House Renovations - Part 1 - The Yard

I guess I've never really blogged about all the house renovations we've done since we've bought the place 4 years ago.

Well, to start off, about 6-8 trees came off the property. 5 along in the front yard. There were two evergreen literally planted right next to each other, right next to the driveway, and they were starting to overtake some of the driveway. If we parked two cars there, one behind the other, you couldn't really see the second car because the branches of the tress blocked it. So they came down shortly after we bought the place in 2009, along with a couple other trees that were getting into the power lines and completely dead. GONE.

Fast forward to 2012. There was a big stone deck in the back yard, but it was done improperly and starting to buckle. Turns out that they used sand underneath and didn't pack it down properly, hence the buckling. And since it was a complete eyesore, we decided to take it down. Keith did majority of the work as I was looking after Violet. And there was tons of stones! Never mind that we also took down the front flower beds as they don't get a lot of sunlight and I'm not good with flowers. Keith's estimating that he moved at least 2 tons worth of stones. Luckily Keith's Dad wanted most of the stones do to some landscaping, so we got rid of some!

Then there was the shed in the back yard. It's a nicely built shed, but in a horrible spot. It was right beside the deck, with the doors facing the back yard. You couldn't see the shed doors from the kitchen windows. Not good in town. But in order to move it, I had to get my Dad to bring down the skid steer with the extended forks to lift it. It took them about 2 hours to move the shed from beside the house to the back corner, and they broke 2 floor joists in the process. But it's fine and in its proper spot now, where I can see the doors. Apparently that was a heavy sucker.

Oh, and the leftover stone we had? We made ourselves a stone patio with a fire pit in the middle beside the shed. It's starting to look like a proper yard now!!