The Mother-in-law apartment

I honestly had so many hopes and dreams about all the things I would get accomplished in June. However, when it came right down to it, the only significant thing we got done this month was finishing up our shed/playhouse.

Seriously, this thing has taken over our life for the past two months. Brandon and his amazing Dad built this thing from the ground up. I am amazed at their ingenuity and "figure it out as we go" attitudes. This thing isn't going anywhere in the next 50 years. It's as solid as any house I've ever seen.

This is the area of our backyard where we started. We began by plotting out the area where we would need to take out the grass. Ugh, that was the worst part. We were too cheap to rent a sod cutter, so we took it out with a shovel. Thankfully, we were wise enough to buy a good quality shovel for the job.

 

After way too many hours of digging we finally had this spot of 'crap'. It was ugly and so very bumpy. Thank goodness I have an amazing Dad who was willing to haul over a rototiller.

This is that amazing Dad of mine doing his favorite job in the entire world. He loves the smell of fresh dirt just as much as I do. Thank goodness he was willing to do this for us so we could at least attempt to have a level area to start with.

A few days later Dad T. came over and the project began in earnest. 

The first few days of this project seemed like a millennium. I kept wondering why it was taking the guys so long to get the walls up. Dad and Brandon kept wondering why they were having to redo so many of the studs. 

Then, once the roof was framed all the neighbors really started to ask us what we were building. Brandon always would respond with: We're building a mother-in-law apartment. Most days it felt like it. Brandon and his Dad worked so hard on this thing. Most days there were both so sore and sunburned. I'm just glad we decided to start the project in April instead of waiting until the really hot weather arrived.

Once everything was roofed all the trim needed to go on, and the drip edge needed to be installed. Once that was done, it really started gaining it's own personality. Dad T. made these amazing doors (which are super de' duper heavy) in his garage at home and then brought them down. The trim on the bottom will always remind me of my Grandma Burr's old home in Orem. I love sentimental things and Dad T. gave me a sweet reminder of my childhood without even realizing it.

Looking at this beautiful building out my back door every morning made me so happy. Yet, I knew there was still many things that needed to be done. The messiest job of the project was caulking all the cracks (so the bugs wouldn't get it), and getting the massive thing painted. Brandon and I procrastinated really, really bad because it was such a ginormous job. The only thing that got us back in gear was a visit from his sister. Her visit gave us the motivation we needed to "get her" done.

We still want to add some carpet to the boys playhouse and touch up a few spots with paint. But, even before we do that we want to get all the stuff we are storing in our garage put way into this new space. Whew, what a job well done.

Thanks so much to everyone who helped us along the journey. Without you, this shed would have taken us a whole lot longer to build.