Category — History Of The Woodland Garden

During the summer of 2007 we made a major improvement out at the woodland garden. It was in fact a huge undertaking and one that literally changed the whole place. We had purchased this used trailer during our first year at the woodland garden and it was originally built back in 1986. It was not the best looking thing in the world but it had a lot of charm. It was built by the Park Trailer Manufacturing Company and was one of their original models. Here is what it looked like before we decided to renovate instead of purchase a newer model.

(click to enlarge)

It was a very unique design and had a certain appeal. My thought was to upgrade the wife said renovate. She did not want to lose the charm so we renovated. It turned out to be a complete rebuild almost.

As You can see we really took it down to the studs.The vinyl siding was removed and the underlying wood siding as well. We also replaced all the insulation. It turned out pretty good and the new color combination was much more pleasing to the eye.

Having the new siding and roof was inspiring. Also it made the project a wee bit more expensive and expansive. You see after the outside was done it was obvious that the old warn out inside could not stay so we redid that as well and changed it to meet our needs.

The water heater was in the bathroom area which was rather tiny and their was a storage closet across from the bathroom where the 2×4 was. This view was from the entrance. The window on the left was the first room you walked into and was the small bedroom.

The bedroom became a large shower room and storage area. The bathroom was expanded. The kitchen remodeled a bed put into the front bump out and pretty much all the electrical and lighting was changed . New flooring you name it we did it. So finally we finished and it now meets are needs.

The new shower on the right really made the whole place a lot more comfortable to stay in. No more trips down to the comfort station . A nice big steamy shower!

Now for the kitchen it was always so dark and dreary not to mention a tiny sink and no counter space.

The fan is sitting on the old refrigerator just a little bit larger than a small dorm size refrigerator. Looking in the right upper corner you can see the paneling in the bump out that use to adorn the whole inside of the trailer. I believe it was the cheapest paneling on the face of the earth!

In with the new kitchen. Much nicer and certainly more inviting and brighter.

All the old walls where replaced the new flooring and cabinets gave us organized storage and an easy to clean kitchen.

A sink where you could wash dishes and the draws would not fall apart when you opened them . Not to mention the brighter room.

The last area is the living room and bump out just like the rest of the trailer a new floor was installed and then the old wall covering would get ripped off and new walls installed.

You can see a good picture of the bump out where the bed was going here. The whole trailer got new oak flooring so that it would last a long time and be sturdy!

Finally a shot of the new living room after all the work and time I believe we now have a nice little camping tent out there in the woodland garden. All the comforts of home and now rain on your forhead when you sleep at night.

I fought hard for this last change but in the end I lost the battle. I wanted to have a nice outdoors feel to the bathroom and be able to feel like I was out in the woods but this was one of the changes that was not allowed. I’m still not sure I should of fought harder but I guess it would have still came out the same.

My outdoor plumbing idea go nixed.

As I said in an earlier post the woodland garden had not been occupied for a long time before we acquired it. It was very much overgrown and while beautiful it was a diamond in the rough.
Here is a shot of the original fire pit area if you look closely at the trees you will be able to match the areas up pretty close. As you can see there was a lot of clearing to do back then.

The Original Fire Pit Area

We spent a lot of weekends out there the first year most of them burning and clearing. But the work was enjoyable. At first I was thinking about all that had to be done and was hoping to complete it all the first year. Well that thought and notion quickly got swept aside and I came to my senses and realized this was more of an ongoing development plan. Even today I have a list of projects that I want to get to. After a lot of work the majority of clearing was done and improvements were made a little at a time.

Todays View Of That Fire Pit Area

In case you are wondering the very handsome and well groomed gentleman in the original photo is me enjoying some liquid refreshment as I chop and burn burn and chop.

We really did not envision everything the property would be that first year but I wanted to match up one more photo of the fire pit area.

This another view of the fire pit area.

Lots Of Clearing And Burning Of Brush

After all of the labor and work we put in we now have a great fire pit. The overall cost for materials was really cheap. The lumber for the pit area and benches amounted to about $260.00 the gravel was $145.00 We purchased the curved blocks from the Hardware Store on site for $45.00. If you think about the view from the deck of the new area It was well worth it. Especially if you add in the memories of the campfires we have had around that fire pit.

I Think It Was Worth The Effort

Here is something I saw on a sign at the local nursery“A Garden Is A Friend You Can Always Visit!”

We first purchased the Woodland Garden back in 2000. It was love at first site and I knew before I got out of the car that I wanted it. It had not been occupied for well over 5 years and even then not much had been done to it for a least the previous five years. That did not matter once I saw all those big trees I was hooked.

It even came with a trailer and small deck. What else could you ask for. We quickly decided to purchase and were the proud owners only 2 weeks latter of the Woodland Garden. We went out that first weekend and spent the day cleaning the little trailer and cleaning up debris from the surrounding area. Finally it was time to hook up the water which I did with a garden hose. Well the water worked sort of. A minute after I turned it on we had water not in the faucets but out from the walls and under the floor apparently it was never winterized and all the pipes had frozen and exploded behind the walls.

Our First Trailer

Well as you can imagine this was a big disappointment to us. So we pitched the tent and spent the night in it. The next day I was a bit more adventurous and started to do a thorough inspection and decided that it would take a humongous amount of time,energy, and money to repair the poor neglected trailer. So we took a drive down the street to look at some new and used park model trailers at the dealers. We saw several that were really nice and would of bought one but the price tags were in the $22,000.00 to $35,000.00 range and I did not want another loan payment. It was a bit of a let down on the way back to Woodhaven lakes we stopped at one last dealer he said he had just taken a trailer in on trade and that it was a little rough but he would set it up on our lot and get rid of the old trailer for $2,500.00 it was a deal.This was what we got.

The New Trailer

As you can see we cleaned the lot up but more about this in a latter post