The Many faces of the Man I LOVE!!

It's been a great 31 Years. You are the best!

The metamorphosis Little Dan to Dan the Man

The best Grandpa and Opa

Thanks for 6 awesome kids

I love You!!!!

The Final Refinish

This project has been on going for about 5 years.

Many years ago my mother gave me this desk and chair that she and dad bought when they were first married, around 1950. Sometime in the 70's she had antiqued it white. I think it was a huge craze at the time for I seem to remember entire bedroom sets through out the house sporting the antique look. By the time I got the desk the antique finish was scratched to pieces and the desk top was quite damaged with heat and water stains, it was an absolute mess. I used it that way for years and finally got the desk refinished a couple of years ago. I ran out of time and told myself that I would do the chair soon. My soon has turned into 4 years. Part of my problem was the chair was structurally unsafe. The one center back piece had been missing for as long as I can remember and several of the doweled joints had broken through. I didn't have the tools or the skills to fix it, I was in a dilemma.

Then into my thoughts came the name of Curtis. Curtis is my little (tall) brother. He is a master of wood and so I asked him if he could help my little chair to a new life. He agreed, I was thankful. Little did I know how thankful I would really feel until some 9 months later. A year ago I took it over to him and when I got it back in this May not only had he fixed the joints, he had completely taken the chair apart, tightened and re-dowels all joints, custom made a back piece and then stripped it to the bare wood. It was beautiful with out any stain. With all the yard landscaping and such I just didn't have a minute to finish this chair until this week. So now stain, varnish and new upholstery on the seat the chair is as beautiful as it was the day Mom and dad bought it.

THANKS Curtis

you are the best and I will love sitting in this chair every time I sit down to sew,

and that is quite often.

So you may be asking why would I want this chair at all, why not throw it away? So unless you are 5 foot tall or shorter you will not understand the sheer ecstatic joy one feels, to sit in a chair with your back touching the back, it a true upright posture, no slumping here and your feet, both of them flat on the ground, no toe touching. That is why I wanted this chair saved IT FITS ME!! plus its a memory of dad who died nearly 47 years ago. I am grateful that mom and dad felt inclined to purchase a quality piece of furniture when things were tight financially for them. I am sure they had no idea they would have a short daughter who would fit this chair "just right"
I sound like the baby bear in Goldilocks and the 3 bears story. Maybe that is why I always related to the little bear and his chair.

It's Been 13 Years

The last time this garage had a major cleaning Rachel was 6, that is a scarry thought huh.. I put in on my list for the summer and we finally got to it. I believe it was James who organized the last cleaning for a merit badge on Family Life. (Boys, I am counting on you to correct me if I am wrong.) He got his Eagle when he was almost 14 so that has been 13 years. After doing yard work in the hot sun we were ready for some work not in direct sunlight, but it was still very hot. Our kids will realize what a change this is. Yes Dad was willing to rid himself of lots of "baggage"

First pulled everything out of the garage that wasn't on the top tier of shelf's. Man did we have tons of stuff. What you see is after half of it was put away. It took 3 long days to sort, organize and put away.

Before.........and........After
We recycled everything we could, which entailed many trips to various recycling centers with the last load to go to Boulder next week with Dan. I couldn't find any place closer that would take all the scrap metal we had.

The middle section of the upper tier of shelving. Everything in its place and ohhh so nicely labeled

The junk closet cleaned and labeled and things removed forever

Stacy dreamed up this "Sports Center" where we organized everything to do with Sports. Peyton loved putting the baskets on the shelves. We recycled the shelves from when James made them,(another merit badge project for his room) Then Stacy found a piece of peg board that we finished putting misc things on. This was a good move.

One of many dirt piles

OK boys remember all the wood stashed on the side wall of the garage. Well a day on Craigs list and it is all gone. Yippee. Dan admitted he wasn't very attached to it anymore.

This is Stacy's proudest part of her organizing efforts. She took scrap lumber and cut it to size and made shelves for all the boots. We refer to it as a "Ski Rental Closet" We give cheap rates to family members.

The clean and organised work bench and tool boxes.
The following is a list of the funny things we found in the garage while cleaning.

