Page 1: Retaining walls - Spring/Summer '05
Page 2: Fence/Deck prep - Summer '05
Page 3: Fence/Deck/yard finalizing - Summer/Fall '05
Page 4: Yard Work: Spring 2006
Page 5: Update Fall 2006
Page 6: 2007 work
Page 7: Spring/early Summer 2008
Page 8: Late summer 2008-Winter '08/09
When we bought our home Nov 2004, we had plans to do quite a bit of work.
For example, the back yard was a blank slate with a steep slope over the last
25
feet. Here's
a crude site plan as purchased. Only the front yard was finished - and that
was rough as well. Next to it is a photo from about 2 weeks before we moved
in.
Our first exterior phase involved the slope - we
wanted to terrace it. Beginning around May, the first step was to get the
garden in.
The front
was
1 foot high,
the back, 2 feet high. Here's a picture of me in the midst of building the
back 2' wall.
Here's the same wall before garden soil. I put three "waves" in the back for
interest.
Here it is after the 18 inches of garden soil was added. You can kind of see
the red brick pattern I put in there. Total number of 33 pound blocks: right
around 650. I finished the wall June 20th, 2005.
And here is the corner stair detail on the back side.
Next came the lower, four foot high wall with larger, 70 pound blocks. Here
is the area pre-blocks and the stacks of blocks on my driveway
I've
got just shy of 500 of these guys in this wall and it took me a LONG time to
build and was quite excruciating on this ageing body. These pics were taken
July 31st, 2005. This section also took about 10 yards of topsoil to fill and
will soon have fruit trees, berry bushes and a couple thousand flower bulbs
planted in it.
The final lower wall is a one foot average height wall that separates the
walkway behind the garden wall from the larger terrace the four foot wall created.
Here's what it looks like mid September. Still to be done-finish caulking
on the last row of the final wall, building the side steps to the bottom of
the fruit tree wall and bringing in about 6 yards of pea gravel for the walkways.
Plus the fence, but that's coming.:
Here's the overall plan for phase one: