Backyard Remodel

I posted here about some more remodeling we are doing.  Well, it's been coming along.  It always get worse before it gets better though.





My yard was pretty torn up for a while.  In addition to the new office, we are also putting a bathroom out in the shop and we had to dig a trench through the yard so that we could lay the drain pipe from the shop and connect it to the drain line from the house.  Anthon's favorite part of this was being able to rent big machinery in order to dig the trench.



Damon enjoyed it too.





Some of it had to be dug by hand because there are a lot of lines and wires and pipes going through our yard.



Unfortunately, despite his best effort, Anthon ended up hitting just about everything while using the excavator: electrical lines, Century Link's cable line, our drain from our house, sprinker pipes, etc. We had Blue Stakes come out and mark everything, but apparently they are not very exact with their marking.

Whoever built the shop originally just poured some cement and then built a structure on top of it. We decided to do the office properly by pouring footings and then building from there. So we had to dig that all out.







Then Anthon's cousins came and poured the concrete for the footings.







We've had a cement truck in our driveway 3 times now.



Anthon decided he needed an even bigger excavator to do what he needed to do.



Next came the framing and that's when you really get to see some of the progress that is being made.



Then new siding and another cement pour. This time, we had someone else do it and they used wheel barrels instead of a pump truck to save some money.



So we had about 8 guys out there, running wheel barrels back and forth.



I tried to take pictures in the same spot so I could show the progression. It wasn't always possible with the trench in the way, but I think it was pretty close.















Having new siding on the place makes it look brand new!  Here are some before and after shots.













I think it looks amazing now and I can't wait until it's all done and my yard is back to normal so my 2 year old can run around and play out there.