A Girl and Her Home: The Great Flower Wall of Annie's House

As you may recall from my previous posts, the outdoor spaces of my house have been a pretty giant headache for me. One particular headache, well, and back ache, hand ache, arm ache, leg ache and any other ache that one could possible have, was caused by the flowerbed wall along the front of my house. The crazy thing is that it wasn't even a project I had originally planned to take on. I loved that wall. I thought it added cute character to the house. What wasn't cute about it is that the idiot who built it, built it above the brick line... and then they filled it with dirt. So there was dirt sitting against the brick. Brick is porous. So guess what happened? Water damage. I don't mean to be a martyr here. I actually knew about this before I bought the house. It came up in the inspection report. (Another fun thing likely caused by this stupid wall was termites. They were not active but had the problem previously likely because, again, there was dirt up against where the foundation meets the brick).

Anyway, we had talked about tearing this thing down for a while. We had done a few preliminary digs to see how much work it would be and we actually did think it would be moderately difficult. When we dug down the front the cement just kept going. We knew they had put a footer in. Knowing there were going to be some challenges with this job, my mom and I waited until Jon was gone for the weekend to try it (this honestly was completely unintentional, I just wanted to get it done and I wasn't willing to wait. I might be a touch impatient).

My mom and I began on a Friday afternoon. We had bought a new sledgehammer and had rented a jackhammer from Lowes Depot. We took swing, after swing, after swing. We did this almost non-stop until it got dark. At which time, I was so intensely exhausted, I realized how much more difficult this wall was than we had originally thought. As I said, when we had begun we knew there was a cement footer under the wall. We didn't, however, realize there was rebar inside of that footer. Which made getting the cement out even more fun. Additionally, we rented the smallest jackhammer possible and it was still so heavy. And it got heavier and heavier as the evening wore on. Something I learned from this experience is that a jackhammer will allow you to continue hammering into one hole without moving. The issue with that is that the thing will get stuck and it's nearly impossible to move. This happened over and over again until we got the hang of it.

We quit for the day. I called my now husband and said I am in so much pain. I don't know how I did that for so long and I can't believe I have to get up and do it all over again. We weren't even close to being finished. The issue was that when I woke up the next day, the pain was intensely worse. Every single muscle in my body was incredibly sore. However, I am not what you would call a wuss so I popped a pill or 2 and started all over again, spending my entire Saturday doing the same. And then again on Sunday.

We worked on this until Sunday until the very last minute before I had to return the jackhammer to Lowes Depot. I'm not joking when I say the last minute. I had no time to fix my hair, wash my face off, nothing. I ran in there with this heavy thing. The cashier looks at me and just says, "Did that thing beat you up?" I couldn't stop laughing at him, because in all honesty, it did. I mean, it kicked my ass. My ass has never been beaten so badly.

In all honesty, we didn't even finish the thing that weekend. I don't feel too bad about that though as some of it was hidden. And, because when I say that there were footers, I mean there were footers. There wasn't just a straight one under the wall. There were what looked like cement out of buckets in the corners of the things that went down at least 3 and 1/2 feet. So, I think we have an excuse. We did however rent it one more time when Jon was there. There is a part of me that regrets doing that just because it was mine and my mom's thing but I also have a weird complex about claiming projects. I want to be the bad ass girl who can do things men can do (suck it men).

After weeks, months, maybe even a year or so we got rid of all the rubble (don't get me started on the disposal methods in this area). We are now wall, water, and termite free people. I am pretty proud. And I also got some awesome photos with my kickass mother during it. :)