Buying an old house as a young and near penniless couple is not such a good idea. How do I know you ask?
We were that young and penniless couple when we first purchased our circa 1958 brick ranch in Richmond Virginia. We knew nothing about taking care of a massive yard, or changing out ac vents monthly, or that an old house can suck everything including the soul out of you!
When we first bought the house, we stayed in our apartment until the major things like our kitchen, painting, and deep cleaning were complete. Other than that there were little things here and there that I wanted to complete but I was so excited when it was time to move in.
But with a husband who can easily work 60 hours a week, twins, more pregnancies, work, and life, we got comfortable and let that long wish list fall to the wayside.
Now are little house is just a little too small for our growing family, and I need to add some functionality and overall freshness to our space. We don’t plan on being here forever, but I would like to feel happy and comfortable while we’re here and I’m not there right now.
You know that show on HGTV with the brothers who kind of hate each other and help people sell their old homes so that they can buy a new home. We do plan on being here for at least a few more years so ours will be a little different. I want to make the space attractive to buyers but I also want to have it more functional and comfortable for our family at the moment. Now that’s killing two birds with one stone.
I’m documenting the transformation and wanted to share a little of what we are currently working on. Which is our over grown and UGLY yard.
Curb appeal anyone? It’s kind of important when selling a house, plus I want somewhere me and the family can cool it comfortably outside. Since it’s cooler outside and my hubby hates bugs (yeah I just blamed it on him) we figured it was the perfect time to take on this task.
First things first was tearing down and pulling out all the old.
I thought we could have a little fun, tie a chain around these trees and pull it out with our SUV.
Hubby and the manager at Lowes didn’t think that was such a good idea. So he bought this little Chainsaw for just 50 bucks.
Just for a second, Que in on that not so pretty storage house. When we first moved here I had some grand idea to turn it into an office, lmbo! Obviously that never came to pass. 
Another picture of all we have to cut down.
I want pretty green grass only. 
With a bunch of trees and shrubs like this I’m not sure how long it will take us to clear out everything but I can’t wait til it is!
Biscuit break for my sweet husband.
We did get a good amount of small trees and old shrubs down the first day.
Our yard was so full of the debris we decided to chop up and remove what we had cut down before we started cutting down more.
Looking at these pictures I feel embarrassed so let’s even the score a bit!
Tell me something that you would be embarrassed to share a picture of at this moment?
Please don’t leave me hanging, I really need to feel better about myself.
Your first chain saw! That’s a milestone! We bought one a few years back when we had a house that had a bunch of brush work done. I made my husband buy all the protective gear too. When he had it all on he was kind of like the little brother all dressed up for snow in “A Christmas Story” and I still worried. I am a worrier 😉
I will look forward to reading more yard transformation posts!
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Only concern I had was the power lines on one tree. We’re going to call the power company to trim it down before we mess with it. Otherwise, I was like go head…get out there…cut down those trees man!!!
Thanks Patricia!
This is a big project Christina! And I love that little storage house! The possibilities are endless with that one! That can be your photography and food styling studio! And I won’t leave you hanging. My side yard is atrocious and I am so embarrassed by it! I’m always warning people to not look around that corner at that mess!
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Lol, thank you Tracey for not leaving me hanging. Wouldn’t that be a nice studio, maybe if we work on it really hard it’ll be done by summer 2016. lol. Thank you again Tracey!
I am all here for this project. We had two massive arborvitae taking over our front door. We had to borrow a chainsaw from a friend. Girl, we couldn’t even get the stumps out and we were digging for days….lol We finally sucked it up and paid for stump grinding. It was worth it. I am working on green grass too.
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Ooooo stump grinding? I’ll have to look that up we may need to do that as well. Thanks girl I will keep update on our progress.
Can’t wait to see the progress y’all make, so much you can do….
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Yes we are still working on it too! I didn’t realize how much work it actually was! We have another batch of debris to remove, and then we’ll be back to cutting more down.