Jane as usual will have the pix. But half our front yard, up to the front walk, has a retaining wall about hip high, with cinder stone in front of it. The other half, a short half, is—was—grass, rolling down to the street.
Now there is no grass. And we decided to extend the retaining wall the full length of our frontage, which, believe me, looks so much better. And (Jane’s brilliant idea) since the retaining wall as existed didn’t need to be six stones high, we could begin to taper it off, shortening it by a row, and then another row, as we work our way toward the stopsign/fire hydrant corner, where all the juniper has overgrown the wall…
So we each got brutal jobs: Jane’s talent is masonry, leveling stones and making them stay that way; and raking and modeling the landscape; mine is brute force destruction. So I take the mattock to any hummock Jane wants removed, and I disassemble the extant wall top and port the retaining wall stones (Anchor products, Windsor stone) down to the work site at the other end of the lawn, which is about 90′ wide. Each stone (shaped concrete) is 12″x7″x4″, and weighs. I carried about 60 of them, 90′ down to the site, one at a time, and I’m telling you, I have sore legs, sore backside—arms not so much; but those suckers are heavy. They remind me about that 40 lbs I want to lose, and how much better I’d feel if every time I took a step, got up or down, I wasn’t carrying the equivalent of one of those stones….
What are you using to reinforce the stones on the wall? If there’s nothing holding them together, the top layers will eventually start to move outward and you’ll have a leaning retaining wall. If you are using some kind of mortar or rebar going through holes in the stones, and driven 18″ or so into the ground, that should hold the wall up. Otherwise, I fear that the evil forces of the soil will force themselves upon the wall and cause it to buckle.
What Joe said. Also are you concerned about a foundation? In this area wall builders put the biggest stones below ground. Walls are still standing after hundred (s) of years….most destruction is due to vandalism or outright thievery.
We set the bottom course below ground level, ie, dug them in. They’re what has been the retaining wall for this house and the one across the street for at least a decade, and probably two. Jane’s good at leveling. I’ve seen a few (one up our street about 5 blocks) where the DIY-er obviously didn’t understand that you have to level on more than one axis. The wall (fortunately just a flowerbed rim, looks chaotic). And then there’s the one that just makes you seasick, because they followed the curvature of the ground, and it rolls…
There is a wonderful example of a wall following the slope of the hill on Beacon Hill in Boston. I can’t remember the street offhand but it’s old, probably before the Revolution.
Thanks for reassuring the nit-pickers about your building techniques. 🙂 Jane posted a pic…looks TERRIFIC!
P.S. From the in progress pix Jane posted this is going to beautify and change the entire front of your house. Before long you will have people hanging out of their cars to look. 😉
We already have people stopping to talk; and this morning a guy drove past and gave us a thumbs up. No few people are interested in the front lawn project. Not to mention the realtor of the house across the street. It’s going to make the neighborhood look spiffier, if we do say so ourselves.
Our next door neighbor is going to have a retaining wall on the other axis, between our yards, and has been talking about taking HIS lawn out, and installing one of these water features, so if he did his like ours, we could just carry our little empire right down the block.
It actually saves money. A lot of money. We figured that, thus far, we are going to be out 100.00 for weed cloth, 180.00 for mulch, nothing for stones, since we stole them from the other half of the wall; we already had the fountain, but it’s about 200.00 with all its rigging, fairly negligible power draw for that pump. And our lawn crew was costing us 25.00 a week, or 800.00 a year, if they start in March and go til October, not to mention the water bill, the antifungus treatments (80.00 a pop, 2 weeks apart), the fertilizer, the aeration (200.00) and the scalping (200.00); etc. So counting we won’t have a lawn and that 800, nearly 900.00 bill a year, just for cutting the grass that never looked good and always had fungus—in ten years of living there, that’s 8000.00 we won’t be spending over the next 10 years. Lawns are ferociously expensive, unless you have sheep, which was originally why estates had lawns in England—but American estates don’t have sheep, so there you are. Fashion outliving its purpose. Even with kids, they don’t play so much ON the lawn as they trek over the lawn to get to the swing set, the sandbox, or the playpool. Which are just fine on a bed of fine mulch. So it’s worth at least adding up how much a lawn costs versus doing something else. Or installing sheep. 😆
Interlocking ‘stones.’ The back of each stone has a half-inch x half-inch x 12″ lip. Each row therefore is inset by 1/2 inch, whether on a curve or straight. The back of the stack is weed-clothed (we used doubled fabric) and you do a heavy fill behind the concave arch of the back of the resultant wall, so that stones are each shoved outward against that lip (and of course by the weight of all the ones on top of them) by the weight of the fill. It’s a very good system, made by Anchor, and well-tested by thousands of such walls in Spokane. They do not recommend going higher than 2-3 feet with the 12″-ers, because they are not mortared; but there is a heavier one, the 16″-er, which can build thicker, heavier-duty walls. I’m real glad I wasn’t having to port the 16″-ers. They’re about 30 lbs each. These weigh in at about 20. If you’re curious, the company is http://www.anchorwall.com/ and the 12″ ‘stones’ sell for under 2.00 each at Lowe’s, as I recall. The 16″-ers are about 3.50. If you have a situation where a low wall will solve a situation, they’re good.
