Some people plunk gnomes in the front yard and call it good.
Doug Swanson put out an old typewriter and sewing machine … and never stopped. Over 25 years he’s tricked out his lawn with rusty milk cans, wagon wheels, a beat-up wheelchair, plow blades, animal skulls, ship chains, license plates, clocks, bells, flags, signs and then some.
It’s like a flea market on steroids.
What’s up with that?
Well, it seems there’s a method to the mayhem at Swanson’s blue bungalow on East Marine View Dr. in Everett.
“It’s a museum,” he said. “A street museum.”
Passersby can’t figure out what the heck this place is.
“Hell, I’ve had them walk straight in the house,” he said. “They think it’s an antique shop.”
There’s lots of stuff inside, too. On the floor, wall and ceiling.
Ladies, he’s single.
“I had a wife decades and decades ago,” said Swanson, 63, a retired carpenter with a bushy beard and gray mane.
Left to his own devices, he decorated the yard with things he got where?
“Here and about, anywhere and everywhere,” he said. “Piece by piece by piece. One by one by one.”
It’s still a work in progress. He’d like to move the water fountain from the porch to the front gate and plumb it up somehow. “So people can get a drink,” he said.
For now, there are treats for dogs, courtesy of his shih tzu named Patriot. The dog who wears a tie, not a collar.
“He thinks he’s the mayor of the sidewalk and the mayor needs a tie,” Swanson said.
He should know.
“I ran for mayor back in 1989,” he said. “I got 68 votes.”
Send your What’s Up With That? suggestions to Andrea Brown at 425-339-3443; abrown@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @reporterbrown.
This guy’s yard is like a flea market on steroids. Details Tuesday in What’s Up With That in Good Life @EverettHerald pic.twitter.com/QCLhOTziPN
— Andrea Brown (@reporterbrown) November 14, 2014
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