Can Good Come from Reno Hell?

Recently we started a small reno to our house. My wife wanted a hot tub to ease her back problems and acquaintances of ours were getting rid of theirs, so I thought we were in luck. An inexpensive hot tub, all we had to do was get it home. Well then I realised there was some preparation work that went along with the hot tub.

There needed to be a concrete pad 4" deep by 8' square. In order for that to happen I needed to move a berm of dirt and grass -- Total time 2 weekends (on and off)

Then we thought "wouldn't it be nice to access the hot tub from the basement and have a deck up to the tub?"

So in order for this to happen I needed to remove a concrete pad (different from the one we were pouring). There was a jack hammer rental -- the jack hammer was half my weight and continually shot though the concrete pad and I was forced to do about 400 squats to get it out of the ground -- the worse 4 hours of my life! and then we had to move the concrete that was now in the way of our new deck. Another weekend shot.

If we are going to put in a deck then we really should fix the drainage tile behind the house before we put in the deck -- you can see where this is going. So sure enough now I'm digging a trench halfway around my house so that the drain can pass peacefully under the new deck. -- another couple of weekends (and countless evenings shot).

So it all started with a hot tub installation, now we are at the point where we are doing drainage a deck and some major re landscaping, but that's not all of the slippery slope of Reno Hell. How are we going to get from the house to the new deck/hot tub? That's right a new sliding door from our garden level basement -- we only have to cut through a small amount of foundation to get the door in. Oh and while we're at it why not a complete renovation of the basement?

So, I'm in Reno Hell. Now you asking yourself "what has this to do with biking?" Well other than the fact that I haven't been on my bike for a while there has been some good come out of all this. With all this dirt moving there had to be an upside. One is that our yard behind the house is now flat and, with new drain tile, should be dryer. But more importantly we now have a lot of dirt. Dirt is really only good for one thing DIRT JUMPS! At least the kids are having fun. Bring on the vitamin I.