John's Dream

Most everyone who knows us knows the story of our house. But just in case you haven't heard it before, and to make a V...E...R...Y long story short, John bought this property in early 1994 "as is" after a fire had burned off the roof and destroyed most everything inside the house. We weren't married yet, in fact, we hadn't been dating very long at that time and he was looking for a "project" (boy did he ever find one). He didn't care at all about the floor-plan of the house or how much work would be involved in rebuilding it, he only cared that the property is half an acre and has plenty of room for his dream of someday having a huge garage/workshop in the back.

This is how the house looked when John took possession of it in March 1994

John was very enthusiastic and optimistic, and possibly just a tad on the naive side when he estimated that it would take him about two years to completely refurbish the house. We got married in June of 1996, and the house wasn't anywhere near being finished. In actuality, the project took over eight years from start to finish. John had been living in his Airstream trailer in the backyard before we were married. After the wedding, we bought a single-wide mobile home that we moved into the backyard, and we lived in that until the house was finally finished in the summer of 2002.

The finished house in August 2002

Since then, among many other projects, he has divided the backyard in half and built some wonderful planters for me in "my" half of the yard. Now it's finally time for his long awaited dream to come true - the garage/workshop project!

Actually, the first steps towards the garage/workshop began last August when John contacted the architect that did the drawings for the house and signed him up to do the drawings for the garage. That began the long process of applying for permits and all the other steps and hoops that have to be gone through before any actual work can be started. Finally, when we returned home from our Yellowstone Snowmobile Trip, the building permit had been granted.

BUT, before any actual work can begin, we have to unload the barn that is in the back half of our property, and is completely filled with STUFF! Before I married John, I had a four-bedroom home in Garden Grove. I had to scale down to a single-wide one-bedroom mobile home. I brought whatever furniture and household items that would fit in the mobile, gave a ton of stuff away, and packed the rest into boxes which we stored in the loft of the barn. My stuff filled a little over half the loft. The other half and all the bottom floor was filled with John's stuff. All of that stuff now had to go somewhere, because the barn has to come down in order to build the garage.

Our Cute Little Barn

We tossed around several options including an off-site storage unit, but John finally decided to have a 40 ft. storage container brought in and placed in our yard next to the Airstream.

This is the back portion of our yard looking across from the barn

Pictures are worth a thousand words, so let's let the camera do the talking . . .

The "driveway" going to the back half of our yard.
The fact that it had been raining for days and the ground
was super muddy didn't help the situation.

The 40-footer arrives

Backed all the way in -
No way can the driver make the turn

At this point, I was begging John to have the driver pull the container back out and move on to Plan B, whatever that might be.

But no, John has the driver drop the container -
John is sure he can move it into position by himself.
How much does this thing weigh?
John's a big, strong guy, but seriously?

Instead of next to the Airstream, John now decides
the container should go behind our cross-fence


His truck couldn't fit through the space between the
container and the fence, but he managed to squeeze my car
through and tried to use it to pull the container into position.


My car is tough, but it couldn't move the container,
so next he tried adding a come-along.
Still no luck.


After one entire day of valiant effort, John was able to move
the back end of the container only this much.

At that point, and to John's credit (and my utter jaw-dropping-on-the-floor amazement), John admits defeat! He somehow gets the container straightened out and back in line with the driveway again, and calls the container people to come pick it up. And orders a 24-footer to replace it.

The 24-footer arrives

After a lot of maneuvering, the driver is finally
able to get the container into position alongside the Airstream

In position and ready to be filled

After several trips to Lowes for storage racks,
and many trips up and down the ladder from the loft,
all my stuff and quite a bit of John's is neatly stored away.

BUT, there is still so much more stuff still in the barn! So . . . .

John calls for a second container - a 20-footer this time
(I guess it's actually the 3rd if you count the 40-footer)

See that stake right behind the front tire?
That marks the front of the "soon-to-be" garage.
Do you think the truck will be able to come back in to remove
these containers after the garage is built?
That's the $64,000 question for sure!

More storage racks - and more of John's stuff
All those racks are now filled, plus . . .

All this stuff has to go inside too -
Both containers are now completely jammed,
including the nice little walkway that we had planned to have
down the center of each container.

John moved his firetruck next to the 20-footer.

The bottom line here . . . we have TOO MUCH STUFF! But for now, it's safely stored away. I just hope and pray that when this garage is complete, these containers can somehow be removed. Time will tell.

Next project . . . taking down the barn . . .