When you and Jane eventually get the wall rassled into shape, I’d like to beg some pictures. I have a masonry project of my own someplace down the pike — replacing the wooden posts that hold up the back lanai roof with cement block pillars and short walls, then eventually enclosing the whole thing. I’m still getting ready for the first step, jacking up the roof and installing the temporary supports while the rest of the blocks go in.
When you’re resting check out the eso picture 1028a.jpg.
Anyone who thinks sheep is the solution needs to hear this story.
I knew a feller who decided they were the solution to his yard
maintenance problems. He turned them loose on his lawn. They
did what sheep do carefully trimming everything. He was horrified
to discover that as they moved along near the house they had also
repainted it with a large brownish greasy stripe that matched the
side of a sheep all the way around the house.
The lanolin made it nicely waterproof and impervious to any easy
way to remove it. The labor involved in fixing his paintjob made
the sheep mower seem like a really bad idea.
Isn’t this where you hire the sheep wrastler to grab them big, greasy paintbrushes and make it even all the way around and call it “designer weatherproofing?”
“mine is brute force destruction”
Yep – this is my role in DIY too. Holes made, things bashed, moved, lifted etc. I’m not trusted to neat enough in filling them back in.
You think maybe the guys at “This Old House” will be stopping by for tips?
Lol! We got a tour of the house across the street on open house. And I wish I’d had the nerve to bring a camera. The chap who lived there, in our modest neighborhood, was a guy who apparently had made millions in construction and real estate, and he’d been there for 30 years…unhappily dying somewhat too young, by our lights. The place has a commanding view of the valley, and a deck as big as most houses coming to a point out over that view; and between that deck and the house is a deep diving pool…(koi pond, we joked)…the front is gorgeously (and longtime) landscaped with raised beds, trees, minimal care, and the beautiful stone lantern on the corner (which one of the kids took). And the mermaid pedestal fountain in the central bed. Circular drive. Skylights over the front entry, stained glass, quite pretty stained glass…
Have you ever toured Graceland? The place reminded me quite strongly of that. You expect a mansion, and you get a plain, even simple ’50’s house that somebody with a strong sense of what they want (not what will resell) has made over piecemeal into exactly that. I was struck by the homey kitchen at Graceland, where people would gather by the stove to chat, just like any kitchen, and by the very narrow stairs (not to code, like a DIY); and the ‘jungle room,’ where Elvis had had a tropical moment.
So, the tour across the street: the interior, like the exterior, is native stone. Native stone entry walls, with the moss still on them (water it, and it would go green), and arches to the left, opening on a 1000 square foot great room, which has native stone arches all around it, and a bar, and stained glass, and glass brick, but no view of the outside; and then a tile-floored plant room under skylights, and a narrow stairs up to a sort of an after-thought cubby of a bedroom with a wall air conditioner, but a magnificent view of the deck, the pool, the city. And did I mention—the pool is shot. It’s going to have to be totally redone, and the way that it *should* be redone is to remove it, and install a new pool—which could (due to the fact it’s on a rocky promontory) only involve a crane lifting it over the wall, and blocking traffic on one lane of a major city thoroughfare. That or taking the pool out and doing a tiled pool. But I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that the pool plumbing is done for, and will have to be replaced. There may be a way to get at it underneath the decking, which would mean it can be repaired, but it’s going to be a major, major bill.
The paneling on the whole back of the house should have had its waterproofing renewed, and now needs replacing. The house structure is sound. The kitchen is new, and nice. There is an inbuilt fish tank (only a 30 gallon one) in a massive native stone wall…I do not remotely imagine why a guy who can afford that stopped at 30 gallons, which is too small for most applications. 300 would have been worth the effort.
