Backyard Renovations

When my husband bought our house, before we were married, he also got these two old sheds full of junk courtesy of the former home owners (you know what I mean-nuts and bolts and wire and bits and pieces of random, useless junk-in other words, stuff my dad would love). Well he has wanted to tear these sheds down since he bought the place, but it was kind of a daunting task and since it was never pressing he never got around to it. But my in-laws bought a swing set for small fry for her birthday which started a chain reaction of backyard renovations events which had to begin with the tearing down of these sheds. I told my husband if we were going to have to do one project to find a place for the swing set we might as well just tackle everything. He agreed but said he didn't know where to begin. I said, "honey, back the truck up to the shed and step aside." Then I put my gloves on a went to work. I had those sheds cleaned out and loaded into the back of the truck in a half hour. It helped that both my dad and my father in law were not there (they would have wanted to save everything). I developed the motto "we do not want to be remembered for our junk" and got rid of everything. Then it came to tearing the sheds down and again my husband said he wasn't sure where to begin, maybe he should call his buddy to help, how would he get a vehicle in there to pull them over etc etc. I said, "quit stalling. Put a chain around the shed and pull it over." And with only a little effort we pulled the first to the ground and the two of us went to work. Here is what we started with. This is after the first shed came down.
I wasted no time diving in to rip that eye sore apart. Put a crowbar in my hand and I am a dangerous woman. I grew up on a farm with two brothers and an older boy cousin. Destruction and junk were just a normal part of my childhood. We were always tearing something down or building something up, playing with old junk and going exploring to the dump. I mean a trip on the stone boat pulled behind our tractor up to the dump with my dad was better than going to town when we were little kids. So I really enjoyed this project and when we got done with the first shed, I wasted no time getting my husband to pull the second one over. I think he was a bit shocked by my knack for destruction and though it was hard work, in two days we were left with this to look at

Next we had to tackle this: a rock and cement water fountain surrounded by our dog kennel. We moved the dog kennel to our newly cleaned area and then went to work chipping away at the rock fountain. This was a pain in the butt with more cement than rock but we prevailed and got the thing finished by 8:00pm Tuesday night. We then stayed up until 11:30 pm setting up the swing set for Small fry for her birthday party the next day. AHHHH-what a project. There is still more to do on this part, with sand to put down and stuff but we went from this to...

this and I am so happy with how it looks. I hated that rock wall. This is a really great play area now.

Now that we are on a roll with these backyard renovations my husband and I can't be stopped. The list of projects we want to do grows everyday. We will see what happens. Yay for crowbars and sledge hammers and a dad that taught this girl how to tear down some serious junk.