When the whole project started, we had a backyard that looked like this:
Yup, it was a big hill. Every time Kali went back there, I thought she was going to fall down the hill, roll into the woods and never be seen again.
(And, yes - the porch needs to be stained. It's on the list.)
So we called the folks at Akehurst Landscaping. And came up with a plan to add some retaining walls and do a lot of regrading.
They built the lower wall first:
Notice the big pile of grey rock debris by the wheelbarrows? Three guys were out there for 2 solid days with an air hammer and shovels.
Glad it wasn't me (my heavy labor came later).Then they finished up the upper wall and stairs. It actually looks like a real backyard by this point.
Unfortunately, this is about the point that the folks at Akehurst decided to have a little inter-generational power struggle over who scheduled work crews. So other than seeding and adding part of the fence, things sat for about a month.
Luckily a letter from me telling them they weren't going to get paid helped resolve the issue in favor of our designer (who just happened to be in the process of selling his interest to his nephews). So once he regained scheduling power, the work started up again.
And they moved on to the driveway area and a third wall. The driveway area started out looking like this:
The perfect combination of ugly and non-functional. After removing the overgrown brush and putting in a third wall, we ended up with this:
Notice the spot for firewood - and the upper terrace level in the backyard?
Here's a better view of the upper terrace level.
The fabric stuff is the newly seeded area. The fabric is the high-tech alternative to throwing down some straw over the grass seed.
And here's a good view of the stairs, the high part of the wall and the fence:
Not perfectly level - short of dynamite, the rock ledge under the mound will be there forever - but no risk of anyone falling down the hill.
And right after they finished up the driveway wall and laid down the last bit of grass seed and fabric, Cedarworks delivered 15 large boxes worth of playset. Just in time for the Fourth of July weekend. So I spent about 20 hours over my "vacation" putting this together:
The smile made it worth it - even with the wasp sting I got in the process. Here's a different angle showing the playset's location:
And a good view of most of the upper wall.
So other than a few "little" things we want to do (like staining the deck, planting bushes, adding some more rubber mulch around the playset...), the backyard is done. Now to start paying off the home equity loan...
