After 2 1/2 years of living in the little blue bungalow, last weekend the back patio was met with sledge hammers. Since the beginning of the year, Drew and I have been talking about our plans to design more outdoor living for our back yard. Saturday afternoon our neighborhood was filled with strange pounding and ripping noises as we randomly decided today was the day for change.Structurally the patio was fine, but the design and layout was a bit to be desired. Honestly, we've been waiting for this beast to be gone since the day we purchased the house! So this weekend, the Britten backyard was a frenzy of pounding as we ripped away at the ridiculous patio. (So ridiculous...Drew stood on two different steps to grill!) We really didn't have any intentions for the demolish to begin this weekend, but it just evolved.
Since we are concerned about our carbon foot prints, we tore each board off removing the nails and then piling the wood by size so we could reuse some of the better boards. Ironically, I remember doing this kind of work as a child when we wanted wood for different projects...mainly sheds as I loved animals. The worst ever was a old chicken coop that we tore down in the rain complete with an infestation of maggots. (Lots of fun Dad...thanks for the memories!)
Back then, we were be "thrifty" as we didn't have the resources for the projects. Nobody really thought of it as "green", but it was. My Dad was just utilizing his resources and I'm glad he instilled this value in his kids. As a society, we have grown-up as a throw-away, disposable world. But why? Personally, I think we are just lazy. It takes time to pound each nail out of a board and organize it to use it again and this just doesn't "fit" with our "easy street" society
. But to Drew and I...it is worth it knowing our boards won't end up in the landfill. We are glad to be instilling this value in our own children just as our parents have and look forward to the finished product. We are being green and thrifty!We'll be sure to update you as we have many more boards to take out, a new staircase to build, and a brick patio to lay...but this new outdoor living with be worth all the work. By July, I hope to be sipping my Diet Coke on a new patio.
From inside the little blue bungalow,
Katie Jean
1 comment:
Man, KJ you 2 are Great. Nathan and I cut up all our old boards and burnt them for heat this past winter. The boards have been laying around for a long time and this winter we realized we had no fire wood and we were not looking forward to a 600.00 power bill. Nathan got to work cutting and we have almost burnt it all up. Currently we are using the last of it to dry Nathans soaking wet clothes from working in the RAIN. Does that count as being GREEN?
MARY
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