11, 12 Dig & Delve

I always wondered what the nursery rhyme meant when it said Dig & Delve? So I looked up the word delve and it means, to labor. It's perfect for our next project. The yard! Luckily I have the best parents ever who were willing to take a long road trip in a dump truck with a backhoe on the back and no a/c. They are champs. Love them! These are the results of a weekend worth of my Dad behind the wheel of the backhoe.

This is the back of the house facing the East. Before it was all broken up cement and everything sloped towards the house.

 

 
 
 
 
 

This is with the cement poured so all of the water goes away from the house. I debated whether to even show this picture because it pretty much looks like a junk pile with all of our stuff piled back there, but I wanted to show this before we finish it this next week.  It will be something to look forward to, and lets face it things don't look perfect a hundred percent of the time ;)

My Dad also tore down the old animal stable. One kick and it probably would have toppled over. My Dad made these nice piles that we can burn this winter, hopefully without burning down the barn. It will be nice to have all of this cleared off and looking manageable.

This made all of us chuckle a little. I almost want to make it the main picture for the blog. It is a symbol of all that we have had to deal with. It was a pole that was cemented into the ground by the big garage. Instead of clearing the area off around the pole before it was cemented, the cement was just poured on top of anything that was in the area. We could play I Spy.

 The stairs were probably the worst project yet for me. I am not very good with tedious work. Going around each of the poles was a nightmare for me. Especially when I had to give it four coats of paint.  I did a little at a time so I didn't go to crazy, and I finally finished them!  

 

 

I thought of about a hundred different things I could do with the stairs and I couldn't really decide. When it came down to it I knew that we might sell the house in the near future and I didn't want to put anything too personal that I would have to take off. I wanted something with the word step in it, so this is what I ended up with. I think it fits just right!

My great little helper. She is always right by my side when I am fixing things. Even if she is just pretending she always is helpful to have around.

Here is a finished project. This is the mudroom. I ended up getting the coat hangers from Downeast, and Ross always has a huge selection of baskets for reasonable prices. I think I snagged this one for ten bucks.

 

 

This is the random window that they covered when they re-did the outside of the house. I think it was to save them money. I struggled at first to try and figure out a way to make it look like it was suppose to be there and then the idea of a chalkboard came along. Ashlyn loves writing on it, and I think she and Easton are even more excited for what is written on it now.
Yep! That's right in the middle of all this craziness we managed to sneak one past the goalie, per say. :)