It’s a Smokey DIY Saturday ~ Continuing the Retaining Wall

Trying to get our schedules to work out has been a struggle lately. With my Dad being retired he is pretty flexible, if he would quit fishing all the time. I live an hour away, have work and projects around my house to do. Trying to get together to get some more work done on the retaining walls at my parents house has been a bit of a struggle. Despite the smoke rolling in like fog around here, My Dad and I had a retaining wall to work on.

It’s been a few months since we did the first couple sections of the retaining wall on the east side of the house. Turning a grassy slope into a place my Mom could plant zucchini, pumpkins, and squash. Turning a useless area into a space that can be utilized to grow instead of just mow.

As we make our way down the east side of the property to the hill on the south side of the house, there is some serious dirt that needs to be moved. I sure am glad my cousin doesn’t live too far away and he has a little tractor we could use. My Dad drives his car to his house, then drives the tractor home. It’s a probably close to 2 miles, so just turn the flashers on hit the road. My cousin says that my Dad has put more hours And miles on that tractor than he has. Lol.

The most time consuming part is getting that base layer of blocks down. Level from to back and side to side, straight and level with the block next to it. Setting them in place with a rubber mallet requires some serious patients. Numerous times blocks had to be lifted up, dirt moved around, then hammer set back in place. The soil at my Parent’s has a little clay in it and it compacts really easily. So just adding a couple scoops of gravel is enough to level out the blocks and give the wall a solid base.

We originally were going to have the wall gradually curve and then head west along the base of the hill. Then my Dad remembered that my Mom wanted to put a rectangle shape pool in this area. So squaring it off will look better with a pool there in our opinions. Also trying to get that nice uniform curve was something that was going to take some extra time, and can cause the block to get off center with the blocks underneath.

We pulled a measurement off the front fence in order to get the string line for the wall straight. When building this type of wall, use the back of the block to line them up with the string, since the face of the block is curved.

We picked a point on the hill where the slope wasn’t so steep to tie the wall back into it. I have built a wall or two in my days of landscaping and I think I found just the right spot to tie the wall into the hill.

With the base layer down, all that is left is to stack these 40 pound blocks one at a time. We knew we were going to run out before it was complete and planned on loading a pallet of blocks on my truck to finish things up. Well we ended up with a little disappointment when Home Depot only had 22 blocks left... oh well, we will take them and do what we can. Then plan a delivery for another pallet. $75 for them to deliver them right next to the existing wall isn’t that bad if you ask me. Those 40 pound blocks seem to turn to 80 pound blocks really fast.

We took a quick count and figured we would need an additional 50 blocks or so to complete this section of the wall. The plan is to have the wall on either side of the corner be 4 blocks high. Then in the corner where the hill is really tall we will stair step the wall up to 6-7 high.

Little by little this side of the house is really taking shape. It used to be just grass with a slope up to the fence on the East and hillside on the south. That hillside isn’t fun to mow at all!! I spent many years mowing that as a kid, crab walking the mower across it wasn’t too fun.

Eventually I think the whole hillside on the south side of the house will be terraced. This will create a ton more space for my Mom to get her garden on!! Plus that dang hillside won’t have grass that needs mowing anymore. We are going to have to build a nice set of stairs to access the multiple levels of the garden area. I guess we will tackle that project when it comes.

Until Next Time...

Hive On
and

Another Day
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Father & Son
DIY
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