When we bought our house almost a year ago we were big fans of a lot of the updates made to the house. However, one of the things that we knew we would want to put our personal touch on was the landscaping. Back in April we decided that it was time to get started. This is what it looked like before this small project began.
We thought we could get away with just trimming stuff up but soon realized that wasn't going to do. So we decided to rip everything out. That alone took a bit more effort than I thought, especially to remove the truck load of lava rock. Here is the result of the cleansing:
I had a vision of putting a series of terraces in along the staircase and then filling in the rest of the hillside with grass. I naively thought I could build the retaining wall in a day... well it took three. It was exhausting. However, I am really pleased with the result.
The next issue that arose, which I grossly underestimated, was the amount of extra dirt I would have to dispose of. I would estimate this was a good 2+ cubic yards of dirt, an overflowing truckload. This is because I not only had to get rid of the stuff I dug up for the wall but I also had to sculpt the entire hillside to have appropriate grading. Thankfully my teaching buddy David helped with the removal of the dirt. All I had to do was buy him Chipotle to convince him to come over and help.
The final step was to put some grass on this bad boy. For that I have to give a big thanks to Bonnie's parents. They are doing some work in their backyard and needed some sod removed. I just so happened to have a place for it. Mike was a big help in cutting and laying the sod.
I would estimate that this whole project took 7 days. Had I known it would take that long I might not have understaken it but I am glad that it worked out. Bonnie was a rockstar through it all by taking care of E and being super supportive. Soon we will put some plants in the terraces and the job will be done.
Next summer project... painting Everett's big boy bedroom.
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