Cleaning on Up!

*Congratulations to @whammy_pammy for winning the scarf by Anna Moor Designs. You can still get the 10% discount code through July 28 at 8 pm Eastern. To join in on the Anna Moor fun, go to her instagram! You guys. This is a judgment free zone right? Right!?!? Good.

Cause our covered porch in the backyard had gotten out. of. control. I really don't know how that happened. But it just sort of happened. LB brought all of his car cleaning stuff out and it stayed out. We gave the dogs baths and brought their crap out, we have no garage, and we have two bikes. I just don't know what else to say, but... look.

Yikes.

So we scurried our booties over to HD and picked up a vertical shed. I can't seem to find this exact one on their website, but it was on display in the store. The box, laughably, said that the construction time for this bad boy would be 15 minutes... two hours later, it was put together. While LB got this thing put together, I vacuumed the entire driveway and back porch. The leaf situation mandated it. I also vacuumed out the window wells to the basement that are by the driveway. You ever vacuumed leaves with a shopvac? It is actually sort of therapeutic. You suck them up and they are GONE-- no wind worries, no disposal worries. #thelittlethings

Anyway, back to the shed... The size is great for our back porch because it is tall and sits pretty close to the wall.

Speaking of the wall, I caulked all around the base of the back porch with my cement caulk to seal everything up. You can kind of see it in that picture above, but here is a super riveting, close-up look at my caulking action.

I also sealed up the wood posts where I could along the front of the deck. LB and I both agree that we want to pressure wash the snot out of this backyard and pretty much the rest of the house. That will probably be a next year project, but we're pumped to see the space looking fresher... even with a bug zapper. (Denver peeps: can we just be done with these CRAZY rain storms!? They are bringing bugs and I don't like it!).

What cleaning demons has summer demanded you exercise? Does anyone have a genius storage solution for those bikes?

Side and Back Yard "Plans"

Hey! You're standing in my front yard... in winter! The spring and summer weather have really given us a complete picture of the yard situation we are facing and most of it is awesome and green and beautiful. Other parts of it are... well... "piney" You'll see on the far left of the house a tall "pine" tree (I have no idea what kind of tree it is exactly). What I've never shown before is the gravel area that the tree sits in and a chain link fence to the backyard. I haven't talked much about this side yard or this side of the backyard because we have had no idea what we were going to do with it for so long. The fact is that we still don't know exactly where we are going to head with it, but here's the current plan. That tall tree right there, is getting taken out and down.

So are these stumps that are chilling right behind that piney guy.

Tree and his friends are getting the heave ho. And maybe even that big guy in the back eventually....

This front yard tree is the cause of a ton of our yard issues. It sheds pines like crazy and looks somewhat dead.

Why the tree removing and area opening up project? Well, it all started when I came home from work one day and LB had ripped out this giant bush under the window and the small tree next to it in the backyard. #latentangerrelease

With those two bad boys gone the area was really a lot more open. Case in point (sorry for the crap picture, but we haven't had a lot of cloudy afternoons lately. #denverpictureproblems):

Our current thought is this multi step crazy process:

1. Rip out the tree and the stumps on this side of the yard. (Our first quote for this was over $800!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).

2. Extend whatever wooden fence we have installed/do our selves all the way to the front yard corner of the house, instead of having the fence where it currently is (the back yard corner of the house).

3. Possibly take out this tree in the back yard as well so that we can...

4. Eventually get rid of this awful shed and build a driveway/garage in this back part of the yard. (This is the pipe dream folks).

It's only 4 steps so it can't be that bad right?!? (haahhahahaa).

The good news is that the other side of the yard still has plenty of tree/green action. The tree we might eventually remove is on the left in the picture below and that shed is just a piece of poop that needs to go. We would basically be redoing our entire backyard to put a garage back here, so who freaking knows. If we did end up putting a garage in the back yard, then we definitely would not extend the fence down to meet the front corner of the house.

I feel like I should have entitled this post, the who freaking knows post. How do you all tackle back yard plans? Who thinks our plan is ridic? (If you do, PLEASE feel free to re do it). :)