The Great Wall

Recently Kurt & I, along with Kurt's father, undertook the re-building of our retaining wall. The wall spans the 37 feet across the back of our property and is 3 feet tall; we also had to add a single course of block along the south side of our garage to replace the slowly failing boards and metal spikes that were there.

Preparation involved the moving of the currant bushes from their old location behind the garage right next to the wall, to a new location at the east end of the future patio. I also had to re-locate my giant pile of rocks from the future patio area to the garden bed next to our neighbor's garage.


Day 1
Kurt started prep on the morning of block delivery by removing the "retaining" boards on the south side of the garage and digging away the herb/grape/climbing rose bed along the garage as needed (poor plants!).

Kurt's father arrived around 10 am, however the blocks had not; Menards said they would be delivered sometime between 6am and noon. Kurt and his father continued prep along the garage and then the three of us moved on to removing the rotted railroad ties along the back span of the wall.

12:30 rolled around and still no block! Removal of railroad ties continued and the Menards guy finally showed up around 12:45.
By the end of day 1 the single course of block along the garage had been set in place, sans capstones.


Day 2
Removal of railroad ties continued bright and early on day 2.

Once that was completed, we started laying the block.

We battled the cold, drizzle, and muscle fatigue all day, but by its end we had layed all 6 courses of block along the back of our property.

Next weekend, onto the capstones!

The "Great Wall" photo gallery can be viewed here, and a permanent link can be found in the sidebar.