Landscaping on Woodacre

When we first moved into the new house on Woodacre, there wasn't anything we wanted to change structurally or to the yard. It was just so perfect. But after being in the house for almost a year, one anoyance has come up in the back yard.

Looking at the "before" pictures shown below, you can see that the side of our yard slopes quickly down to meet up with the neighbor's yard. Now I like my neighbors but this slope is a problem. Leaves pile up down there, it is hard to keep clean, the kids toys all end up down there. A couple times the kids have even fallen down the hill and had trouble getting back up.

The idea that I have come up with to solve this problem is to take down the existing 6' fence and put up a 4' retaining wall the entire 60' feet of the back yard. Below are the conceptual drawings that I have come up with. A set of steps will replace the gravel path that now leads from the gate to the yard. Along side the steps is another retaining wall 15' long. At the bottom of the steps is a slab that connects the last step to the sidwalk on the side of the house. The steps are at about a 45° angle to the main retaining wall.

On top of the new retainging wall, I will be putting up a short 3' fence. This is not so much for privacy, even though it will help. No this short fence is mainly to keep the kids toys in the yard and keep them from falling off of the wall. From our side it will look like a 3' fence, but from the neighbor's side it will be an 8' fence. If you notice in the next picture that the concrete retaining wall will not be flush with the ground on our side. I want to have a few inches of the wall sticking up. This is mainly for cosmetic purposes but it will also keep the wood fence farther off the ground. There will be a small gap between the top of the wall and the bottom of the fence to prevent water build up and wood rot.

I hope to get this work done in the summer of 2006. If not then 2007 for sure. In either case, when we do the work I will put the construction and after pictures online so come back again to check it out.