It feels like a millions years ago that we were building this house. In reality it was only sixteen years, but as we have expanded by five little Homies, various fish and frogs (all desceased), a kitten named Dot that found a new home, a puppy named Lola that found a new home, a tortoise named Louis that had to be given away after transplant, a bunny named Bunny Foo Foo who went to Gardner Village, and a pooch named Milo who has survived the chaos of our home now for 9 months, we needed some extra space.... Jeff is once again the general contractor. I remember when we first built out here... We were looking for locations and our first choice fell through. We were bummed but drove way out by the Copperton Copper mine. At the time there was only one main road to enter into the subdivision and hardly any houses. We were surrounded by wheat fields and often had antelope come down to feed in the near by fields, as well as red fox, hawks, rabbits, a big cat of some sort, and tons and tons of mice. Sometimes you would see the little guys run right across the road... YUCK!!! I was pregnant with Ry at the time but still trying to help. I would get my contractor knee pads on and crawl around on the floor stapling mesh tile backer to the floor. That huge belly almost dragged. The other workers would peek in the windows and laugh at me. All in good fun of course. Jeff and I spent many many hours out working on our home. Jeff's dad, my dad and brother Marcus were also super helpful when doing the electrical and finish carpentry.
This time around we have five helpers with various abilities, but willing learners. They have moved a lot of rock and dirt, have been on garbage duty (moving demo pieces to dump trailer), and are so happy to do demo. That is the overwhelming favorite activity. Who doesn't love to break things up?
The first thing we had to do was take down the stairs off the side of the house.
injuries abound... although I took this to show him that it wasn't bleeding.
Then the covered awning had to come off the back of the house.
Whew that was hard work.
We also needed to take down our shed so that there would be enough room for the excavation of the basement. We tried really hard to save this shed, we put great big casters underneath and tried to move it to the side, but the whole shed started shifting the wrong direction and nearly fell off the foundation. We decided to go a safer route and have our neighbor knock it over with the tractor. Loved it.
But first.... We had to take down all the supports, remove cabinets, and take out all the stuff.
Look at those little hands from when we built it!!!
This wraps up the first edition of the Home-ie Additions adventure. Hopefully part two won't take me 9 months to write.