A Bit of History
Laura initiated this three-ish year project to improve the approach to the house’s front door. I too thought it could be improved and we therefore took it on without completely nailing down what we wanted. Nonetheless, we knew enough to get started, whittling away at it in phases. While we didn’t think it would take as long as it did (it’s still not 100% done), life happened and it became clear it’d need time. Here’s the full story.
About a year after we moved in, we hired a landscape architect to draft plans for the entire property. His plans suggested a new retaining wall built of timbers with a wood veneer and metal cap. Lights along the wall would add visibility and a bit of drama. The wall would be widened along the garage and pop out to its existing width beyond the garage. The path itself was slated to be tiled in porcelain including the steps to the front door which would have an expanded landing. All good and fine with the exception of the cost. So, in I come to do the work at a theoretical fraction of the cost (which came to be true).
The existing area had a retaining wall that was failing in places (a few of the wood posts were rotted). We also disliked how narrow the walkway was and the color of the wall (not to mention the house in general). Now, let me describe the approach to the front door as it’s not typical. Our house is a classic tri-level, but rather than the three floors being visible from the street as they’re usually situated, our house is turned 90 degrees with the middle floor facing the street and the up and downstairs pointing toward the back of the lot. Additionally, the house sits on a slope losing elevation going north to south. The garage sits south of the house but isn’t connected. All of these facts combines to create an interesting and dynamic approach. You need to walk up the driveway then through the covered path between house and garage to arrive at the front door which is a few steps up. The path is essentially a tunnel albeit with four skylights allowing the sun to seep through. It’s not your typical suburban home which we love but does pose conundrums, some of which were to be addressed with the project—widening the path, replacing the rotting wall, and addressing the color.
Work Begins
First things are first though. And as is usual, the first thing is demolition. I took out the wood wall and rotted posts to expose the retained dirt. I planned to widen the path about 18 inches. Why? Nobody knows. I more or less made the number up. It seemed like enough room to feel less cramped walking through yet not so wide that the remaining retained area didn’t seem too skinny as though it were a planter box. Of course, this meant I had to excavate 90-ish cubic feet of dirt which I did before tearing down the wall. Now, for those who do any yard work, you know it effectively comes down to moving materials from here to there. In this case, given that the dirt had been infested with bindweed (argh!), I didn’t want to introduce it elsewhere in the yard so I threw it out about 1/3 of a city issued trash container at a time. Otherwise, the trash truck couldn’t pick up the weight of the trash can (not to mention my own difficulty maneuvering it to the curb). AI tells me 90 cu. ft. of dirt weighs north of 3 tons so you can imagine how long it took for all that dirt to be hauled away. Herein lies a major reason why this project took so long. And yes, I could have gotten a haul away trash container and eliminated months of wait time, but I’m too cheap and there were plenty of other projects to do (see my other posts on house improvements).
Ok, let’s fast forward many months to when the dirt is gone as is the old wall. (Side note: apologies to all visitors who had to traverse this murder scene to reach the front door.) At this point, there’s still a lot of debris to throw away (the rotted posts’ concrete bases, the wall itself, etc.), but we also have room to begin the new wall, starting with the posts.
The new wall would ideally not rot as quickly as the old if built with stainless steel posts. Those things aren’t cheap, but they trade cost for time—no need to set wood posts in concrete (digging holes is no fun). I ran string to keep the posts in line and then pounded the shit out of the posts to set them. These posts are meant for fences so they’re 8 or 9 (can’t remember) feet long. Our wall is 2 1/2-3 feet tall so much longer than needed. I pounded them 3 feet into the ground and ended up cutting off the tops at a later date (the smashed tops would obviously need to go anyway). If you’re the sort of person with anger issues, pounding steel posts into the ground is a pretty great outlet for your pent up energy.
The Actual Wall
Once the posts were in (I built the long run before the shorter perpendicular one—more on that later), it was time for wood. I bought lumber from Sterling Lumber in Boulder (free delivery!). I bought treated 12’x20’ planks plus a few shorter ones to cover the length of the main run. I made the rookie mistake of not installing them shortly after they arrived. Instead, they laid in the garage a week or two. Enough time that the boards began to dry resulting in a bit of twisting. No longer nice and square, I had my old, trustworthy friend Brant help me put the first board up (a 12×20 treated plank isn’t exactly light). While he mightily pulled and pushed the board into as straight a position as possible, I placed the hardware securing it into place. Thanks Brant.
