Here today gone tomorrow?

I got the word yesterday that someone could come by Friday morning to pick up the dirt - great news. There is some question about how much he is prepared to take. The one big catch was that about 1/3 to 1/2 of the dirt was in our back yard. Sooo, I broke out the shovel and wheelbarrow (again) and started digging.

My wife was packing to leave town (this time out of the country), so as soon as I got the kids to bed I started shoveling. I did some quick math and figured that in total I've moved about 130 cubic feet of dirt. I figured less than half was in the back and I could get 4 cubft per wheelbarrow. So I had about 16 wheelbarrows-full of dirt to move; piece of cake.

After the first six loads I looked at the remaining dirt and it looked like I was about 1/5 of the way there. But then realized it couldn't be that much. Well, 29 wheelbarrows later (yes, I counted each one) I was done. Thankfully, this project has made my back stronger so I was able to finish after just a few hours of digging!

I decided to cut the left over block to make some garden borders and to make a (very) low raised garden - probably just two blocks. I've been spreading in some sand on the walkway, but still probably have a few wheelbarrows full. Other than the wall block, I ordered pretty well I think. Left over I've got:

• Sand (2-3 wheelbarrows full)
• 1/4 pallet of 6x6 pavers
• 8 6x9 pavers (I was right that the I Pattern (used more large pavers)
• about 1/3 of a super bag of river rock, and
• about a wheelbarrow full of CR6.

Unfortunately (for my neighbors), except for the the pavers, everything is still in my driveway. (The two dirt piles without the plastic on it is what I moved last night). The dirt is the biggest eyesore I guess and hopefully this was the last day it will be there...

99.99%

BEFORE

AFTER

So close

This weekend was all about the walkway. I spent friday cleaning up and re-checking the grading on the walkway. I also got all of the sand down and screed. It was a full day of hand-tamping, shoveling, and screeding. BUT, when I went to bed, things were in great shape to start laying the pavers Saturday.

















Look at the difference between pulling the screed poles up (on the left) and sliding them out (on the right). Less damage and easier to fill the holes.

I got pretty good at repairing the screed pole holes using a spade and bucket of sand. Here was my masterpiece Friday evening.
















I woke up Saturday morning pumped and ready to start laying pavers in my nice sand only to find that evil forces had been at work overnight



There was some sort of animal wrestling match in my clean sand. I was angry. We have some squirrels around and more rabbits than you could eat in a sitting. But this almost seemed deliberate. I soon found the smoking gun....
















It didn't take much googling to confirm my suspicions that the nighttime vandal was a raccoon. Then, the confusing thing was that there were tracks from a differenet animal. I realized they were cat prints. But, short of a fight or some sort of twisted midnight raccoon-kitty square dance on my sand, why the two animals?

I think I figured out what happened. The raccoon went snooping around my walkway (they are "curious" you know). Then later, a cat went sniffing around the raccoon droppings, which I learned (the hard way) look an awful lot like acorns.

By the time the investigation had ended, my temper had cooled and I put my sandworking skills back to work. It took about 20 minutes to fix (about a half as long as the investigation).

By Saturday evening, I had many of the pavers down. I ended up using a border of 1 6x9 then 2 6x6 because I was (correctly it turns out) afraid I wouldn't have enough 6x9 pavers. I worked hard to make sure that the wall was parallel with the house. Check out the lines in this picture (and my sweet new laser level)















I rented a brick saw friday afternoon. I was REALLY glad I didnt even try to use just a chissle. I had a lot of cutting to do (but the saw sat idle until Sunday morning $110 down the tubes). Sunday was of course Father's day, so I goofed off a little, but spend several hours on the walkway. Mostly, I cut all of the pieces along the edge. Unfortunately, I had to run off to dinner with the fam about an hour shy of being done. But, Sunday evening, here's where I am:




















What's left? That little sliver of pavers along the driveway (look at some of the slivers in the pictures above). I also need to cut the pavers along the front (along the PVC pipe) and lock them in with a border.



soooo close...

Wisdom

Last weekend I was home alone with the kid again (only one) and opted to interact with the child rather than stick him in a pack-n-play and work around him. I did get in a few hours though sunday afternoon.

Now that the wall is completed, the ground leveled and compacted, I started thinking about the logistics to lay the pavers. How would I lay the sand, then place all of the pavers in the area without disturbing the sand I just put down?

The method (ok, pretty obvious) came in a flood of google results - lay the pavers from the paver-side not from the sand side. So, once all the sand is down, you start putting pavers down and kneel on the pavers you just laid to keep working down the walkway.

