That fence is so bad, we’re just going to push it over and it will come down. That is an accurate statement. I’m pretty sure she thinks she’s going to be swinging a sledgehammer sometime in the near future. I need to remember to get a photo of her attempting to lift said sledgehammer.
Speaking of photos, I plan to take some better “before” pictures of the house this weekend. I love a good “before and after” series, and so I’ll try and take enough photos that I can match them up with the “afters” later. I need to take some more photos of the backyard as well. It’s so bad, it’s almost painful. But that will make the end result that much better.
I know these images I made from the drawing pdf’s aren’t the clearest, but they can give you an overall idea of the project scope – trust me, there’s nothing exciting hiding in those notes! (Click on them to enlarge.)
You’ll see in the first drawing that we have a lot of trees to deal with – and most of them aren’t on our property. We’ll take care of the scraggly trees along the fence line on the west property line, but the big tree on our east neighbor’s property is an issue. Hopefully those negotiations will go well. We have a large magnolia tree in our yard that has to go – it’s such a pretty tree, even after being crushed in two separate ice storms that butchered the top of it. It’s going to be a beast to remove and transplant, but if we can, we’d like to. I’m hoping that one of the neighbor’s might want it and then we can enjoy it still. It might honestly be too large to transplant though – we’ll see what kind of equipment we’ll need on hand!
Those paving bricks have to come up and be stored as well – that’s also slightly (very) painful. That was a very difficult project – hauling and shoveling truckload after truckload of gravel and then sand – we did some major regrading of our yard to address 130+ years of settling and washouts. We spent most of the early summer on it, wrapping up over the hottest, muggiest Fourth of July weekend – my parents were visiting (and helping) for that one. I’m surprised they still invite us for the holidays.
There’s a lot of utility work in this project. It will be great to no longer have those overhead electrical wires draped across our yard, and having a decent fence will be nice too. The addition will come out to the edge of that flower bed, just beyond the end of those bricks. It’s going to be a drastic change – and a much smaller yard, for sure. I think it’s going to take a bit to get used to it, but I’m excited for the creative ways we’re going to green the new construction – on the roof and hopefully on some of the walls as well. The houses that back up to our alley have teeny, tiny backyards, so we won’t be the odd house out. Most have about 6′ of green space before their garages or parking pads begin. Still, it’s going to look crazy – especially when the framing starts going up! Yikes. It’s starting to feel real.
I know this must feel kind of overwhelming, but I’m so excited to see this happen! Don’t hesitate to ask if there’s anything I can do to help out!
Brooke recently posted…Oh, Heeyyyyyy There.
Will do! I had this crazy idea that I’d schedule this rotating use of friends’ ovens while we’re kitchen-less! And then I remembered the girls’ school is just 10 blocks away, so I might see if we can use the kitchen occasionally. It’s going to be a fun challenge!
didn’t know you could put wires underground without the whole neigborhood doing it…what an awesome thing that will be (it’s the little, sparky stuff in this life…)