What I did on my summer vacation

[DMF]

Wall update: I don’t have any recent pictures (my wife took her digital camera back) but I figured I’d post an update. I think I am ready for my last course of block (yippee!). The last row I laid has been backfilled with stone but I used up all my backfill material at this point. I moved 10 yards of material from my neighbor’s house last Sunday and used all of that but it wasn’t enough. This weekend I went back to my neighbor’s to install a French drain around his house; that took up both days. On Saturday, I took home a load of fill in my Country Manufacturing dump wagon and the tongue gave up the ghost on me (see my comments under Off-Road Trailers Revisited under the “attachments” forum). Sunday I moved 15 yards of fill from my neighbors with my pick-up truck!
This week I plan to level the fill behind the wall and lay down the last layer of geo-grid. I would only need to lay the next course except my buddy (an electrician) stopped by the house Sunday morning and yapped about putting lights in the blocks. Before I could shut him up, my wife latched onto the idea so now it looks like the last course of blocks will have lights. I need to get the wire, etc. so there is now way the wall will be finished this week! I’ll try to take some photos this week to bring you up to date.
Thanks for watching and all the encouraging comments!

 

[gizmo]

Farwell,

Sorry about the hijack here,but you can still do a lot with your block wall with a little flag stone facing. Here are some walls I had recently done. They are basic block walls with flag stone facing and caps.

 

[EddieWalker]

Gizmo,

Very nice wall.

Did you stain the concrete? I want to try staining my floors and I'm interested in product and methods. So far I've seen it done on TV and looked at the stain at Home Depot. Any info would be great.

Eddie

 

[gizmo]

Eddie,

Actually, the concrete was stained (dyed). However it came in 80# bags and was mixed on the truck, one bag per 10yds. This ensures that the color is uniform. The dye causes the concrete to cure a bit faster, so the finising crew needs to be one their toes. I also used fiber reinforced concrete.

 

[shaley]

Gizmo, Just looked at your woodworking page. Dag man - Gustav Stickley would be proud!! You are quite a mission style artist. I really like the qtr sawn white oak. It is hard to get in VA.

 

[DMF]

Wall update! I haven’t posted any progress lately so here goes: My wife took a few shots of me in action. I am working on the last course of blocks. I’m using my angle grinder with a diamond blade to make a few “adjustments” to the blocks. You can see the last layer of geo-grid material.

 

[DMF]

Same shot, zoomed back a bit. You can see the pile of fill waiting to be spread. That was 15 yards. I went through another 18 before the grade was correct.

 

[DMF]

This is me working on the break in the wall for the walkway. Our plan was to eliminate stairs. My parents are almost 80 and when they come to visit now they have to walk up the basement stairs into the house which is a pain for them. We designed the house with an entry way in the rear. Once the walk is complete, they will be able to park at the barn and walk up the sidewalk to the rear of the house then they will only have 2 steps to get on the rear deck and one into the house; much better!

 

[DMF]

This shows the last course laid and the stone backfill in place. The pile of fill is still there but it only takes about 10 minutes to spread with “Fergy”

 

[DMF]

This shows the completed break through for the walkway. Notice the conduit; my electrician buddy convinced me to put lights in the wall. He even left me his Hilti to use. I say “convinced” which roughly translates to “mentioned how nice lights would look in the wall in front of my wife and how easy it would be to do…” I’ll get him back…