The Home Improvement Projects

It's almost exactly like the television show, except it's not in Detroit, doesn't include Tim Allen, I don't have a cable television show, and I don't have a sidekick named Al. Ok, I don't have a sidekick at all. My sidekick Olivia still lays on the floor inside and drools and chews on things, so she isn't much help with any projects. So, I guess in review, there is really no similarity between what I'm doing and the old television show, but I am doing some projects here around the house.

About two months ago I made a list of things to accomplish through the summer. I haven't really looked at the list in a while as I'm pretty sure I'm a long ways behind. However, there are several things on the list that I've accomplished. Currently, I don't need to look at the list because I know exactly what I need to finish. I'm in the middle of some landscaping projects. I've got things taking up lots of room in my garage, and I'm tired of mowing around the 6 pine trees in the back yard. And cutting them down is not an option because of the lights of the gas station. So, we made a decision on landscaping around them. We'll see how that ends up turning out. Here is what we've done so far:

Step 1 - Rip out the ugly trees in front of the house. The first time we came and looked at the house, Heather looked at the over grown shrubs and said they had to go for sure. It was one of the first things we did in the first spring, they were pulled out easily by my dad.

Step 2 - Pull up all the rocks from the front. This was time consuming and a pain. They've found a new home on a pile in the back yard by the aforementioned trees for now.

Step 3 - Dig out the base for the new brick facades. There will be a new brick landscape border in the front of the house (which is actually now up) and in the back in front of the trees.

Now, here is what's left in this project:

Step 4 - Remove weeds/grass from the front and back yards where the new landscaping will be.

Step 5 - Finish constructing the brick border in the back yard in front of the trees.

Step 6 - Get the landscape paper down in front and back new areas.

Step 7 - Remove all rocks from the side and back of the house and back of he house and put them in the back trees as landscaping.

Step 8 - Place wood chips in the front yard, and along the driveway and by the house and plant any shrubs necessary in the front bed, and put in the landscape lighting.

So, as you can see, not much left really. Also some leveling of the walls, and a lot of bricks to move to the back yard yet. Some other notable things on the list are replace the toilet in the bathroom, work on the snow blower, clean up the garage and get it ready to store everything for winter. Still tons to do, and all I have to do is miss this weekend and then get moving before the weekend of the 24th of August. I was wondering the other day why I can never get anything done in the fall. Then I remembered that I work soccer games from the middle of August until November, so there goes fall. Looking at the schedule, already have September Saturdays booked up, so it will all begin again here in just over a month.

This weekend, off to Minnesota again. Should be another fun adventure!