And another fountain at the head of the hall that leads to the bedrooms—a lifesized plaster mermaid painted in fairly ‘strong’ colors…
Leading to a mirrored bedroom with mirrored circles in the mirror tiles, that represent bubbles. The big bedroom has a built-in Jacuzzi in the corner, and a second, regular bath that is the only house bathroom, which is shared by the three bedrooms in the next hall: and these bedrooms, while having a pleasant view of the pool deck, are about 10×10 each.
The carpet is shot. But behind the plant room, there is a home theater room.
They would like to get 300,000 for it. I don’t think they will. But anybody who wants an interesting and massive DIY project—I’ll bet you could pitch them a deal. Excluding the pool, for which the best fix would be to build over it, adding more room to those 3 bedrooms, plus a second bath—you could have it greatly fixed up for about 50,000. Adding on an addition over the pool, another 75,000 to 100,000.
The pool fix is going to be the hidden stinger, unless its situation is a lot better than I think it is. I don’t think that pool has worked in 20 years.
If the pool is in as poor repair as you suspect, I’d be inclined to abandon it in place by filling it in and making a garden out of it! As long as the support under it is up to the task (I’m not sure which would weigh more, water or dirt. Maybe use a lot of perlite?)… is it in-ground or free-standing, or some weird hybrid? I would personally never pay extra for a pool in a house I owned; they always seem like a landbound version of a boat, ‘a hole into which you pour money’.
Dirt, or dirt would float.
I must have been having a Monty Python moment:
“What else floats?”
“Small rocks!!”
My first question would be, “Does its hold water?” If it doesn’t leak it would probably worth fixing. If it does leak it becomes an iffy proposition. Where there is one leak there are apt to be many in the near future, in which case turning it into a sunken garden would be the best option. I have seen pix of pools turned into magical gardens. 🙂
Once again, you’ve found just the right words to describe Graceland. I came away thinking (with considerable surprise) how modest and liveable it was: the antithesis of a modern McMansion
I rather LIKED Elvis after seeing his house. It was a homey kind of place, with bursts of childlike enthusiasm.
Me, too. The house humanized him and the attached museum enlightened me to how much he gave back to Memphis. I guess I’d been blinded by the Las Vegas rhinestones. OTOH, I came away with something close to loathing for “Colonel Parker” (or whatever his name was). The man deserves a picture in the dictionary definition of evil
The vampire that moves in on very public persons first to isolate them under the guise of protection, the one that negates all criticism, and gives the celeb whatever will keep him in line—this ilk has been preying on the rich and famous forever. The evil vizier, the duke’s infamous advisor—there always seems to be a supply of them. Now they take new titles, and come with a bag of meds that create dependency, and if the people who have the glam and the money enough to be a target don’t take a lesson from recent history, it’s one more employment opportunity for these types and one more sad loss of a talent. Elvis was a naive talent, ie, not formally trained, without contacts, and particularly sad, because he really didn’t have the chance to get the education in finance and the music biz that would have let him handle things himself. The very last thing these types want is to have their charge get to a hospital and get straightened out, and never to an independent accountant…that’s got to scare the heck out of them. I’m sure they’ll be in there dictating and threatening to get their way, and using their host’s money as a means of influence. It’d be an interesting novel, but I don’t like to take that long a bath in corruption.
Y’know, I did find the photo of the duck footprints on the living room rug.
We have to post that somewhere…along with an explanation!
This sounds like it needs a story rather than an explanation…… perhaps with several points of view a la Rashomon?! 😉
Having had a pool, briefly, I can attest that you spend more time maintaining it than swimming in it—or somebody has to. It is sunk in the deck, which leads me to hope that there may be access to the plumbing in some arcane passage or access—which would solve everything; but if the thing is cemented in (and it is in a cement area of the back yard) that’s a problem. If you ever contemplate committing pool, be sure there is some means to fix the pipes. And ask around. Where I lived, on the lake, with water only 8 feet from the pool, this would mean that any attempt to drain the pool once filled would have it rise ON the local water table, like a giant ship trailing muddy former bits of plumbing and hoving up, oh, about 8 feet above the deck, afloat. Once upon a time we had a pool maintenance guy who thought he would drain and refill the pool to solve a problem. We were in the house, realized what he was up to when the pool was already 1/3 empty, and raced back to throw switches, start the fill, and sweated it mightily when the water level rose instead of the pool body. If the thing had floated, we’d have been in real trouble, with a water-filled, pool-shaped hole, and no way to fix it properly until they drained the lake (if they did, that year) for dam work.
