Just another project...

It's amazing how things can change in just the course of a few hours, isn't it?

When I left home yesterday morning, our yard looked like this...

And when I returned a few hours later, it looked like this....

Our little pole barn is finally going up!  While I was gone, the excavator came out and leveled the pad, the stone company came and spread the gravel, the garage door guy left color samples, and our builder dropped off his bobcat and made sure everything was ready to go.  YAY!

There are many reasons to be excited about the new building, but for me the #1 reason is this: 

I will have some storage space!

See...when we built our house back in 2004, we drew up plans for an attached garage, which will (someday) go here...

 But after a while, you kind of get used to not having one...and besides that, garages are expensive!  Holy cow, are they ever!  So you use your extra money on other projects, such as putting in wetlands, planting trees, putting in wood-burning stoves, and finishing basement ceilings.  There is definitely no shortage of projects around here! 

Of course, not having a garage does create some issues.  Like, where do you keep your big ol' lawnmower?  Or your tractor?  Gardening tools?  Leftover paint?  Leftover lumber?  Your chainsaw?  All of the rafts and floaties for the pond?  Bikes? 

You get my point.

Anyway, our answer had always been to put it in the basement.  Though  now, our basement has gone through many "finishing" stages, and all of those things I listed are shoved into all of my wonderful closets and storage spaces.  Oh, and in our small shed Barry built a few years ago.  But we are just OUT OF ROOM.  So Barry proposed building our pole barn this year.  Nothing huge...just big enough to store the tractor, lawnmower, lumber, paint, tools, etc.   At first, I had a bit of a tantrum and yelled, "That's NO FAIR!  I want my garage!!!" as I laid down on the floor, kicked my feet, and held my breath until I turned blue.

Not really. 

But I did consider it.  If I thought it would have made a difference, I may have tried it.  But the reality is that a pole barn is a lot cheaper than our garage would have been, and we don't want to take on any debt.  So it's back to saving for the garage...which is fine. I can't even comprehend what it would be like to have a garage anymore!  But I CAN comprehend what it will be like to have the lumber, paint, tools, chainsaw, pond floaty thingies, extra doors, Christmas decorations, and gardening paraphernalia out of the basement!!  Oh, the storage space I will finally have!!!!!  I can hardly wait!