When we first moved in our house we both knew we didn’t like the hedges that bordered our picket fence. We felt like they blocked the yard in, and were simply just in the way. We wanted to be able to sit on the porch and look out over everything, and these didn’t help that. We had a guy come out to give us a quote to remove them, “only” $1,350. There were 27 bushes, at $50 a piece to have cut. They said that they would only be able to cut the bushes at the base, not even fully remove them.
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| The blue flags were for the sprinklers we were having put in |
We knew we weren’t willing to pay $1,350 to have them removed. I mean we didn’t like them, but they weren’t ruining our lives or anything. Then a couple of days later, my hubby had a GENIUS thought {no surprise there}. He put an ad on Craigslist saying that the bushes were FREE to anyone that was willing to remove them. At first I didn’t know if it would work, I mean who wants these hedges/bushes that bad?! But within a day we had a guy willing. We had a couple of other callers, but they only wanted 5 here, or 10 there, and we wanted all 27 gone. The guy with his crew showed up that weekend, and for a couple of days during the evening that week. We ended up having to rent a back-hoe for them, because after hours of soaking the bushes and trying and trying to get them out, it wasn’t cutting it. We needed a back-hoe, equipped with 12×16 5 skid steer tires, to make sure the job was done properly. Unfortunately, the rental cost us $300. In the end, though, that was the ONLY cost to us. $300 sounds a lot better than $1,350!!! This is what I would come home to every night…
And this was the end result:
They removed all 27 bushes, and then proceeded to fill in the massive holes with dirt, and try their best to level the ground out. The leveling job they did wasn’t too great, esp. from the back-hoe doing the same motions constantly, and creating a serious “path” in the dirt. It probably took us about 6 months to get the grass grown in evenly, but man oh man, its SO nice now not having those bushes.
Have any of you ever done something like this on Craigslist? I am glad i’m married to a man who thinks outside the box:) Hope everyone has a great weekend! We will be celebrating J’s birthday this weekend. Included: an Elton John concert provided by his work. Seriously. 😉
<3,
Adri
Brilliant! 🙂 The last pic looks gorgeous…. oh my, your grass is green! 🙂
Wow, what an improvement – those bushes looked like tombstones! We dug up 21 small trees from a friends yard & replanted them in our garden, it was a win-win situation. Sadly not all of those trees survived, but we love the ones that did.
It looks so much better without those trees! Nice job! And super creative thinking on J’s part 🙂
We are thinking about doing the craigslist thing for a Palm Tree we have in our backyard. How have I not heard this story before now?!?! 🙂 Your yard looks wonderful, I love winter grass.
What a story! It does look nice.
I have seen my brothers hitch a “jerk strap” to their trucks and the bush to be removed…then drive away LOL while the bush JUMPS into the air. It is hilarious.
Sherry and John from Young House Love did that with a lot of success: http://www.younghouselove.com/2007/09/the-power-of-craiglist/
Great idea! I think the folks at Young House Love did the same thing in their backyard and that was my lightbulb moment. We were inspired to offer “free with removal” – two fences, a garage and some horribly awful kitchen cabinets. We didn’t make any money, but we had people fighting over them, and we didn’t have to remove anything. So worth it! Plus, we didn’t have to figure out how to get rid of everything.