How To Plan a Garage

Bill and I had spent over an hour trying to figure out what size the garage actually needed to be. Moving the lines this way and that. Knowing that the storm shelter would be in it, the pantry is going into it, our cars, with the possibility of when we are older needing a handicap van, a walkway to get into the West Wing, the big lawn mower, the golf cart, and the push mower. The size just kept growing and growing until it had become the size of a medium sized home. And it's ridiculous to have a garage that big. 

Finally had the idea to park what belonged in the garage and see how much room we actually needed. Sometimes a visual is really all it takes. We were able to cut a whole bunch of excess space and still kept it where when we are older and our reflexes aren't as sharp we won't run into each others car. For every foot we cut off we said; this is a bathroom faucet we can afford now, this foot is another square of shingles, and so on. Made cutting the size down much easier.

New Pets

We love animals, whether domesticated or wild. We are feeding the deer to keep them coming onto the property, I am thinking about going to the South Bend house and kidnapping my flock of turkeys. I really miss those birds. 

We want to live with animals all around us. Except MOLES and we have moles everywhere. Every day there are new mole hills. When they say you are making a mountain out of a mole hill they are wrong. Mole Hills are mountains. We have put down grub killer to kill their food supply and are baiting the  hills. And they just keep coming. 

The previous owner would take his car out and run a hose from his exhaust down into the tunnels. I can't do that but haven't found a natural deterrent to use yet. They are tearing up the yard like crazy.

We're Having a Beach Party

The concrete guys have leveled the ground.

 Laid the sand, ready for a little water and we can have a party.

Oops, they didn't get very far on the forms and they left really early. We were scratching our heads on what was going on. We thought forms and iron were going to be finished.

 Oh, now we see a broken fan belt so nothing can move until the equipment is fixed. We are reliant on the equipment working. Today they should get everything back on schedule/

It's Begun

Finally, all the prep work is done and the building process has begun.

Yesterday the concrete guy brought in his equipment and the fill sand was delivered. Today the garage is being started. This is super exciting.

 Digging out the excess dirt

Smoothing, smoothing, smoothing

Started to dig the trench for the stemwall and then left. Hopefully they will be back after lunch.

He's a Country Dog

We share custody of Otis, the Shih Tzu, with Christel. We are the custodials and she gets visitation and all the bills. Her life right now is not conducive to being a dog owner during the week and he loves going to work every day and playing with our customers. Then spends the weekends with Mom. He is a large Shih Tzu and thinks he is a big dog because he grew up around big retreivers. Otis has come to love the country life. We have lost him several times on the 7 and a half acres. He just takes off with his nose to the ground and we have no idea where he has gone.

Decorating the Trophy Room

One of the reasons we bought this property is that it would give Bill a trophy room for all of his animals and fish. He is a big game hunters and loves to deep sea fish. I was tired of his trophies being in the main part of the house and having to look at them all the time. Love the places in the world his hunting has taken us, tired of my decorating being around animals.

For his 60th birthday this year the girls gave him their favorite pictures of them hunting with him. He immediately put them up on the wall in the future trophy room.

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The top one is Tiffany  and Bill on her 21st birthday with their matching Blesbocks in South Africa. Her first big game trophy animal

The bottom one is Bill & Christel looking through the bino's (binoculars, gotta use the lingo) together. They spent a lot of time with him showing her things through the glasses (lingo again). He wears them on a harness and she slips between him and the binoculars to use them.

Wrong Order

When you build a house; the building process has an order. The order is in place so things go logically and smoothly. Not when the Smith's do things. Landscaping should be the very last thing done. But we are jumping the gun by building a line of sight berm now. We want to block the line of sight from a portion of the property. There is a small berm there now and we want to raise it 4 feet. Kubota is moving in down the road from the rock yard and are needing to move 10-15,000 yards of dirt. So we gave them a place to put 20 truck loads and didn't even charge them a drop fee, we really are nice people. The rest of the dirt they are taking to the rock yard and we will make money off of it. Bill had to learn how to grade dirt really well because we want a gentle slope for easy mowing. Once we get a sprinkler system we will be planting lots of colorful bushes on the berm. Wrong time in the process but saved a bunch of money by doing it now.