Have Fun Storming the Castle!
When the architect & I purchased our house, there was a castle in the backyard. The previous owner had built it as a combo playhouse for his son/garden shed.
I thought it was hilarious. I remember making jokes with the sewer inspector about possibly needing to install a moat or hire some archers.
It didn’t take long, however, for my appreciation of the castle to wane.
It was poorly constructed (1/4″ plywood, people!) and not water tight, meaning our garden tools (and stored bicycles, rest in peace, Jolly Green Giant) got rusty. And full of spiders. And on a memorable occasion, there were wasps.
After the last couple of winters, the castle started looking pretty sad. The grey paint was fading. There were huge gaps in the sides.
It was time.
Friday, the architect & I put on our castle storming armor & had at it.
I made him promise that I would get to be the one to hit it with a sledge hammer until it fell down. However, turns out we don’t have a sledge hammer (or a catapult, or a trebuchet, or even a good maul), so I had to make do with our dirt tamper.
I can’t tell you how satisfying it was to hit the walls of the castle until they fell down. Once we removed all the (1/4″ plywood) walls, and a few 2x4s, the castle started wobbling (which made us feel really awesome about the part where the architect had just been on the roof of the castle removing the turrety parts.
We huffed & we puffed, gave the castle one shove, and it toppled over. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until this point that we realized we should’ve video-taped me pushing the castle over all by myself. The castle had no real footings. The main supports were in the ground less than an inch. I can’t believe it hadn’t fallen over in one of our recent wind storms.
Castle demolition got a lot less fun after that point. We had to pull out all eleventy-million nails from the rotten spider-infested wood so that we could properly dispose of everything, and then make little piles.
In the next few weeks, a new & improved garden shed will arrive. This one will have concrete-reinforced footings that go down a couple of feet. Also a place for the motorcycle & all garden tools to live. And a sliding door! And rain barrels! And a covered area for me to do potting! YAY!
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