This weekend was our first Nellie Mae Yard Day! We invited friends and family, but we call them all family… to come help us whip this place into shape! Our goal: Get that backyard cleaned up!  Results: we came pretty darn close to achieving that!

Thanks to Bob our electrician, Dennis for dropping off the bobcat, Mom, Dad, Chef, Momo, Jackson Brown the dog, Greg, Jessica, Jacob, Jessica, Josh, Brad, and all the others that allowed these people to come help! We were quite the team and it was quite the day. Here is what we did:

The Bobcat vs. the Shanty Town

It was a mess of metal and some of us have some scraps to show for it! Did I mention we found about 100 buried tires?

Let’s talk about this. It is illegal to bury, burn, or throw tires away. You have to dispose of them at the dump ($5 a pop) or recycle them at a tire store ($2.50 a tire). So, this renter was a little lazy and decided to hide them back in the corner of the lot. So, we have a Tire Mountain. We are trying to figure out where the heck we are gonna take them! So, money that is saved on cabinets, fixtures, everything else…. will be getting spent on properly disposing of tires. Grrrr!

Fortunately, we live about 15 min from the dump. We took about 7 truck and trailor loads to the dump! We had considered renting a roll away dumpster, but in hindsight we would of needed a few of them! They are around $300-$500 a dumpster. We only spent $150 doing the labor ourselves. Hard, but worth it! I got stung 3 times, we found huge ants nests, bee nests, and really gross spiders. Don’t worry, we were armed and killed them all.

All in all, it’s no landcapers dream yet, but I think we have a little success! A little light at the end of the tunnel!

It obviously has a long way to go, but we made a major dent and our so happy with it. We are also forever indebted to the people that have come and helped. Thank you, again!

 Onward we go!! The electrical will be finished this week and another inspection will happen. We are 10 days from the house being completely re-plumbed. Thank you again for the 2,000 + readers we have following our project! We appreciate the encouragement and support! We feel like we are holding it together okay and are tentatively setting a completion date of end August/ beg. Sept! And to our critics out there, I’m a little bit emotionally unstable so please refrain from the non encouraging comments about our house’s appearance currently, the size of it, and our progress. If you have complaints, remember you aren’t the one that’s going to be living here! We realize we aren’t quite normal and are off the beaten path a little, and we like that. My blood, sweat, and tears are in this house already so I just might fight you. Kidding, but cut us some slack.. this is our first renovation =) And I think it’s going to look pretty darn sweet when finished. I also updated Deals We Scored.