Operation Bigger House: Tree Removal Day 1

These are the pictures from the first day of the tree removal. Basically, they took the top out of half of the tree yesterday - the half that was hanging over the house. 

75% of the tree is still standing


Photography is not my calling, but with this picture I was trying to give an idea of how tall the tree is. I was standing pretty close to the base of it - well, as close as I could and still get the top in the picture. See where half has already been cut?

This next picture shows both the relation of the tree to the house and the site of our addition. The piece of the tree that was already cut actually hung over the roof of the house, filling most of the space you see from the chimney back toward the fence. It was huge.

You can kind of see where the base of the tree started as one and then grew apart as two, but it's mostly hidden behind the yellow chipping machine in this picture. I don't think Dave and I together could wrap our arms around the trunk at the bottom.

The addition will extend into the backyard, toward the tree, from the back of the house where you see the two windows at the end. Ironically, we will be building in the only area of our backyard that currently grows grass. Hopefully, with the massive tree gone, grass will start growing in other places, too.


Site of the addition

 I love our shady backyard, but it really could be a little less shady. That tree you see on the right side of the picture, right next to the swing set? It might be even bigger than the one we are currently having cut down. Lots of shade there = very little grass = plenty of dirt/mud. And leaves. We didn't even know we had grass back there the first year we lived here until Dave started raking that fall and we realized there must have been years worth of leaves on the ground, smothering the grass.

Just for fun, I included a picture of Georgia. It's been a long time since I posted a dog picture here, and she accompanied me on my trek through the backyard to take these pictures. Don't tell her, but it was really a plot to get her out of the house so Dave could play football with the kids without her big brown self right in the middle of it, knocking them down. She was happy to help.


Sweet Georgia Brown






The back of the house, from the fence.

I took this last picture for posterity. The view of the back of our house from the fence is what sealed the deal for me. I just fell in love with it then, and I know I took a picture of it a long time ago but I couldn't find it. Before we change it, I wanted to capture what it looks like today. It's a bit different now because there used to be a ramshackle little greenhouse building on the far right (where you can see the garbage cans). Dave tore it down with plans to rebuild it again one day, but we haven't gotten there yet. With two small children, adding another bedroom quickly became our top priority.

Now that we are officially started on this project, I am so excited about all the plans we have for our house. I just keep telling myself, "Patience, Grasshopper."