When we first bought the house I cannot describe accurately the backyard without the word "jungle" coming to mind. We had all kinds of plants, weeds, small trees, ivy, bricks, large brush, garbage, snakes, skunks, you name it (!) inhabiting that wonderland. It had great potential, but we mulled back and forth over what to do with it while we spent an entire year pulling small trees (the ROOTS, oh those roots) and pulling weeds.
I'm sorry to say, I forgot to take a great before picture, so all you really get is what was on our MLS listing and a little peek of one part of the yard/jungle.
Squint closely and look at the trees growing under the deck, the footings that were too small, and the leaning lower portion of the deck. The backyard was one enormous slope ending with a fence and then a sheer drop.
This was sadly one of the two before pictures that I took.
Picture: August 2010
The only way we could initially even start getting into the back yard was through some serious modern machete work...power tools. Keith here is hacking away at the brush and trees the first summer we bought the house. It took us a full year just to get this part under control.
Picture September 2011
Remember all that digging we talked about before? Let me remind you that we could NOT hire anyone to help him with this, so he did it all by hand. Him with a shovel and wheelbarrow.
Picture taken 10/23/2011
I admit, when it snowed on Halloween, it startled us a little, but it was a wakeup call that we needed to get this wall done STAT. Keith took this Thanksgiving holiday and decided to tackle all that he could.
Keith is kneeling in the picture above in the spot of future steps up to the upper level where we'll have a patio, firepit, and garden.
Picture 10/26/2011
(note that is 3 days later)
Let's just take a moment and recognize that each of those blocks weighs 75 lbs. Each one. And they were each carried in by hand by Keith. We won't forget to mention too that each of those is filled in with gravel and there is gravel a foot deep behind the wall that all came in a wheelbarrow at a time.
After working for 4 days straight we officially have a wall in our backyard! Keith made a monsterous effort and worked from sun up to sun down to put this together. I'm already envisioning my vegetable garden in the Spring! Grass, a playscape, and a fixed deck! And I'm starting to see my front lawn again. It's not done yet, but I'll post more pictures of the progress.
Now, before I continue gloating on how awesome my husband is, I have to put in a word for two great friends who jumped right in with Keith a few Saturdays. Thank you Mark and Mark! We also ended up hiring someone who came and helped last weekend and this weekend to help him tackle as much as possible.
An ideas on how to cover up that ugly rock wall behind and above our newer wall?
I'll have to post some more pictures this week on the updates we have been making to our home. Slowly, but surely it is starting to come together.
