Busy at Gold Manor

Kelly and Jon sold their current home and are renting it back for a month.  That allows them to get some things done on their new home.  Move in date is a few weeks away.

"Some things done" is codeword for 'major renovations'.

Once a contract was in hand, they marshaled all their home building/construction, general contractor, property management and interior design skills to bear.  They put together a plan, a schedule, lined up the resources and materials and developed a critical path which began the day after closing.

Move in date was about four weeks away from closing.

The former owner on the Gold Manor allowed Jon and I to work on the yard before the close of the sale.  That enabled us to get a jump on clearing some shrubs, underbrush, ivy, and unwanted overgrowth.

We got with it and started reclaiming the flower beds along the front of the house.  It was no small task.  We used a chain saw to hack the shrubs back and to remove the overgrowth.  Along the side of the house, I cut back the shrubs to uncover an access way to see what we had in that area.

It was a classic case of a neglected yard which had been left in a sad state for years and years.

After a few hours making a dent on the front of the house, we spent a couple more hours on the back yard.  Jon saw some steps from the sun room in the back when he opened the door.  As we dug the 8" of vines, needs and leaves away, we found more brick work on a walkway.

As we continued to dig up the leaves and needles, we found some bricks on a pathway.  In fact the pathway went from the back of the sun room to the lake.  And another path crossed the yard and went around to the back of the boat house.  We found another 40' of brick walkway. We were stunned!

The more we cut and cleared away, the more brickwork we found.  Now only if we had an unlimited amount of energy!

After we gathered up our first batch of debris, we piled it into the dumpster and filled it up.  We completed a good days work with more to follow.

After that weekend, I went back over to the house and 'worked out' about an hour at a time.  I used a pick and shovel to loosen up the pea gravel driveway to fill in some pot holes.

 It was not the quickest way to get the job done and I had only done about 1/3 of the length of the driveway.  But it is progress.  When I started there was no concrete border visible.  Again, little by little we are getting the job done.

The next weekend Jon used the weedwacker and edger to uncover more of the yard.  I spent a couple of days going back over it to see what we were working with.  Also, I continued on the driveway working an hour here and there.

 After a number of days at it, I had completed about 40'-50' of the driveway that is over 125' long. My first priority was getting rid of the large potholes by loosening up the gravel in the middle and spreading it out over the low areas.

With shrubs and big piles of yard waste, it was a beautiful thing to see the first dumpster come and go.

That's a of many updates on what has become one of our most favorite 'volunteer' work efforts over the years.  There is a lot to do here and there are half a dozen sub contractors scheduled to come and go over the next few weeks to get the Gold Manor to 'move-in-ready'.

Thanks for joining us on the Roadrunner Chronicles!