Major Front and Back Yard Overhaul

The before... A mess of cracked slab, chickenwire/cinderblock retaining walls and poorly constructed temporary stairs. The first intention here is to remove the slab, ugly retaining wall and wooden stairs.

From a different angle, you can see the slab has settled towards the house.

Fence on the right is falling over and needs to be removed.

Our chafer beetle destroyed front yard. When your yard is infested with chafers you get crows and raccoons ripping out the grass to get to the larvae. It's very difficult to treat, as the chemicals needed to kill the larvae are banned here. A complete eyesore. We also want to address drainage issues along the side of the house, so I've come up with a concept of replacing the front yard with a rain garden and redirecting our stormwater to the front yard, away from the drain tile/foundation.

Chafers!

The great concrete crack up begins. I went to town on it with just a pry bar and a sledge hammer. I did rent a jackhammer for a day, but found it to not be much faster, so I resumed the manual tools and would chip away at this a few hours a day.

Had a few friends by to help with this insanity. Having one person pry up the slab, then another hit it with the sledge seems to be the most effective way of breaking up the concrete.

It's comin' out dammit!

Concrete is out!

Filling bins manually. The way my house is set up it was very difficult to get anything bigger than a wheelbarrow around the sides of the house, so it meant moving everything by hand. This was a terrible process that I do not recommend to anyone.

Clear!

Retaining wall pulled out. Concrete removed. Now to dig out the excess earth for the new retaining wall. I wanted to get as much square footage out of my small back yard as possible, so I had to dig back the retainiing walls even further and salvage a few feet of room when building the new wall.

Hmm... There are more roots and dirt than anticipated. I tried placing the dirt I was removing onto a tarp, as I was going to use it as base soil on the area I was laying sod, and I needed to remove all the rocks on the ground first. This didn't work very well and ended up leading to me moving dirt around multiple times. In retrospect I would've cleaned the whole area intended for sod first, then spread it out as I went. I spent a lot of time screening/sifting this soil at a later stage, which was a huge waste of time. Don't do that.

Someone's version of a staircase at some point. Not safe and needed to be removed to build in the new 4x4 gravel filled staircase.

Oh look, more concrete. It's an old foundation for something or other! Also, I discovered an old sidewalk along the edge here 3 feet above the foundation or so. I wonder what the hell this yard looked like when it was built.

This was strangely the hardest concrete removal of the entire project. A sledgehammer wouldn't even come close to breaking it up, so I ended up renting a jackhammer again and going at it for a day. Even moving this concrete after it was broken up was excruciating. It weighed so much more than the slab did.

More bins... I devised a system for getting the barrow to the back of the bin. Meant a few times where I slipped off the 2x6 and spilled a couple loads. I gained a ton of muscle during this process.

FILL BINS!

The wall is here! This is dry-stack basalt, quarried locally. The stones utilize their own weight to retain earth. No mortar required, except the top course. You just need to start with a tamped down base and ensure that you're level as you lay the courses down. Kind of like building a large jigsaw puzzle. Also, backfill with gravel to promote drainage.

Staked out the retaining wall frontage. This was a photo from pre-foundation removal, but it aided in digging out the earth behind the retaining wall. I was also prevented from going too far back by a large tree's roots that have grown into my yard from the neighbours. Couldn't do much about that though short of bringing in an arborist and convincing the neighbour to get a permit to have it removed.

Wall construction begins. Dry stack basalt backfilled with 1/2" crush. This process was actually fairly enjoyable, but moving the stones from on top of the parking pad, down the spot where I had removed the stairs was pretty treacherous. Wouldn't recommend doing that. Unfortunately I couldn't build in new stairs until the retaining wall was in, so a bit of a catch 22... But I discovered after that they could've delivered the stone with a crane and dropped it straight into the backyard. Would've saved hours.

Slowly but surely... Be sure to batter the stones back 1/2" or so for every foot to ensure they can hold the weight of the earth behind them. This allows the entire wall to basically lean on itself.

Side view to show batter angle.

Nearly completed first wall.

Look, a wall!!! Note the gravel backfill between the earth and wall.

The stairs are here. These will be built into 4x4 landscaping stairs filled in with crush.

