Home "Remodeling" Update

Whew!  We about blew away yesterday!  We had a tornado warning at work and had to go to the basement.  First time that's happened to me in a LONG time.  Sort of weird for this time of year, too!

Last night, Sweet Pea was watching her Winnie the Pooh DVD.  When it got to the story about the blustery day, Sweet Pea said, "Mom, that's what we had today!  A blustery day!"  You ain't kiddin', I told her.  Sometimes she's so stinking cute, I can hardly stand it.

Well, last weekend, we did some more minor decorating for the holidays.

Papa Pea brought me some straw bales to put by the front door.  We put all the pumpkins on them.  He said, "There, now the mice will have a really good hiding place, right by the front door."  Ha ha.  Very funny.  And the cats keep attacking the poor little scarecrow.  It's quite funny.  When Thanksgiving is over, we'll remove the straw bales, and Papa Pea can have them to support his archery targets and can practice with his bow.

I think Maggie was right.  Papa Pea just likes to get outside to do something.  This past weekend, he asked a friend to come over to help him get the mower off the John Deere riding mower and to mount the snowblower on the front.  They got that done right away, and Shawn (our friend), said, "Let's get rid of those big bushes you guys want to pull out.  I'm in the mood for some physical labor."  So, I'm down in my sewing room and I hear the chainsaw running.  I thought they were just trimming a few branches off the trees, but the chainsaw kept running and running.  I finally went outside to see what was going on.  I was so excited to see the huge, overgrown bushes going "buh-bye!"

Here's a reminder of the before situation.  See that huge overgrown bush on the left?  We HATE it, because it's so big.  See how it's taller than the sliding glass door?  It just needs to go and we need to replant.  Same is true for the bush on the right of the deck.  (The decks also need to go, but that's far down the road.)

Here's a shot from a different angle.  Notice all the built in benches on the lower deck?  They make the deck so crowded you can't put anything else on it.

Here's work in progress.  This is what I saw when I first came outside to see what was going on.  (Sorry about my hand at the top of the photo.  The glare was so bad, I had to sheild the camera from the sun a bit.)

Papa Pea cut.  Shawn loaded on the trailer.  Shawn drove it off and put it in the burn pile.  I think Shawn just liked driving the 4-wheeler around.  hee hee.

There was a pretty big hole under part of the bush.  Something fairly large used to live there.  Not any more!

Here it is about half gone.  Nasty!

And all cleaned up.  Notice both bushes are gone.  (And now you can see how badly the back garage door needs painting!)  For the bush on the left, there were actually about 5 stumps...so, it used to be 5 small bushes that all grew together. The bus actually covered up about half of those steps, too.  So, you could barely walk on them...there was hardly any room.

Notice we also cut the benches off the lower deck and put our patio set on it instead.  The whole thing is opened up more.  (That's my sewing room where the window is behind the patio set.)  You can see the cat house behind the garage there.  It's still a bit of a mess on the back patio.  But it felt really good to get those two overgrown bushes out of there.  We'll do some new landscaping at some point.  This is the part of the house we'd like to put an addition on.  We'd like to extend the back of this house out about 12 feet (both the lower and upper story).   So, we aren't in a hurry to do the landscaping now.  Right now, this just feels like "Ahhhhh...."  It felt so crowded with those bushes in place.  (Hope we can get that big monster TV antenna down in the spring, too.)

If you scroll back up to the top, you can see the workshop building is off to the left.  I am thinking that between the workshop and garage, it would be cute to have a little wrought iron café table and chairs set up under the tree.  We'd like to make a path from the back garage door to the workshop and from the workshop over to the patio area (or after the addition, up to a deck we'd like to build).  I can dream about it all, right?  Someday....

Big thanks to Shawn for helping to get rid of the nasty bushes. "The Dude abides..."  (If you like the movie The Big Lebowski, like we do, you might get that.  We watched that movie with Shawn later that evening...)

Now, if we could finish getting rid of the ones in the front of the house.  I'd like to relandscape that area this coming spring....

Until next time,

Mama Pea

Comments

[Maggie Szafranski]

That makes such a big difference! I like that your job was taking pictures! I usually ended up being the one to load the trailer!

[Shelly]

Wow! that was a LOT of work. Makes me tired just thinking about it. Glad it was them and not me. We only have about a gajillion projects like that around here that need to be done. We don't really own any "equipment", tho. That sorta complicates things.

[Terri]

This post makes me want to send Russ out to trim our bushes immediately lest they overgrow and take over! He wants to take them out, but I don't like the bare look (tho' your bare look looks tons better). One of the things I did about a year after we moved into our house was to trim ours up. I made them look like Dr. Seuss bushes, if that makes any sense. It was fun; like bonsai on a larger scale.

[katie]

I LOVE LOVE LOVE your porch! WHat a great way to decorate! ANd don't even get me started on how lovely your lawn is. It was fun to see a picture of your house. Its so nice and homey :) Your daughter sounds so cute. I feel the same way about Mia when she says funny cute little things!

[Little Bits and Pieces]

What a cute/funny thing to say about the blustery day. And I agree! Get that bush out of there! It's so much better (I don't like those bushes even when they are kept trimmed. And that thing was a monster!) Whew - now it's so much better and so is your porch. GOOD JOB GUYS!!

[Lynn]

Wow! What a difference removing those bushes made! One thing I have learned from home ownership is that bushes have a life span - about 15 - 20 years. And you have to keep them pruned or they get out of control, like yours were. Looking good!

[Mama Pea]

Thanks so much! Yes, those bushes are nasty! In fact, I pretty much dislike every bush at this house. I think we are going to pull them all out and redo everything. It will look so much better!

Have a great day!

Stephanie

[Mama Pea]

Thanks, Katie! We like the lawn, too. It was one of the big reasons we bought the place. The house needs soooo much work, but weve been chipping away at it a little at a time. Weve made a lot of progress, but we have a long way to go! Another thing we liked about the house is it has good bones. It felt homey to us right away, even with all the gaggy decorating!

Have a great day!

Stephanie

[Donna]

I love the blustery day comment! With the bushes gone it does look better. It's amazing what a little trimming or cutting down some bushes can do!
Hugs,
Donna

[sisLH]

I didn't know you had such a beautiful back yard and house on the backside. I have only seen the first pictures at the front of it. NICE!
We are cutting back all of our bushes-decorative and not. We cut the Burning Bush last year and it has come back beautifully.