Well, I had decided already that it will be much easier to get things right if I put the pavers down from back to front (largely because of the shape of the walkway). BUT therein lies the rub. If you remember my earlier pictures, all the the pavers are in the FRONT of the house. If I'm going to be laying pavers from the back to the front that means I need to move all of the pavers (two pallets) from the front of the house to the back.

So, Sunday evening was spent turning this:

into this:

brutal.

"How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise" -- Tereisias (...or Robert De Niro depending on your perspective)

Good News Bad News

So, after working all day thursday and a few hours Sunday, here's where I stand.

There is a drainage system (perforated 3" tube and gravel) behind the wall. I'm up to almost the final course or so.

I finally got the courage up to test the drain that I repaired that runs from the back downspout along the length of the walkway and down the driveway. I was relieved to see water pouring into the street....whew.

I made life tough for myself by adding the vertical sections because the wall block height was not consistent. So fitting the blocks between two vertical sections was tricky and time consuming. I eventually found a few tricks to make it easier.

When I had to slightly widen the space between sections, I used two 8" blocks rather than one 16" block. I did the opposite when there wasn't enough space. Sometimes, the three pound malot came in handy.

The corner was a little tricky. I wanted to interlock the main and back wall. It meant making sure both walls were level with each other. I also had to line up the blocks so that the lengths ran into each other in the corner but the rightmost side of the back wall lined up. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

I'm trying to decide now, how high to bring up the wall. I want to make sure that the neighbors mulch/dirt doesn't flow down over my wall. At the same time, I dont want the walkway to feel boxed in. I think I may add one more course.

So, I've got about 1/3 super bag of CR6 left (still with some to put down), 1/3 bag of gravel and a full bag of sand. It looks like my measurement for those materials was right on. However, with about one full course on the wall to go, I've still got half of three pallets of wall block.

The good news is that I've got plenty of wall block and I'll have enough to use some to build my step out the door. The bad news: a retaining wall and raised garden would sure look good in front of this tree...

Progress

The weather man said rain and thunder storms all weekend. I should have known it would be nice. We did get rain in the evenings but it was nice during the day. Also, the rain turned the CR6 into a cement-like materiel that packed well.

My wife had to go out of town (read, "partied it up in NYC all weekend"). Since the kids wouldn't BOTH fit into the pack-n-play (without a good bit of force) my time/progress this weekend on the project was due largely to my Mom and to Uncle Tony and Aunt Madeleine who came over and took the kids off my hands for several hours (thanks again).

A neighbor came over the week before last and looking at all of the "super bags" asked, "just how many wheelbarrows do you think that is?" Well, this (and an episode of Sid the Science Kid) motivated me to "estimate." Actually, it game me something to think about while I was shoveling. It turns out there are 15 heaping wheelbarrows per super bag. I have 7 super bags times 15 per = 105 wheelbarrows full.

From the get go I was disappointed by the (lack of) documentation that came with the Nicolock material. I emailed them though and got a call back from Alan who was great and answered several questions about setback (none required) gluing courses (recommended) drainage (nice but not necessary for my height).

So, here are some pictures:





Looking pretty good I think. The wall is pretty darn straight and level. I laid and relaid the first few blocks (top right corner) four times before I got it right.

The CR6 base is in pretty good shape (level and tamped). I've got probably another inch in some places to put down. I also figured out how I was going to lay the wall going along the back.

BUT, my pride and joy was the job I did creating the step in the wall....almost. Because the wall is on a hill, I decided to make a step in the base course so I wouldn't have to dig so much more dirt out from the top half of the wall. I didn't realize what was involved.

It gave me a chance to put my new laser level to work (David White 48-M2XLE fro $99 from ToolKing - about $80 cheaper than I saw anywhere else. Here is a drawing of what I was doing. This meant leveling the lower block at a height where the upper block would also be level. I used my laser level to line up the top of the lower block with the bottom of the rightmost top block. After a while and a lot of tweaking I got the blocks level.

I was proud of myself - just one catch I didn't realize till later. I used a random offset for the lower block (the orange arrow). The distance should have been four inches. My wall block widths are 12", 8" and 16" and four inches tall (I stand some upright). Distances that are divisible by four are easier to reach. As the top row continued along the bottom row, eventually (at the end) the blocks did not line up. I'll likely just ignore the offset - the lower course is almost two inches shorted than the rows above it but it will be hidden once the pavers get in. But, it bugs me.