Dirt! We shipped in soil for the front yard project as well as the section of the backyard that will eventually become grass. Dealing with this and not having stairs constructed was a major PITA. But hey, gotta do what you gotta do.

A new project begins mid project. Digging out the sod manually. Should've rented a sod cutter, but whatever... We needed to get plants in before summer heat hit. I used a spade to remove all of the old sod. I also found a Craigslist buyer to take away the old retaining wall blocks. Offset my costs by a few hundred bucks and got free removal. Win win!

Yard is gone! Of course it has to rain now that we have a giant mud pit. Needed another bin for discarded sod and more rocks from the back yard.

relocating plants and such. After this we laid down a layer of cardboard on the entire lawn to help with water retention and discourage weeds.

This is the new drainage system for the house. These PVC pipes carry rainwater away from the foundation into a rain garden / soakaway pit. This was the main reason for overhauling the front yard and adding in the plants that we did. We were having issues with our stormwater mixing with our waste water since we're in an older neighbourhood. This solution was much cheaper than digging out the entire foundation and redoing the draintile.

The PVC pipes go straight from the downspout and tie into a Y connector, where they dump out into a rain garden that's roughly 5 x 6 feet and a foot or so deep. It's filled with plants that thrive on huge amounts of rainwater.

Coming together! We laid cardboard under the entire yard. The whole thing will be mulched by the end. This river rock swale is an emergency overflow for the rain garden if we have an extremely high amount of rain. We live in the Pacific North West so it rains pretty much 3/4 of the year. All plants were carefully chosen to be drought tolerant and rain friendly.

Look, a deck! Some assembly required... We went with pressure treated lumber for the whole thing, as we were on a budget at this point in the process. Ideally, I would've used tyvex decking or similar, but pressure treated lumber stained properly is just fine given our climate. I had the 16 foot deck boards delivered separately.

The parents came out to help build the deck. Very welcome at this stage of the project. We poured concrete footers for the deck and ensured everything was perfectly level. You can also see the ledger board anchored to the garage foundation. That's where the deck connects to the garage. The whole thing is beautifully over-specced.

The wife getting it done.

Deck going in. This deck was built with plans found online at decks.com. That was a super huge help. We modified it a bit, but it helped with knowing how many materials to purchase and building the thing.

Pops going at it. Check out the horizontal slats. My favourite feature on the deck.

Sod is here! Ordered a shade tolerant variety, since our back yard doesn't get a ton of light in a few spots. They deliver as part of the cost.

Make sure your site is prepped beforehand, as the sod needs to go in ASAP or it dries out. Luckily it was an overcast day and it rained a tiny bit. It was pushing early summer, so we lucked out a lot. Be sure to water extensively once installed.

Laying sod is oddly satisfying. Super gratifying to see the results immediately. Used a sod cutting knife and an exacto knife to cut everything. Be sure to offset your install like tiling bricks so that seams aren't uniform across. Then water. Water water water water.

Meanwhile the front is mostly complete! Plants have been planted. Rain garden is in and tested. It works beautifully! We've diverted 75% of our stormwater to the front yard where it soaks away harmlessly away from the city system or our draintile.

The rain garden is the pit in the middle filled with river rock.

Oh god, it's finally done... (Minus the driftwood I scavenged at a later point)

Beer o clock, after the finishing touches and plants are in.

Threw a party to celebrate the end of this insane project.

Cedar raised bed on the left. Very proud of this piece, and was able to grow kale and chard immediately! Also happy with the yellow door choice. Looks so much better than the peeling white mess before.

Bourbon celebration. Time for a touch of relaxing after completion.

GARDEN!!!

Washer toss to seal the deal. This yard is done!

Pathway to match the retaining wall. Built out of flat flagstone. Feeding trough converted into a planter by drilling out drainage holes in the bottom and filling with a bit of gravel and planting soil. This is where the herbs will live.

Dining area. Just some pavers laid down on tamped sand/earth. I'm hoping to remove the dated cables on the exterior and repaint the house next year.

Also super happy with how the lattice came out. Built it out of pressure treated 1x2s for a fraction of the cost of a pre-built lattice. Looks super modern too. Will be overgrown with plants to provide a block between us and neighbours by next year.

More drough tolerant PNW plants!