…where there never was a wall.
Started with a vision in SketchUp, but y’know, having just a vision’s no solution. Everything depends on execution. You gotta start with a solid foundation.
The first course goes below grade, for stability. On about 4" of crushed rock. That's about 16 bags of it, if you buy it from Home Depot.
Flat yard, boring. So we’ll just build up some topography our own selfs. Thanks to the wisdom of the internet tubes, it was pretty easy to find out how to make a dry-stacked stone retaining wall. Without using those cheesy (sorry Becky!) pre-fab, uh, well, cinderblocks really, that they sell at Home Depot and such. Basically, the rules seem to be:
- Keep it 3 feet tall or less
- Put the first course below grade
- Tilt it back 1″ to 2″ per foot of height
- Stack until done
The rock and topsoil we had delivered. One pallet of rock and 6 yards of topsoil (not enough of either). I assume they forklifted the pallet onto the truck, but the rock came off one piece at a time at our end. Apparently half the industrial revolution passed these guys by.
That's the pile we got. It looks good, but is it enough?
Two courses done (well really three, but the first is underground), and a day gone by. Also, nowhere near enough stone to finish it.
Don't look like much, do it? It's sure enough to wipe out your grip strength for a day, though.
And after the second day’s work (a week later, which gives the ol’ muscles and tendons a chance to regenerate and reattach), we’ve got something approaching a wall. For those paying close attention, yes, we did use a bit of Gorilla Glue. Just a couple spots, though. That was a suggestion from the guy who brought the first load of rock. Actually he said Liquid Nails, but I didn’t have any handy, and GG might actually have a little more give if things shift a bit.
Now it's looking like a wall.
One more day’s work and it’s done. I thought it would take longer!
Ta-daa!
Now we need more topsoil, obviously. That’s coming tomorrow. And plants to put in the soil. And eventually water, and fishes. And bamboo. And more plants. But that’s a long time from now. Right now, we’re just happy to have a wall.
Bamboo! Noooo! Well, I guess if you want continuous never-ending yard work then, OKKKKKKK!
What will be the purpose of your wall? For sitting on? It almost looks like you should put in a picnic area there. I might have thought you were going to put a small pond in, and have the wall back the pond, but the small tree probably wouldn’t like that.
To respond to one of your comments on my blog, the reason I’m not using a server farm for my blog is that after the dust bowl of ’06 I got out of the farming business. That, and I’ll let somebody else waste their time configuring my server.