Home Improvement Project: Retaining Wall

It's been 13 years that we have lived in this home and very soon after moving in we realized the front retaining wall was insufficient. We nursed it along all these years. Adding oak ties, replacing railroad ties with retaining wall blocks, rocks to try and hold back the falling soil, etc.

In the Spring of 2011 we had a lot of storm damage to our house. We had to make a claim on our home insurance and after receiving the check we decided to do all the repairs our self to save money to pay for the retaining wall repairs. Thanks to family and friends who slaved hard for help us with the repairs; we finally had the money saved for the project! 

Thanks to family again (mainly my Dad and uncles) we were able to finish this project. We are looking forward to next summer when the plants fill in all that space. There is still a couple small things that need to be completed on the project, but I consider it done.

Check out the journey of our retaining wall from insufficient to complete!

This is after my Irises were removed along the wall and some rocks had been taken out already. The blocks and timbers were removed on this day.

Scott and my Dad working on forming up the wall. That was a lot of work!

Wall poured and soil delivered and leveled.

Wall done, plants replanted, rocks moved back, and decorative river rock placed. Whew! There really are plants in all that rock! Hoping for more green than rocks next summer! 

Another small project that we did along with the retaining wall. We had to kill everything in this flower bed because of Poison Ivy taking over! We also needed to replace the steps and move them over. We decided to take care of that since we had a concrete truck coming anyway. We used some of the retaining wall blocks that were removed on the front retaining wall to extend this wall a little and make steps. Scott divided up day lilies and irises from the front to put in this bed. I just dug the holes (with a long handled shovel)because I still remember all that poison ivy and I didn't want to touch the soil!  ; ) The pine tree will now have to be trimmed back because we aren't moving the steps again. 

I have no idea why there is a pile of rocks by the steps or why the water hose is laying all over the plants. Questions like this come up all the time with a house full of boys and I learned to just let some of it go. Well, maybe not the water hose since it will eventually kill my plants! ; )