Sunday, May 16, 2010

Fun with Heavy Equipment

What a weekend we had! On Friday a mini-backhoe was delivered. My husband could clearly not resist trying it out as there he is in the above picture still in his work clothes pushing dirt around! The plan was to level an area where we will be able to put in a slate patio and also to move the shed picture to the right. We managed to accomplish both but it took a lot of time and effort. We worked for 7-8 hours a day. It was tiring, but strangely fun and very rewarding when we achieved our goals. Below you can see the transformed area. There is a relatively flat area were we will lay our patio and the shed was moved to its new home. We also moved some very large rocks to the rear of the patio to act as a natural retaining wall. I love re-purposing the natural stone and saving money as we will not have to purchase materials to build a wall. As you look at the before and after pictures. You may be asking yourself, "Why did they move that old, beat up shed?". Well, the shed has a history with the home long before we purchased it three years ago. The shed belonged to the former owner who lived in the home for over 50 years. She was an avid gardener and had this shed/gardening hut brought over from Sweden. The land behind us was hers, but is now being developed by the person we bought our house from and he planned to knock it down so we decided to try to save it. Next the plan is to refurbish the shed and prepare the land for the patio to be laid. We also need to determine the amount of material we will need for the retaining wall just behind the pond area. I am anticipating this project will take a few more weekends before we will be able to see and enjoy the patio, but it will be just in time for us to enjoy it over the Summer months! Tune back in for more updates!

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