Speaking of hardware, another rookie mistake was not lining up the hardware to be perfectly straight across the boards. It’s not noticeable by casual visitors, but as the builder, I can’t not see it, you know what I mean? I’ve learned to live with it, but it’s the small craft details in a multi-year project that occupies my mind.
Completing the Wall
Slowly and methodically, the wall came together and the neighbors sighed relief that they didn’t live next door to a permanent construction zone (there were still mounds of exposed dirt, but more on that in another post). The slow progress was partly caused by the wall’s tiered nature. Each row pops out about a half inch from the row above it. To accomplish this, I placed a spacer board at each post to pop each row out. By the third row near the corner of the wall, this meant screwing bolts through 1 1/2” of spacer boards, 2 1/2” of the wall board, the post, and then enough extra length to accommodate washers and nuts (in other words, long screws).
As might be expected, I ran into a problem. I planned to build the wall two 12” boards high plus the top railing. But as the wall came together, it felt short. Adding a 6” board as the top row made the wall feel not only tall enough, but properly proportioned with a half as high board sitting atop the two taller boards. However, since the rows were staggered from one another, I had a dilemma. How would I indent this new top row to achieve the same stagger? Skinnier boards seem like the easy answer, yet it came with a trade off. Since the top railing would be a 2×4 laid flat, it would end up secured to a mere 1” top row board. That seems like a recipe for a wobbly, insecure topper. I decided a better option was to notch the top row around the steel posts. Their strength would suffer a bit there, but the rest of the board would still be beefy enough to hold the top rail firmly. And since the top rail would cover the post and the notched top row, I figured it’d all tie into itself well enough to hold over the years.
Once the wall was finished (including turning the corner and continuing it at a perpendicular angle), I felt good. The wall was pretty damn straight, level, and looked good. My grievances came down to those bolts not being aligned well and the corner not quite coming together as well as I hoped. I did feel great that the corner came out at all what with the calculations and deliberations around the staggers, spacer boards, length of overhang, and angle cuts.
Wait, There’s More
Notice in the photos above that the rain chain coming down from the gutter used to end inside the retaining wall. Today, with the wall,pushed back, it falls outside. That’s not a problem in and of itself. When it rains, water comes down the chain and splashes onto the ground. That’s how it works. Since we have plans to tile the entryway (a future project), we found that water splashing onto the ground sent dirt (and, a bit later, crushed rock) flying. The wall would be splattered with dirt and the drive way always had a sprinkling of dirt and rocks on it. Over time, a hold would appear as rain water eroded away the ground underneath. So, what to do? We’ll, let me tell ya…
The Dry Well
We needed a way to evacuate the water coming down the rain chain. What better than a a dry well? Dig a receiving area under the chain, capture the water, let it flow through a buried pipe to another area of the yard and collect it there where it could soak into the ground away from the house. Simple.
Simple? Digging is theoretically simple. In practice, it’s a back breaking, Soviet era gulag, under appreciated, pain in the ass. A good workout though. I dug a dry well and trench (which included tunneling under the boulders in the photo). PVC pipes moved water from the catch basin at the rain chain, under the boulders, and into a 50 gallon well. I spent too long thinking about where the well should go (I overanalyze things things). I decided it should sit between the sewer line and the driveway rather than crossing the sewer line or changing the design altogether by making a French drain (I think water would spill out into the driveway in that case and freeze during colder months making a walking hazard for us and anyone on the sidewalk). So far, this tiny engineering feat has worked well (no pun intended).
Do I need to mention that the top rail went on without much issue and the whole thing was stained to give it a deeper color? If so, there you have it. And with that, the story comes to a close. We still have to solve for the slope where the wall turns 90 degrees and heads into the hill, tile the walkway, and redo the stairs and landing, but that’ll be another tale.
