and when we arrived here at Framboise Manor this past winter, because there was already snow on the ground, we kind of forgot that underneath all of the strange looking snowpiles was all of that junk! as well, because the Manor came "furnished" (translation: previous owner left the house full of junk!), we had 3 days before the movers arrived to clear the house out. so we took the furniture and stacked it neatly around the outside of the house.
in addition, after the movers came and because we had moved too much stuff to a tiny Manor - we had to stack and store a lot of our stuff at the side of the house as well. And after one of the windiest winters ever seen here - all that stuff and junk blew all around in the wind!
anyway, when the snow started melting in the spring - we were in for an eye-full! junk was EVERYWHERE!
as for the garbage bags stacked beside the house - we were here almost 3 months before we found out that we had regular garbage pick-up...who knew? we just kept putting our garbage at the side of the house and were planning to bring it to the dump in the spring. but of course after the garbage bags melted, they busted and poor jambaloney re-bagged about 40 bags of garbage.
this is a stack of salvaged wood that used to be a fence at the Manor - but after those several windy days (100km winds) - it blew apart into different pieces all over the yard and finally, when the snow melted jambaloney was able to gather it all up in a pile and has since built a make-shift shed out of it.
you also have to remember that our basement came furnished too. remember this post with the flooded basement and junk floating everywhere? nice eh? so we then had to empty all of that junk out of the basement as well.
like i said - junk was EVERYWHERE!
wait for it - this pic is even better!
there's vandura stuffed to the gills with some of the "too-much-stuff" that we brought.
and some more junk!
as we had been scrambling to get this cottage insulated and had a million DIY-shelf-building projects on the go inside the house - the yard waited until spring for us to do any serious business with it. during that time we prayed that no neighbours would come bearing casseroles and to introduce themselves - can you imagine what they might have thought??? MDR buddy - i think we got you beat with this yard!
but jambaloney and i got cracking and we cleared up that junk toute-suite!
okay maybe that still looks a little junky but everything you see in this pic is needed at the Manor. there's our tires for container gardening to the right, our hill of dirt for filling tires and raised beds, some of our raised beds in the centre and our washing station to the left.
and here's a shot of over to the other side past the washing station - see? no more junk!!! just more raised beds and tires of potatoes and peppers.
here's a shot looking to the side of the house from in front of the washing station - all nice and tidied up. jambaloney spent days weed-whacking the back and side of the house - it was like an overgrown jungle out there.
and another shot:
and from the other side:
all nice and tidy now!
anyway - after days and weeks of gathering all of the garbage, building raised beds, filling the raised beds with dirt, plus the tire gardens, jambaloney then by using a variety of garden tools flattened out this area in order to set up our rainbarrel and get ready to build our deck.
he really worked his butt off - as can be seen in the previous pics this area was not level at all.
here is the rock wall that he built to help level the area out. notice the burn pile in the background. i am very glad to say it is gone and we have moved our burn "pit" further down our road.
jambaloney originally built us a deck that was 12x12, and when jambaloney's step-dad Ted came for a visit - he helped jambaloney add another 12x12. and here it is - my glorious deck! a whole 'nuther room added to the Framboise Manor. it's not set up properly in this pic but you get the idea.
i love my deck! and cleaned up yard!
That looks like a monumental task! Well done!
ReplyDeleteI had some lawn chairs, steel ones, that I finally figured out I was not going to restrap, a table that everyone broke each time it was moved. So, with just what would fit in his tiny car, and driving two miles, He brought me $14.56. I was thrilled because I figure it would be $3 or something piddling. The following week, I was inspired and he brought me home a similar amount. The point--I hope you had a salvage yard to bring in a few bucks from some the junk that looked metal. Exbf is coming Monday, so I will find things in the basement now. $15 each week works for me!
Of course, that was a monumental amount of junk you had. It probably needed to be burned!
I love your deck, too.
It's amazing how much stuff folks will leave. Then again, maybe that's why they sold the place; they didn't want to clean up their mess!
ReplyDeleteThat was a lot of work! Nice job!
ReplyDeleteJust think, you would be so bored if you didn't have a list of things needing to get done. Even if it's as long as Santa's naughty list for D.C.
ReplyDeleteYou just need a couple of dogs for those pictures. Maybe I'll photoshop some in for you!
Looking good. Isn't it great when it all starts to come together?
ReplyDeleteIt's looking good and a nice deck job. I need to build a new deck section for a new wood furnace I want to install. It is amazing how stuff explodes all over the place while you are remodeling or fixing things up.
ReplyDeleteYou guys have done well. Hard work sure pays off doesn't it. Any wealth gained from the junk...
ReplyDeletePP - sooo glad that you got such a return on your "stuff" - woohoo girl! we gave alot of stuff away to people who could use it and the remainder was pretty much just junk so we re-purposed it ourselves or burned it. and ya - we love the deck too - thank you!
ReplyDeleteMr. Smythe, Sir, i think you just called the number. the previous owner didn't want to be burdened with taking care of anything here so just left it all. we, of course, wearing our rose-coloured glasses when we purchased it - didn't even consider the amount of work it would take to get rid of it all. *kicking ourselves in the butts now*
Donna - yes - it was a lot of work but we did it! and thank you!
