We forgot to take ‘after’ photos last weekend, after we did massive cleanout of debris from the kitchen ‘patio’ area, so we took some this weekend. We also cleaned the area at the top of the stairs on the other side of the house, as well as some other small jobs. It actually makes a huge difference to clear everything away from the house and de-crap the woods areas immediately surrounding the cabin. Everything is just junk on top of junk, so we dig till we find only soil. Takes a few layers and a lot of contractor bags to get there! The previous owners put a lot of plastic sheeting everywhere, which is nasty. But, typically there’s no trash below the plastic layer. Making progress, and ending up with some pretty sweet places to sit and relax outdoors. Three woodpeckers had an epic battle for territory right over our heads, and we heard loons on the lake this weekend. Superb.
Before: Little tiny cranny. Plastic, shingles, goo.
After: cranny is clean. Inspected too!
After: the horror within the cranny. We knew this was here. Plan is to jack, replace sill, probably bring up the stonework to keep snow from doing this again.
Before-ish: The kitchen patio, we’ll call it. I had already pulled many bags of trash, shingles, junk out & sent it to the dump. Uncovered useless wood walkway.
Also before-ish. What’s beneath the leaves is about half the roof’s worth of shingles. So, when you’re doing a roofing job, you just throw the shingles on the ground and walk all over them for a year, right? They’ll go away…
Found under shingle pile: lots of cool old milk and other bottles. Also, an 8″ chef’s knife, dish drainer, colander, veggie chopper, etc. Basically, contents of kitchen.
After: Kitchen patio, cleared and with (free from side of road) chair. There’s evidence of an old herb garden on the right. Salvaged some thyme and a pot of hens & chickens. Quite a lovely and private nook!
After: pretty much same view, no dog. So pretty, though, I had to post twice!
After: we did this cleanup this weekend. There was about a cord of mostly rotted wood under the fern rock. Plus, cinderblocks, grills, and a retro fork! We think they built a fire pit under the rock then just let it collapse. Path got cleaned too, removed plywood and we’ve been picking up broken glass and depositing it in the glass jug, seen at right. It’s about 1/4 full already.
After: closer up view of the fern rock. This is a really nice spot now. And so clean! There were seriously about 25 cinderblocks crammed under the overhang.
