The Big Clean Begins

      It occurred to me that I've just jumped into this project without giving you any back story.  The story is this:  Chris and I purchased a "fixer upper" in town.  Emphasis on the fixer.  In fact, the realtor described the house as being in "major distress".  Well, I'd be distressed if I were this house, that's for sure. 

      Here is the story of the house as told to us by the neighbors:  It was built in 1961 by a carpenter for his family.  It was his pride and joy.  Many years later first his wife, then he, passed away and their son inherited the house.  The son, obviously, had some issues with getting rid of items.  He passed away a few months ago and the house was inherited by his cousins.  They removed a debris box worth of trash before putting it on the market.

     And that is where we enter the story.

We're starting with the garage.  Here's Chris loading the trailer.

 We're starting to make some progress.  Really, we are.  See the U.S. Mail box in the foreground?  The prior owner of the house was a postal worker.  We found probably 15-20 of those boxes in the house, and they were indispensable in our trash hauling.  Lightweight, a handle on each side - fill it with trash and haul it to the trailer to dump.  If you ever need to clean out the house of a hoarder, get yourself some mail boxes.

 One of the pups wields a shovel.

 A full trailer load. 
The refrigerator to the left of the trailer?  Yes, covered with kitten and rainbow magnets.  And full of food.  I'll spare you the photos.  You're welcome.

 Sport and one of his treasures.

 So much coinage for our hours and hours of work.

The garage!  So tidy!  The items on the left are "keepers" for the garage sale.  I'm not sure how successful it will be, but we'll give it a shot.  Accordion anyone?