My husband and I bought a house near my daughter and grandchildren back in 2018. We bought the house outright, no debt! Here in Oklahoma, houses were going cheap compared to other areas in the nation. We are catching up now. People are moving and can work from their homes.
In 2019, we had new plumbing and cabinets installed in the master bathroom. We also added a new fence, gutters, raised beds, fruit trees, a french drain for the front and back yard, hauled a bunch of gravel and decorative rocks for around the house and our shed.
My husband and I also put up a nice plastic shed for the chickens. We had never put together a plastic shed or anything that size. We almost killed each other, arguing how to do it! We came through that experience stronger, and our communication skills improved. My husband's second language is English, my native language, which causes all sorts of communication issues, and we are both stubborn. At the same time, the trees were being removed. The fence was built, we had our windows replaced also were repairing a leak in the master bathroom. What a nightmare, but we survived.
In 2020 we replaced the garage door. I painted the fence and our house. Yep, I am a super-woman.
This year I have it easy. I only have to haul three square yards of dirt in my nifty Gorilla Cart that can haul 600lbs of soil! Then I get to work on decorating the inside of the house. I would rather work in the garden.
We just put a new roof on this last Saturday, the 10th. It was a windy day, but overall the weather was nice, so our roofers didn't have to work in the heat of summer. The crew was nice, and I helped pick up old shingles and other debris
This is the old paint job and roof. We had installed new windows that keep the noise down and also keep temperatures from fluctuating. They are also shatterproof designed for extreme weather like tornados that happen in the midwest.
You can see the old aluminum windows and the old garage door. We replaced the garage door with an insulated door, which keeps the extreme heat and cold out of the garage. We also added a drainage system for the front yard. I think I lost 20lbs digging the ditch, hauling dirt, and shoveling gravel. Unfortunately, with lockdown, I gained most of it back!
Our new backyard, ready to be transformed, can be seen through our new living room window. We installed a privacy fence. We have homeless people and very snoopy obnoxious neighbor that will walk into our yard as if they own it. Plus, we have a dog and chickens. The fence was one of my favorite projects. I painted it myself with a pressure paint sprayer. It only took a day and 10 gallons of weatherproofing stain. I also painted my house myself using my favorite tool, no more paint brushes for me! I use my handy-dandy pressure paint sprayer.
The old aluminum windows were severely stained, allowed heat and cold in, and all the neighborhood noise in too. They also look great! Another great investment!
What a nasty-looking window! I should have taken an extra ten thousand off my bid, but the owner had already come down ten thousand. The house was built on the cheap back in the early 2000s. The foundation and structure were solid, which is what I was looking for when buying a fixer-upper.
I love the cedar red color of the fence. It makes the green grass pop. We put up a little plastic shed for the chickens and a raised bed garden. The yard is made up of dirt called black gumbo. It's clay that gets soft when wet and turns hard like bricks when dry. I've put in six-4 x 8 x 1 galvanized steel raised beds. We had to haul all the dirt from our front yard to the backyard. I have an excellent gorilla wheelbarrow that is super heavy-duty.
The crew that built our fence also cut down our trees and hauled them off. It took three days to cut the trees down and put up the wall. I was impressed and glad I didn't have to do the work.
My poor old broken garage door.
You can see my new garage door and three yards of garden mulch to top off my beds, trees, and berry bushes this year. Much of the dirt will be used for another project.
My granddaughter gave me a bunch of flower seeds, and I don't have flower beds. I don't want to weed them! I would much rather put my effort into things I can grow and eat. So I bought ten 30 gallon cloth containers. My granddaughter and I will fill them up with dirt for her flower seeds. We will place the containers around the house on the rock beds. I can't wait to see the flowers this summer.
I bought a 500-gallon rain harvest tank for our roof run-off. I will have to wait until this fall before I harvest rain because of the new roof. The roof is a composite of fiberglass and is fire, wind, and tear-resistant.
The fencing and tree removal crew did a great job leveling out the dirt after the trees were removed and the fence was installed.
This mess was transformed. I am so glad I don't have to rake any leaves!
Fencing and tree removal crew back in the late winter of 2019. I wanted the crew to work in the cool weather because it gets fricken hot here in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Our neighbors came and picked the downed trees for firewood.
You can see how our backyard used to look. A big old rotten tree infested with ants, no fence, and lousy dirt!
Once these projects are finished, it's time to install more storage cabinets, shelving, and kitchen counters. I am going to do this myself!
