This weekend was the day to start the work on the back garage. For you who have been reading the blog since 2014 when we took an old foreclosure house and made it our own this is old news but for those of you haven’t, here’s the back story.
In August of 2013 we bought an old foreclosure house. It was a single lot house. There was no garage attached. We wanted to remodel and attach a garage to it. The problem, the lot wasn’t large enough to allow a garage to be attached to the right side.
There was a lot next door. On that lot was this garage. Although a decent garage, we wanted an attached garage. This one wasn’t big enough for pickups to park in and at the time, we had a pick up and a suburban so neither would fit inside.
As I said, the garage was in pretty good shape.
There was no house on the property, just this garage.
We ended up buying the lot next door for $8500-garage included. We poured this slab of cement….
Kramer, my husband, devised a plan to pick the garage up and move it to be housed on the cement pad we had laid at the back of the property.
Well the garage has been so handy to have and well worth the work to move it. We keep our lawn mower, tiller, seasonal stuff and when Kramer was still living, he kept fixer-up antiques in it.
Well the summer before last, we had hail damage to the roof and ended up with a settlement from insurance. The plan last year was to shingle it but Kramer got sick and died leaving the garage on hold. I talked with the kids about it and Buck, with some help, decided that they would tackle the shingling…and I decided rather than paint it, I’d have our carpenters come and side it.
Well Saturday Karl and Buck worked on the garage….
Karl did stop for an impromptu tea party. You can see Carver in the photo was not having a good time. Scotty had something he wanted….
But as the saying around here goes, “he got happy in the pants he got sad in”.
Saturday was a family day…Kalissa and the boys were here, Georgia was here (Kelli sleeping upstairs as she worked the night shift the previous night), Buck along with Lucy and Scotty as well as me and Karl.
The kids spent all of the day Saturday outside. ALL OF IT!! I didn’t get a lot of pictures taken as in between watching kids, I was picking up the shingles.
Saturday the weather was nice. It got hot in the afternoon for a few hours but we got some cloud cover later so it wasn’t so taxing to the boys on the roof of the garage.
Sunday, the weather was terrible. It was cold. The boys were in sweatshirts. There was a light drizzle that at one point turned to sleet for a bit.
Craig came and helped. It was so nice of him. Who wants to volunteer to work in those conditions.
In the tree behind the boys that you see in the picture, an owl sat all day long. Buck said if his arm was three feet longer he would have been able to touch it. The owl just sat there and slept while the boys worked. Oh my…he must be a sound sleeper.
While the boys were outside on Sunday, Bucks kids and I stayed in the house. It was too cold to be outside. In the past, Lucy hasn’t thought much of me. A year ago when Kramer was still here us, we had tried so hard to get her to warm up and be okay with us…she never was. Although it made me sad, I was okay with it and didn’t push myself on her. I hoped a time would come that I might be okay…and it’s slowly gotten better and now, she actually likes me. I’m thrilled. I’m so glad I was patient.
I ended up braiding her hair. She doesn’t get her hair braided normally so it was a big change for her….Here she is checking herself out in the mirror.
Isn’t she the cutest??
I had lots of fun with Scotty too. He’s such a builder….
He just loves the different toys I have.
I’ve always felt a little sad that I don’t see Lucy and Scotty so much. This weekend was finally a chance to make a great connection that we all enjoyed. I sat on the couch to watch a movie with Scotty and Lucy and they both crawled up on my lap. Lucy has a habit of putting her fingers in her mouth. We’ve been trying to break that….
So I told her…”no fingers in your mouth-just show me your teeth”. So her finger went in her mouth to show me her teeth. Oh that girl.
Then she finally smiled.
Although it a silly smile.
I had the best weekend with the kids. I couldn’t have asked for a better time.
To top it all off…we were all confused with how we were going to get rid of the shingles. The landfill, as far as we knew, was closed to regular traffic. The neighbor across the road had a roll off dumpster at their house. I ended up asking if they would let us put them in there. Of course I offered to pay…They said yes..and told me not to worry about paying for it. YAHOO!! I was so happy. Buck and Karl helped get them all thrown in so that completely finished. I was thinking I was going to have to fill a garbage can of them each week and set them out until they were gone. What a relief. I have great neighbors!! THANKS GUYS.
As for the next step on the garage. I’m on the carpenter’s list. The hope is to be here before snow flies. I’m content with that. Little by little projects keep getting done.
