It's more than a house. It's an adventure.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Organized the shed

I got stir-crazy today and decided to clean out and organize our shed out back. It's been getting pretty bad - can't walk in without tripping over something, junk piled on top of junk, nothing easy to find or retrieve.

I didn't find a whole lot to throw out. I did find a very large stack of shingles, and a baker's dozen 8-foot 1x2, among other various lumber. The 1x2s went up into the rafters (open rafters are great for storage), as did our extra bike tires and the 15 pound roofer's felt left over from the family room floor. The leftover wood from the family room floor was stashed in the corner behind the door, where they'll be out of the way. All flower pots are now emptied of old dirt and ready to be reused, and the new half-dozen that I found wrapped up are out on display and ready to be picked up for whatever we might need them for.

The shelves are now organized in a somewhat sane manner, some tools hung back on the hooks, and other things stahed well out of the way but still accessible.

All in all, I think I tripled the available space in the shed, and in the process gained a lot more accessibility. I still haven't put into place any serious storage-management stuff - more hooks on the walls, baskets, etc. which will really help out as we collect more stuff. Maybe in a few weeks.

Long overdue

Wow, it's really been 6 weeks since I've posted an update? I've been slacking!

Not a tremendous amount to report. We had a major hot spell, which limited work outside. Once things cooled off, though, we were able to make some major progress in the yard. We have now:

  • Re-weeded the area between the kitchen, family room & bedroom and put landscaper's felt down just to keep the weeds down.
  • Completed cleanup across the top of the driveway and mulched that.
  • More securely replaced the fence section that kept dropping.
  • The walkway between the fence and the bedroom was ripped up, somewhat leveled, and grass planted.
  • Relocated some of the plants behind the fence at the top of the driveway to "outside" the fence, and planted grass there.
  • Started cleanup of the "island" where the lilac tree is.

With a week left in August, we're feeling confident that we can turn the entire area between the shed, bedroom & driveway into grass before the snow flies. We'll need the rain to hold off on the weekends so that we can push hard, but it really seems doable. More than we expected to get done this year! And given the progress made this year, we think we might be able to get the rest of the backyard cleared in 2007.