Warning: Do NOT Try This At Home!

Yesterday was a busy and rather entertaining day at our house.

The end of March we moved into our long awaited new house. Since the new house is on the same property as the old house we figured we could move the immediate needs over then proceed to move everything else a little at a time. Over the weekend the kids and I got started moving the washer. We managed to get it out of the old bathroom, up the step, through the bedroom, down the hallway and into the living room where it sat until we got a break in the rain.

Yesterday brought the break we'd been waiting for. We headed over to the house, and began contemplating how we were going to manage to get it out the doorway, down the step into the front porch and out that doorway. It was interesting, but we managed. Then came the problem of how to get it across the gravel driveway and to the back porch of the new house.

We had already come up with two heavy planks of wood that we had enlisted to get us up and down two steps so now we needed two more planks. We looked around abit and found a few more we thought might do the trick. We ended up using all we found and stopped to look for more which we also used.I was amazed at the number of planks and scraps of wood we ended up finding and using by the end of our little adventure.

We started our journey across the driveway by moving planks of wood around, two at a time so we had a relatively smooth moveable walkway to move across. Finally, we made it to the 4 steps up to the back door. That actually went much more smoothly than we anticipated, with two long planks of wood, me behind pulling it up, with the kids pushing and steadying on the other end. The biggest challenge turned out to be getting it up the final step into the doorway from the porch.

We ended up laying the washer, heavily padded and securely strapped onto the handtruck, down across the entryway into the utility room. Then we began building the porch up under the handtruck. One plank at a time. First, I pushed down on my end so the wheels were elevated and the kids slid a plank underneath. I lowered my end and the kids lay another plank parallel to the first so I could roll my load forward. Then they lay a third plank on top of the first (closest to the house) so I could roll it back and up. We continued in this manner, inching up about an inch at a time until we had managed to "step" up nearly even with the entryway. Two more small planks, one for each wheel, a big heave ho and we were able to get it in the house.


So there you have it! A little creativity plus a bit of stubborness and even a 53 year old woman with a fussy back along with two very helpful tweens can manage to maneuver even the heaviest object!

Today, we need to make a little trip into town to pick up a new hose for the washer so we can actually begin using it again. It seems, although a 53 year old ma with the assistance of an 11 year old girl and 12 year old boy can manage to move a 400+ lb. washer, we can't manage to loosen what a 57 year old pa hand tightened to a pipe!