Spontaneous Yard Project Strikes Again
This afternoon I was sitting on the patio with my roommate enjoying the gorgeous weather, looking out at my yard and flower beds. My attention kept being drawn by the eye sore that was remaining in the back yard. The old dog kennel and metal post that had an old falling apart birdhouse perched on top of it. I turned to the roommate and asked him if he was up for trying to tear down the dog kennel. He was game and spontaneous yard project struck again.
We spent about a half hour or so, carefully trying to pull out the millions of nails and staples they used to hold the wire to the wood frame of the kennel. I sent my roommate upstairs to check to see if our renter M would let us use his pry bars and a few other tools I had seen in his part of the garage. M ended up coming down to help us and in a very short time had a nice chunk of the wire down. Apparently methodically and carefully are not the way to go about a dismantling project. Smashing, bashing and tearing is the correct route when you don't want to re-use any of the old materials. With M's help, we had the wire down in short order and were able to work on tearing apart the wood frame, removing the posts the frame was attached to and tore down the partial roof/rain shelter of the kennel. While M was finishing the last bit of the kennel, I started digging around the metal post experimentally to see if there was any cement holding it in and if we could easily remove it. Again, M came to the rescue and was able to just yank it out of the ground.
It's amazing how much better the yard looks and how much bigger my already good sized yard looks with out that horrible structure in the background. My dad is going to bring come out and till the area for me so I can level the earth with the rest of the yard and plant new grass seed. As it is now, it's a half step higher than the rest of the yard and it's filled with weeds. I'm thinking of adding some lawn furniture there next summer and I think I'm going to line the back fence with some lovely lilac bushes.
Before
After
I'll also leave you with my newly blooming plant:
Flickr Albums Here
We spent about a half hour or so, carefully trying to pull out the millions of nails and staples they used to hold the wire to the wood frame of the kennel. I sent my roommate upstairs to check to see if our renter M would let us use his pry bars and a few other tools I had seen in his part of the garage. M ended up coming down to help us and in a very short time had a nice chunk of the wire down. Apparently methodically and carefully are not the way to go about a dismantling project. Smashing, bashing and tearing is the correct route when you don't want to re-use any of the old materials. With M's help, we had the wire down in short order and were able to work on tearing apart the wood frame, removing the posts the frame was attached to and tore down the partial roof/rain shelter of the kennel. While M was finishing the last bit of the kennel, I started digging around the metal post experimentally to see if there was any cement holding it in and if we could easily remove it. Again, M came to the rescue and was able to just yank it out of the ground.
It's amazing how much better the yard looks and how much bigger my already good sized yard looks with out that horrible structure in the background. My dad is going to bring come out and till the area for me so I can level the earth with the rest of the yard and plant new grass seed. As it is now, it's a half step higher than the rest of the yard and it's filled with weeds. I'm thinking of adding some lawn furniture there next summer and I think I'm going to line the back fence with some lovely lilac bushes.
Before
After
I'll also leave you with my newly blooming plant:
Flickr Albums Here