Jim Goings

In the showdown of all showdowns, we took on our back yard and kicked it’s butt!   I hired Mark to come over and help us.   First up was a trip to the dump where we unloaded a van full of crap we had sitting around in the yard.  Then, Mark ran the rototiller most of the day while I trimmed the trees – all 4 of them.  Mark ended up tilling about half of the yard which is awesome.  We placed some edging and moved some of the rocks into the border areas.  Of course, the rocks were from the other half of the yard where we dug them up a few weeks ago.  They were all muddy, so we spend about 2 hours washing rocks.  Yes, we washed rocks.  The results are great, but we have a long way to go.

Mark finishing up the tilling.  Now we have a mostly level yard ready for sod!

We covered the tilled earth with plastic to prevent anything from growing.  In a few weeks we’ll plant sod.

I cut down the tree what was growing in the middle of the two pine trees shown here.  I also pruned the weird tree you can just see on the far right.

If you look towards the house, you can see a huge pile of limbs and leaves from the maple tree sitting in front of the window.  The foreground shows some of the trimmings from the other trees.

For those of you that haven’t seen my dorky office at work, check it out.  Points if you can identify the 3 sci-fi shows that are represented.

I took this pic a couple of weeks ago and forgot to post it.  It’s just too good to not immortalize here on my blog.  I present – the green cruiser.   T-top, gold wheels, chain steering wheel, beige leather interior.  Word to yo motha!

We finally decided to get rid of the funky green on the front of our house.  Here’s a before picture from 2005:

Mmmm green!  Here’s another picture that shows the red front door and the green door that goes into the garage.

We had to a lot of work on the outside of our home.

• Removed leaves from gutters (around entire house)
• Power washed the gutters (inside and out)
• Spray painted gutters with a gloss enamel
• Removed moss from roof – what a freaking pain in the butt!
• Power washed driveway – 2 inch strips at a time!
• Painted garage door and house trim ultra pure white
• Filled in all cracks in cedar siding with wood putty and sanded it
• Painted house a light sand color that matches the sand colored stones
• Painted door terracotta to match bricks
• Replaced globe porch light with new, more attractive one
• Cleaned and painted the wrought iron railing
• Removed, cleaned, and painted gutter drain spout with white gloss enamel

Luckily Megan and Kelly volunteered to help out on Saturday.  We put in about 7 hours of work on Saturday and Beck and I put in another 8 hours on Sunday finishing up.

Notice that both doors are the same color now!   The new colors are much brighter and make the house less gloomy.  Two neighbors and have stopped by to say how much they really like it!

When your six year-old son needs a haircut and he asks for a mohawk, what should you do?  Say YES!