Having a pool is great if you enjoy doing the upkeep. I like being out messing around in the water, doing the stuff that needs to be done…. sort of the way some people enjoy being shade tree mechanics, Mine is an above ground with everything easily accessible so it is no big deal to pull the pump and filter every winter. I always do a big caveat when people talk about getting anything more than a wading pool…. either enjoy the daily maintenance or have enough money to hire people to do it for you.
I have one brother who is the same way about his pool. Imagine the scintillating conversations we have! My other brother says we are both crazy!
😆 I do understand. It is kinda fun. Ours was complicated by wildlife, however. Ducks, geese, reptiles—the overhanging massive cottonwood on the neighbor’s lawn…and a very algaed fair-sized lake 8 feet away, so the ducks would bring us exotic algae. Now and again you’d have a whole flock decide your water was nicer. Or they wanted the cottonwood fluff floating on tame water. 😆 So the upkeep was demanding. One flock of ducks can deliver a lot of gifts.
Ah, yes…the wildlife. I’d almost forgotten running outside to chase the ducks out of the pool. A true exercise in futility, if ever there was one.
You know, looking at the retaining wall pictures, I had what might be a crazy thought: wouldn’t it be neat if you created your water feature so that it flowed from a pond in the top level, down part of that wall, to a catch pool in the lower level? It would tie the two levels together, and look really neat for passers-by.
I’ll go hide now. 🙂
Alas, it’s the States, where lawsuits are epidemic and children are brought up without caution around risks. We can’t have a pool that has accessible water in it, because if an unattended three-year-old wandered across the major traffic artery onto our block and managed to plunge his face into 2″ of uncovered water—we could be sued and prosecuted. Our front water feature has water disappearing into a pile rocks which you would have to unbuild to plunge your face into any water, and we hope most are too heavy for a three-year-old to lift.
I have had to tell the kids on the street, and their parents, that I really do not want anyone climbing my tree. It’s a beautiful tree that I would be up in all day if I were a kid…. about 40 foot tall, live oak, with branches that are nice and thick and spaced great for climbing. It’s also right next to a 6-foot slumpstone wall, and I am not about to have lawsuits coming after me and my assets because some kid climbed the tree and fell out of it. And, to be honest, I can see that even a responsible parent might sue if they were faced with massive medical bills because their kid is now a paraplegic, just because they don’t have the money for the bills. On the other hand, I cannot take the tree down, even if I wanted to, because of local laws that are designed to protect these mature oak trees from wanton removal.
My brother, on the Florida panhandle, lives on the thirteenth green of a golf course with a little bayou between the back of the house and the green. His pool is fenced and screened sides and top mainly to keep snakes out…..also keeps tree stuff out. Neighbors left their area open one night while I was visiting; they had a very happy gator in their pool in the morning! This is where a local beach has a sign SWIMMERS! WATCH OUT FOR ALLIGATORS! *uhhh…okay,,,*
Don’t you just *love* attractive nuisance laws? On the same note, early years of Sesame Street on DVD are labeled ‘Adults Only’ as the presentation of children playing on their own is considered too dangerous for modern parents.
edit above to modern children not modern parents.
I recall being in a Darwin-zone in Turkey. In…I believe the ruins of Pergamum…in Asia Minor, there is of course, a ruin; and a little descent into a tunnel marked ‘breathing passage’; which leads into moderate dark, a not-too-long passage, and as I dimly recall, a bend, and you do feel a potent suck and blow of a breathing passage. But better still, there is daylight ahead, and a beautiful vista out over the ruined theater, about 50 feet above the seats, and no railing. It is, mind, a breathing passage. So you stand there with the wind alternately pushing strongly in your face (safe) and at your back (not!).
I wonder how many tourists they scrape up per year.
I warn anyone who’s never traveled—travel as if the Guild is on your case. There are a thousand ways to demise spectacularly (but the scenery is great on the way down!) because there may be safety rails in, say, Calais, but they diminish in frequency incrementally the further you get from the Atlantic coast. By the time you get to Turkey, you are on your own, and there are no warning signs.