24 Hours of Snow

It's been a snowy spring. Or, I guess, a snowy end of winter. A storm came through yesterday that was billed as a real doozy. It did snow a lot, started at 2am (they say) on Tuesday and kept going straight through until 2am this morning. A few pics of the progress...

Lighting Strikes

That's light-ing. As in electricity. As in, something is happening to the garage and I'm very excited about it. After I got my 3rd parking ticket for parking in front of my house on a street cleaning day, my neighbors kindly suggested that I get my garage door fixed so I could start parking back there and avoid Chicago's Scam to Fund their Dwindling Coffers. Conspiracy Alert!! Seriously, those street cleaners don't do a thing. If I remember, I'll try to take a picture of the street after one of their trucks comes through. Honestly they just sputter filthy water in their wake. Here's a googled picture of one of the city street sweepers which is clearly sitting on a street that has already been cleaned. See how pristine the street is in front of the truck? That's how you know they're lying.

 
No leaves or trash or gutter gunk gets picked up by these trucks. They just spurt out Streets and Sanitation bilge water. But, if you don't dash out and move your car before they fart by they'll hit you with a hefty fine. People, you do the math.

But I digress. This post isn't about exposing the city's farty undergarments. It's about the miracle in the alley and Jack, my neighbor, who took it upon himself to put together a proposal and bid to install a new garage door. Here's what it looks like now,

and here's what it's going to look like,

Ha. Just kidding. No, the new door will be boring white vinyl. But it'll be better than the ramshackle two-tone that's back there now.

So step one was to hook the garage up with electricity. I didn't want the new electrical line that had to go from the garage to the fuse box in the basement to be an eyesore. So Jack ran the line from the basement, along the back of the fence (on the left) and into the back wall of the garage.

From the other side of the fence (which you get to through my neighbor's gangway) you can see where the line comes out of the hole in the basement wall, gets threaded through a box and into an insulated pipe

rounds the corner

and tucks up against the back of the fence.

I bought the door this morning at Menard's, it was delivered a couple hours later and will be installed tomorrow. The motor opener thing is coming from Home Depot online tomorrow or Monday-ish. This has all happened a lot faster than I expected and really, never would have happened without my neighbor's intervention. So thanks to him it'll soon be Huron - 1, bankrupt city pension fund - Goose Egg.  

Dig It

More things are happening in the backyard. Some were planned, some were not. Here's how it looks right now.

 

Hey Marvid, can you see the hose? Thanks, it's a great gift. 

Close up of the 4 square beds. The hydrangeas on the bottom right have had a tough time during this hot hot hot summer. 

Even though the neighbor's tree provides a decent amount of shade, the sun and drought have taken their toll on them. They might do better in the empty bed on the left where there's even more shade. Man, you can see some sunburned brown leaves in there.

This patch grew on its own. After clearing out a ton of weeds and transplanting some grass stalks from other parts of the garden (where they also popped up) into this area, this bed really filled out. I love ornamental grass but I'm not sure this is the right choice for this spot. It's very tall and doesn't have a ton of interesting character.

This little peanut is a butterfly bush. Butterflies have already visited and birds seem to like it too. It should grow into the size of the bed.

This is at the back of the yard, against the garage wall. The flowers move from yellow to blue to pink to purple but the pinkies and purples are a little shy right now.

These are right next to the pretty blue delphiniums. My hope is that they'll bust open into sweet little pink flowers and fill in that section with some color.

Don't know yet what's going to happen over here.

But the plan for the weed haven against the fence is to fill it with lilacs.

There are a couple of potted plants up on the back porch. This one didn't do so great. It actually died before I got it into this pot. I thought there was a chance it would resurrect. It did not.

And in the front of the house the hydrangea in the pot is doing really well. This is how it looked back in May when it first bloomed and had a crazy deep purple color. 

The blooms then turned green and deep burnished magenta. Now some new blue flowers are appearing. A little psychedelic but this is a great plant and I'm super happy it's still alive.

