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...