I had the mechanical tamper all weekend (at $69 per day). This is really a waste of money because I only ran it a few times. It was fun though (and luckily, my office mate warned me about how the tamper can take off on you - it did). In the tight quarters of my walkway, the thing was pretty unwieldy. I went to our new home depot today and caved today for a hand tamper ($29) which will be handling my remaining tamping duties.

Here is what is left of the super bags (I've been through 4 and a half of the five CR6 and still have one of sand and one of river rock).


The guy who delivered the material recommended using the super bags for leaves. I've given up on that. If you cut them and open them like an old bag of jiffy pop, it is MUCH easier to get the stone out.










Best purchase so far: A tie between my knee pads and paying the extra $10 for a 3 pound hammer rather than a one pounder.

Worst purchase: The tamper rental

"Best" backhanded complement (from my Mom), "It looks good, it will be great when you can start seeing progress." :)

One Down

Last weekend I was up in New Jersey (the nice part) and didn't get much done. Got back early Sunday, and got some digging in, but didn't make any huge strides. I DID take some pictures of my progress, but unfortunately, I took them with my cell phone (camera was mia). Unfortunate because I couldn't get pictures off of my phone, a samsung omnia which is....less than ideal.


Anyway. This Friday my shipment arrived from the quarry:

• 1 Cube 1-1/2 Normal Colonial Cobble oyster color ($316)
• 1 Cube Normal Colonial Cobble oyster color ($295)
• 3 Cubes Tuscany Wall adobe color ($705)
• 5 Super Sacks CR6 ($333)
• 1 Super Sack sand ($69)
• 1 Super Sack Gravel 3/4" blue ($66)
• Delivery first 2 pallets ($95)
• Delivery Each additional ($20 x 10 = $200)

For a grand total of $2189 after tax.



What does all this look like??

Each "Super Sack" has about 1 1/2 tons in it (that's ...3000 pounds) or something like a buzillion kilograms.




I took a bunch of pictures of the delivery (a truck with a boom that could extend up my driveway)...but alas...I took them with my aforementioned cell phone.





I dug more on Saturday and leveled. I bought a lot of supplies (mostly from Home Depot).

• 10 drain pipes (for behind wall and along driveway ($52)
• Two 1" pvc pipes to screed the sand ($5)
• One 3lb rubber hammer ($30)...could have saved $15 on a one-pounder, but the directions said 3 lb, so I bit the bullet.
• One mason chisel (gonna try it before a saw) ($10)
• 48" level ($16)
• 3/4 drill bit (used to drill a hole in the foundation for to wire an outlet outside (one day) ($12)
• Kneepads - I FINALLY broke down and dropped coin on some kneepads ($17)
• Landscape Fabric ($45)
• Edging - to hold the pavers in place near the front of the house ($17)
• Edging stakes ($8)
• 8 drain couplings - I may return some of these ($14)
• 3 drain elbows ($15)
• 2x4 stud - for screeding sand ($3)

For a grand total of $266

I also rented a tamper ($69) for Sunday (and almost rented a saw for the pavers - file that one into the "wishful thinking" category).

Sunday morning, the area looked like this. I turns out that I had the wrong dimension in my head for the wall blocks, so I needed to widen the channel for them.





I decided to have one tier in my wall. I also (finally) solved the drainage puzzle. The french drain running down the right side of the walkway is a solid drain surrounded in river stone and wrapped in weed cloth. The back and front downspouts feed the drain. I think the stone is to help drain the back yard.

Thankfully, I ended up leaving the french drain alone (mostly). The weed cloth needed some repairs. There was a drain in the back (inside the cloth) that went down into the pipe. I assume this was to drain water from the surrounding soil. The pipe coming up needed to be shortened. I removed the cap, sawed off a few inches and replaced it with a new one. It worked surprisingly well.

I reworked the drainage along the driveway (which I'm still not quite sure what it's for). But I've seen water come out. It's only a 1 1/2" PVC tube, so I put in an elbow joint and routed it down a 4 inch drain tube.

Everything took longer than expected of course. Here are some pics from Sunday:





Yes, I somehow ended up with child duty on my big work weekend, so, I had a "helper."

I have officially forfeited my standing for "Father of the Year." I'm sure there's some way to put this off on my wife...wait she abandoned me to go out with her sister. (of course, there's more to that story, but that's the one I'm sticking with)

Finally, Sunday evening. I've made a dent. My drainage problems solved. Measuring done. I finally got to moving rock INTO the area.