And here's a cute little trash can that came from a garage sale. It's super handy for getting rid of all the flyers and circulars that people leave on the front porch.

Yard Transformation

See below as it turns from a weed museum into something more manageable.

 

There aren't any plants yet so it can't be called a garden. That will be round two. 

Tweet

There have been lots of winged visitors at Huron since the yard work started. Digging around has unearthed a bunch of tasty treats and birds have been poking and pecking around, noshing on worms and whatever else they like to eat. I tried to get a nice portrait of this little guy 

but he flew up, up and

landed on the fence for safety. 

Then he flew away.

Sneak Preview

Since the last post I found a garden that I really really love. Here's a gander at the design I'm stealing inspired by...

A lot of the elements above are going to find their way into this...

 

I hope.

Yardage

So here's a good look at the "opportunity" in the back yard...

It needs to be overhauled completely. Dug up, graded, new top soil, some sot of water runoff system for the rain gutters, possibly a sprinkler system - all of that plus a plan to put something back there and make it look nice. I like the idea of clover, thyme or vinca instead of grass,

  

gravel or stones to create a patio or foot paths

 

and flowers to add color and pretty smells.                   

That's the dream. Stay tuned for the reality.

Addition Subtraction

The backyard has undergone quite a transformation since work started in November.  This is how it looked when I bought the house.  The little brown building on the right was an addition off the first floor which was identified in the listing as the master bedroom.  That was the first to go.

Next up was the enclosed back stairwell.  Gone are the days when you could head up to the 2nd floor, pause at the landing and survey the backyard from that little window on the left. Or reach out of the window on the right and adjust the reception on the dish tv.  Oh, and this is also when the gigantic mess took root in the backyard and refused (get it? No?) to leave.

 Now, boom, yellow siding is gone.  It was beautiful out that day.  Look at the sky.

The back stairs (and surrounding walls) have joined the trash heap on the ground.  The stairs from the basement to the first floor are still there but as you can see the stairs going to the second floor are gone, leaving a ghostly shadow etched into the brick.  Hey, be careful walking out of the back door on the top floor.  That first step is a doozie.

That lower set of stairs on the right are gonzo and there's finally a clear view of what was the original back wall of the building.  The doorway at the bottom on the left leads to the basement.  You can't really tell but you actually jump down about 3 feet to be on an even level with the basement floor.  That door and a window hole to the right will be closed up and there'll be a two story deck built off the back wall.  But why explain it when you can just look at the pictures below.

Some of the garbage has been hauled away and the little orange things that look like pumpkins are concrete footings for the back porch. Also, the electric company came by and put a meter on the wall.  The cables back there are such an eyesore but I will want electricity in the house so I guess it's one of those things you put up with.

The difference this day is a little bit of a mystery but if you look up you'll see a blue tarp hanging off both sides of the house.  It's because the roof is gone (yikes) and except for the tarp the top of the house is open to the elements.  You can see it better in pictures from the font of the house.  I'll put those up soon.

Still tons of garbage in the backyard.  I mean, that's just what you get I guess.  But...look what else!  The porch is taking shape.

What's different?  Sure, the porch is framed and wrapped in Tyvek but look at the back wall. It's gone!  Well, a bunch of the bricks have been removed to make room for the new back doors. Before they took the bricks out I asked Bill, the architect, how they could do that without the whole building falling down.  He kind of laughed and didn't seem worried about it so I didn't sweat it too much either.

Doors are in and the porch is almost finished.  It's clad in cedar and smells really good.  I don't know how long that fragrance will last, it's certainly not as strong now as it was at first, but I love love love the porch.  When you come over you can press your nose up against the wall and enjoy it for yourself.

More progress has been made. You can't really see it in this picture but the ceiling on the 2nd floor is done and this project is almost complete.  This particular day was unseasonably warm and rainy and all the snow melted and washed away.  Which was good because someone stole my snow shovel.

So just to recap...

          

It went from this                                                                             to this.

At some point there'll be railing added, like in the drawing below...   

which is good because when you're inhaling all that glorious cedar aroma you'll need something to hang onto.