This Old House, Glaser Edition

Sunday, January 06, 2008

No Mo' Sanford and Son

We promised to blog more regularly, not every day! We do have a life, you know!

The first order of business the week we bought the house (July 2006) was to raze the backyard which had become overgrown. The landscaping crew that took down some old trees near the house also demolished the outhouse and yanked three clotheslines poles, probably meant to withstand a nuclear blast.

This was the view of our backyard before the landscapers started. Can you see the outhouse with the lovely words "I hate you" spray painted in blood red? Can you see the big eye sore called Sanford and Son? They really are buried behind the jungle covering our backyard.

Exhibit A: Outhouse


Exhibit B: Sanford and Son
Last spring, we were busy cooking up plans to hide this eyesore: build a very tall fence or plant bushes or ivy that grows quickly. Others suggested we dig up the dead Yankee that was possibly buried in our yard during the Civil War. Some recommended digging up the spot where the outhouse stood because people might have lost something valuable and opted not to retrieve it. In the meantime, the gentleman who owned the dilapidated house, junkyard, and a gazillion cats died. We figured we would have to live with that view until we found a way to hide it.

Fortunately, once the estate was settled, two nephews of the gentleman resting in peace decided to sell the place. But, to do so, they had to take apart the junkyard piece by piece. They had crews out there on the hottest weekends of the summer and often during the week. They hauled pile after pile of debris to the curb near the house. They tore down shed remnants where the stuff sat there rusting. One day, Tammy snapped these three photographs of the junk the crews were dismantling. As you can see, sheds full of shelves crammed with junk lined the west side of the property. The task seemed impossible, but the nephews succeeded in clearing out all of it!





Today, Tammy took this shot of the spot where the outhouse in our yard and the junkyard to the south of us once stood. Now, we can see all the way to the storage sheds that kept our stuff when we were moving into our old house in Christmas of 2006.

Just imagine! This entire fence was lined with sheds full of junk last year. We are Snoopy Dancing now that there ain't no mo' Sanford and Son!

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