*3 trays (like you buy starter plants in) filled with small plastic cups, filled with dirt and dead plants. Each cup was clearly labeled a-1,a-2 etc.... If my memory serves me right, this was Alans science project in about 6th grade. Now that was a long time ago. Boy did we get a chuckle with that one.
*A small woven basket with a handle with a 12 inch piece of rotted rope in it.
*Old sprinkler setup , the manual one
* All the old fixtures from the kitchen and bathrooms.

I can't tell you how many times we just shook our heads in dis-belief of the things we came accross.

Lesson Learned: NEVER wait 13 years to clean the garage
Stacy decided in these kinds of projects a cordless drill is your best friend and you don't have to be a afraid of it.

The way I see it if Stacy can't find a job teaching she could hire out as a professional organizer.

The breezeway is equally cleaned and organized. My goal on Friday was to stay clean for 3 days, but Stacy manipulated me into cleaning the breezeway by noon. Oh well now it is done and you don't hurt yourself trying to get through. LIFE IS GOOD

The Magnificent Front Circle

I bet you are all wondering where we put all that rock so lovingly sifted away from the yucky dirt.

Here is where most of it went. It was nice to have the dirt covered for the first time ever. The remaining rock went to form a 18 inch path between the fence and the new bushes in the front.

This is what the front looked like 1 year ago and the man who dared to rip out the junipers while Dad wasn't looking.

New and improved front.
Too many man hours to even count, removal of about 10 yards of rock, 8 yards of dirt, placement of 41/2 tons of rock around the tree, 10 yards of redwood mulch (some of that went to the front corner) planting loads of different plants.

Side Note: Towards the end of this project we had a pile of 2 yards of mostly dirt with a few rocks that we needed to get rid of. Every time any of us looked at it we wanted to barf just thinking about shoveling it in and out of the trailer. Dirty dirt (that means dirt with nasty ugly rocks interspered in it) is difficult to unload on anyone.
On Monday I was driving by the Presbyterian church and noticed big tractors working there. We had noticed over the past year dirt accumulating there in massive amounts, but never saw any of it taking place. I decided I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, stopped and asked if we could dump 2 yards of dirty, dirt. His reply was "sure bring it down." I drove the 2 miles home quickly, Troy hooked up the trailer and we all, (Stacy included) started to load the dirt. The problem, it had rained and the dirt was more like mud and very heavy and we needed to have it there by noon, it would take 2 trips. Ugggg were is Dan when you need him?
The first load took 45 minutes just to put it in the trailer, and at least that long to unload it because Stacy and I were worthless and Troy did all the work. After a smoothie break we started on the last load. It was well after noon so we were trying to hurry. Half way done Stacy announces that her back is KILLING her and she can't do anymore and could I please call one of the good looking, strong young men in the ward. I did and this very nice, handsome, recently returned missionary showed up (in his red car and white shirt, OK a white Tee shirt) to help load the remaining 1/4 yard and then off he and Troy went to the dumping grounds. Meanwhile I was on a search for plants and returned to Troy and Stacy laughing. When questioned about the reason for such jovial behavior despite this dirty hard work they informed me that the nice guys on the big tractors drove up to the back of the trailer and scooped out all the dirt for them. That was such a nice thing to do, now I ask you why did they not do that when they saw an old lady, a cute young thing, and handsome Troy unloading it ever so slowly just an hour before? Oh well the dirt pile was gone and we were all HAPPY about that, the remaining small pile got washed away in the ensuing 3 massive rain storm. The rain also did a nice job cleaning the driveway of all our tracked on dirt.

Thanks to Marion at UCAR and Troy who contributed plants to fill in all this space. All are low maintenance and low water usage. THANKS to Doug, Heather, Andrew, Clint and Aubrey who gave me b-day money for plants which I put to good use here.

Stacy refurbished the original light poles and made them look like new. I still need to made an address plaque to hang from them, but that will wait for awhile. We took the 28 large rocks we discovered buried beneath the junipers and spread them around on the beds while saving a few really promising one for the future water feature in the back yard.
So it is finished. We like it and its drastically different appearance from that we had looked at with great distaste, (only LaVon had distaste for it) for 21 years. I will not miss shearing those ugly overgrown bush for a minute and I am sure Dans allergies will be much happier next year.