Project #2... The Retaining Wall

Jonathan transplanted all of the plants while Tom and I worked on the deck stairs. This is the side of the house everyone sees when they drive up the driveway. Pretty ugly huh? Well, the patched siding doesn't help matters either. To put in the retaining wall that the landscape designer planned was quoted at $12K. Gulp. There was no way we were going to fork out that much dough. So we decided to do it ourselves for a quarter of the price(with Tom and Sandy's help). Here is the "before" picture.

First step, paint the side of the house with tar to prevent water in the basement. Start bringing in some dirt; 5 yards of clean fill was delivered on Thursday morning (Aug 14th). When they brought the other 15 yards the next day, it was dropped too far away from the house... right where we wanted to build the wall. So Tom and I spent a few hours shoveling dirt away from the trench and closer to the house.

Isabelle felt like a big girl helping with the trench.

Jonathan is surveying the deliveries made on Friday... 4 yards gravel, 4 yards processed gravel, the actual stones, caps, fabric, drainage pipe, geogrids, etc.

A friend in the ward lent us his plate compactor. We learned a lot about building foundations. Everything has to be so exactly level and firm. Any deviation at the bottom and it just gets bigger as you go up. Tom did a great job leveling out the trench.

Someone has to read the instructions, right?

Our friend Lance came over to help out. You can see him kneeling down getting the next stone perfectly level while I direct the angle of the stone according to the "imaginary line" in my head.

Its shoveling time.

The kids think climbing up and down the dirt is great fun. Each of those bricks is roughly 80 pounds. I couldn't lift the bricks so I pinned them, shoveled gravel and dirt, and directed the menfolk.

Jonathan and Tom, victorious after our first day on the job. 5 Levels done. Quite the accomplishment for them.

I don't know how many hours Tom spent shoveling dirt back and forth, but he was always up and shoveling long before I woke up each morning.

By Monday night, we had seven layers done.

Keeping it level as we stepped up the slope was the tricky part.

Tuesday night Lance and Dave came over and helped us finish it. The caps are only laid on top, they still need to be cut to size and glued. And Jonathan and I have since decided to go up one more level, but it is mostly done.

So much better!!!!!