Max - yep - we would be bored out of our heads without all of that junk to clean up. i mean, since getting here our days were filled with: trying to stay warm in an un-insulated cottage, insulating the cottage, melting snow for our drinking water, melting snow to flush our toilet, melting snow to bathe in, melting snow to wash our clothes in, trying to build raised beds and set up tire gardens, building storage areas anywhere we can find in this tiny, crap-ass little cottage, planting seeds, begging them to grow, sucky sppring, sucky summer - the works!
oh and Max, buddy, i am getting jambaloney a black lab puppy for his birthday (Nov 16) - don't tell him eh? he has never had a dog of his own and alllll dogs (and cats for that matter!) looove him! so i am getting him a puppy that our cranky cats will train and i just know that he will love that puppy to death. but that's just between you and me eh - don't tell him - just between you and me cuz we're tight like that!
Mudbug, sweet brother from another mother but still the best brother i ever had - you know it buddy!
Pioneer P - thanks buddy! we love our deck...and ya - you obviously have experience with making a new space and then filling it up with the crap that is spilling all over the place!
Stephen, dearest, thank you so much! yes - from giving away that junk to people who wanted it - we have gained new friendships that will last us a life-time. we have gained soooo much wealth in friendships from that junk!
thank you all for stopping by and doing so, so regularly. some days we have a ton of stuff on our hands. like yesterday - we had to make chili and cookies and were out of here by 2pm. didn't return until 8pm and were too burned out to even check our computers. we were working at a "community supper". all is well that ends well and tomorrow we are working all day at the community fire hall - of which we are members. so if we aren't around for a few days - please forgive us. we got busy schedules here in the roaring village of Framboise. oh ya - busy!
we love all of your comments and love the fact that you all stop by so regularly. thank you from the bottom of our hearts!
Wow, I thought I was viewing an episode of the hoarders to start with! You've transformed the place!
ReplyDeleteI love your deck too!
Joey - you should have seen the junk that the previous owner left INSIDE the house as well - what a mess! and ya - we are trying to transform it and it is taking quite a while!
ReplyDeleteand thanks - i love my deck!
your friend,
kymber
..looks great! I know the feeling..we inherited a rusted out truck, a rusted out car and a yard of crap..plus all the excess lumber that was milled and left to rot over 5 years.
ReplyDeleteSince we are limited to one container that can hold about two standard bags of garbage without paying extra, it took us about six months to dispose of all the junk left behind in our house when we moved in. I'm guessing had you the same restriction, it would have taken six years!
ReplyDeleteWow, nice job. It really looks great!
ReplyDeleteSo, about the tire planters, is that safe for growing food? Can chemicals leach out of the tires and be taken up by the plants?
egb - yep - you certainly know the feeling. man - that must have been a pile of junk that you had to clear out. my deepest sympathy!
ReplyDeleteEd - you poor dear! our garbage pick-up here is even better than we had in the city! they will take up to 10 bags per week! as long as it is all sorted properly. but it took us about 3 months to have all the garbage picked up - that's how many garbage bags we had!
Kris - thanks a bunch - we are really trying! we haven't done much "landscaping" but plan to get to that over the fall and next spring/summer.
as for tires - i have been using tires for 5 years now. when i first heard of tire gardening, i did a bunch of research. it turns out that tires take like a bazillion years to decompose!!! and there are no chemicals in the tires that isn't already in the air. it has been my experience that the tires don't leach any chemicals - at least not so far. back in the city i grew the most awesome herbs in tires - i mean awesome! my lavender, chammomile, sage, dill, savoury, echinnacea, lemon balm, bee balm, etc. looooved the tires! i also learned that the only root vegetables that like growing in tires are potatoes! my carrots and beets and onions grew well in tires but not fantastically which is why we now put that stuff in raised beds.
anyway - as for potatoes - they love the tires. and if you plant your potatoes in a tire, wait for it to grow about 8-10 inches, then add more dirt, add another tire, repeat - you can do this up to 5 tires! maybe more but i have never tried more. and the great thing about potatoes in tires is that you can just dig in to the top tire, get a few potatoes for supper and leave the rest in the tires and harvest only as needed. the potatoes can be kept in the tires until you get into frost season. no need to harvest and then store them all at once!
anyway - maybe i should do a post about tire gardening because i am a big fan! i first learned about it from kurt saxon`s site and then discovered that people in the southern US have been doing it for over 40 years.
thanks to all of you for stopping by!
That was massive! It doesn't look too bad in the pictures but I know how misleading pictures can be. I do hope you were able to reuse some of that junk, I loved that Jambaloney reused the wood from the blown down fence. That's great. Very green. I'm glad Kris asked about the tire gardening. I was curious about the safety of it too, I do think you should do a post about tire gardening and the raised bed gardening you do around the Manor. You both worked your tushies off but it was worth it. Do you think you'll put a roof over the deck area?
ReplyDeleteKris:
ReplyDeletethe tires seem to be as safe as anything, we grew a TON of food in them that made us healthier than ever.
GoodBagGirl:
we used a lot of of the stuff already, the rest has been put in a better storage "pile" for future use.
a roof over the deck is certainly being considered ;-)
GBG - it was certainly a massive mess - it took us forever to get all of that junk sorted - of course anything that could be re-used or re-purposed was moved to a different pile as jambaloney mentioned.
ReplyDeleteand i will definitely do a post on tire gardening now since you are both interested. thanks.
we did work our tushies off and yes - it is so worth it - such a feeling of accomplishment when a big job like that gets done. plus i got my deck - woohoo.
we are actually thinking of "porching off" the side deck/step first - we need a porch/mudroom at the front door as right now when you step into the house you step right into the tiny kitchen. having coats and boots taking up space is a real chore to keep neat and tidy so by getting a porch/mudroom it will really add some space.
maybe next year we will roof the deck.
thanks for stopping by - we really appreciate it!