Home Improvement: Driveway

We scored big time on our house, in my opinion.  Our home inspection was nearly flawless and the interior of our house needs very few updates to suit our family.  Our only issue with this house was the driveway.  The sidewalk was buckled due to the large roots from the sycamore tree adjacent to the driveway, making it difficult to park certain types of vehicles.  Jason's Subaru and the Sprinter made it over the hump, but there was no way my van was going to get over that thing nor did I want to take any chances of messing up yet another van :)

So major project #1, find a way to level out the sidewalk so we can park more than high rise vehicles in the driveway.

Unfortunately, the sycamore tree had to go.  My neighbors didn't seem thrilled with me for cutting down a huge, old tree.  "you will miss the shade".  "Oh, really?  That tree is so lovely".  Priorities people.  I want to park in my driveway.  The tree lost this battle.  

So down came the tree.  And so did the amount of hours we will be raking leaves this fall.

A toddler boy's dream...
on Mommy's MOPS morning :(

We came home to this...

Good gravy!  Here is the reason I couldn't park in the driveway:

The stump grinder did its job and we were left with flat ground

The concrete guys didn't come for days after, so we had a huge pile of conrete slabs in the street and this dirt area that we didn't trust to drive over.  Talk about parking issues.  

Alas, the concrete crew showed up.  And so did the Fry boys for a viewing party.

And all God's people said

AMEN!

Every house project seems to create 4 other projects as a result... see those bushes on the other side of my van?  Those are the next things to go.  I am thankful to drive a sexy mini van with sliding doors or getting those squirmy kids in and out of the van in MY driveway would be trickier.  I am also thankful for backup cameras.