To do this, Plan A was simple:

1) Step from the dirt into the Super Sack
2) Shovel the CR6 into the wheelbarrow

There were a few challenges. First, I hit a lot of rocks (har, CR6 is crushed rock". Also, this material is meant to get pretty firm when it's compressed with a tamper (so the deeper I dug, the tougher it got). Finally, standing and shovelling in a confined area isn't easy. If you've ever stood on a shovel and lost your balance, well, doing that in the bag has some consequences (about 5 foot drop). Yes, I did that once, but thankfully, my incredible dexterity allowed me to fall into one of the other bags...smooth.

Unfortunately, all of that didn't get down until is was too late to fire up the tamper. So, $69 down the drain.

HOWEVER, after then day was done, this is what the area looked like:

I'm ready to compress the top and start putting down the wall. I wanted to tamp down the wall aggregate before laying the landscape cloth on that side.

Most importantly. This is what the "Super Sack" looked like:



Not so "Super" now!

one down...

Great News! I lost a tooth today!

Well, technically I lost a crown. But, it meant i had to leave work early to deal with it, so I got in a few more hours of digging. Here is what the side looks like now. I'm getting closer, but still have a day or two of digging.

It rained today, which was nice because it kept me cool. Which, leads me to my reasons to dig in the rain:
1) It keeps you cool.

and, my reasons NOT to dig in the rain:
1) wet dirt=heavy dirt
2) wet dirt=slippery dirt
3) hard on your grass
4) wet mud sticks in and around shoes

I'm deciding now whether or not to take some of the best advice I've gotten so far, which was to leave the french drain that runs along the house alone. The problem is mainly, I don't think it's something that I'm able to leave well enough alone.

Another design decision I'm considering is whether or not to take the walkway all the way up to the house. From a practical perspective, we could use all the width we can get. Aesthetically though, I think it may look better leaving some space. Maybe we can just put a planter there to break it up.

I also found out today that people DO want dirt. That is, they say they want it - we'll see if they get it. I've had five people (in a day) contact me about picking some up. I was getting so many questions about it that I started to wonder if I should want to keep it. (don't worry Eileen, it's still on the open market).

Tomorrow I am hoping to dig out up to the driveway, and finish the pack walkway. I still haven't ordered any of the materials. They said at the quarry everything could be delivered in a few days. If I can finish digging this week, and order the materials so that they get here this weekend. I think there's a chance I can finish up on Sunday....a chance.

So, I thought I keep some information together from my walkway/retaining wall project. This is as good of a place as any. Plus it's a good way to introduce my wife (currently out of town) (who I love very much) to the project!

First, the project is to dig out a walkway and put together a retaining wall.

I went to the quarry by my place (who knew) and looked around for a while. But, I decided a natural stone wall was too much work for a newbie, so I decided to get a system. This place was a Nicolock dealer so after hours going through their catalog, I found something I liked. For some reason, finding reviews on retaining wall systems seems to be about the only review not littering the Internet.

Anyway, I decided on the Tuscany Wall (adobe blend) for the wall and the Colonial Cobble Blend (oyster). For the walk, my goal was to find something clean, but a little rustic - not too "new" looking. Hypothetically, it should look like this.

I decided first on the herringbone paver pattern, then the herringbone 45 deg, which I liked but seemed like a ton of cutting, then finally ended up on the I pattern.



After measuring and re-measuring, I just decided to start digging and then order everything when I had a clearer idea. Here is the area




This is our main side entrance and the gravel walkway is too narrow and....gravel. Our property line runs along the mulched area (about where the white board is). I'm going to put a retaining wall there and add a nice walkway. Notice that the gravel is all the way up to the siding; it it currently graded way too high.

Let the digging begin! I started Saturday and dug for about five hours. when I was done, here's what it looked like. I was pretty happy with the progress. I got out some of the walkway and took a good start cutting the hill for the retaining wall.



I also had/have some dirt to contend with. (honey, it will be gone in a week..or two..I promise)



I figured I'd have a good chance to finish digging on Sunday. I dug for 6 1/2 hours. I also did battle with a buried stump that I uncovered and plenty of roots.






Notice that there is about a foot of dirt moved from below the siding. According to the 1980 edition of Architectural Graphics Standards, clay that is damp and plastic (moldable) weighs 110 lbs/sq. ft. while packed earthen mud weighs 115 and wet sand and gravel weighs 120 lbs/sq. ft.

Today I moved about 100 cubic feet of dirt. 27 cubic feet (a cubic yard) weighs about a ton, so that's a little over 3 1/2 tons of dirt. A good day's work that I'd feel even better about if I didnt still have about another 6 hours of digging left.

ps. anyone want some free dirt??