So after being gone for 8 months now I decided I should probably update the thread a little. Not a ton of work has been done to the garage since I undertook a rather large project in our backyard. The back side of our property had a pretty big slope that was starting to wash away pretty bad and it was just unusable space. So I decided to put an eighty foot long retaining wall made from rail road ties. I knew this was going to be a big undertaking (which it was) however the weather didn't do me any favors when my first load of dirt got delivered and it rained pretty much for the next month... leaving me two heaping mud mounds on my driveway. It was pretty awesome for my two year old but the wife didn't think so. Anyway, after almost three months of working on this project solo I got it all wrapped up and it turned out exactly how we were thinking. The two new areas that were created basically will serve as a fire pit area and the other as a new shed and trailer parking. Enjoy.
How the backyard looked when we started...
My son was pretty much in heaven the first day...there was a tractor working in his own backyard!!
This was the first 10 tons that got rained on for over a month, man was that a pain to move...Ended up with a total of 60 tons of dirt and 15 tons of rock.
First load of railroad ties...Used around a total of 62 I believe...by the end of the project I was tired of moving them.
Once I got the first course of railroad ties down it went much quicker...I'm used to leveling stone, blocks, etc... so these were a pain!! On the first course I used two foot sections of rebar to anchor them into place- four pieces per railroad tie. Then for the following course I used four landscape spikes per railroad tie.
On the third course I started adding what they call a "deadman" to help the wall from pushing over due to pressure/water etc...
Each "deadman" was anchored with a 4 foot section of railroad tie with two, two foot sections of rebar and two landscape spikes to tie the two pieces together.
Here is one of the ends of the wall.
Starting to take shape.
Pretty awesome picture in my mind...my son (who can be spotted in many of these pictures) thought he needed to have his drink right by mine. No matter where I would end up setting it, his was right there too!
Once it was all up I added the landscape fabric along the face of the ties and the perforated drainpipe- which I wrapped in the landscape fabric and then covered with gravel.
Started moving the dirt along the backside of the wall, this little Mantis tiller saved me tons of time!
And my little man was a ton of help as well!
Since I was this far into the project I decided to kill off all the bermuda grass since I was going to tear up the backyard with the trucks bringing the rest of the dirt. I absolutely hate bermuda...I know it's extremely hard to get rid of but I'll keep on it and just hopefully I can keep it at bay!!
Scalping it as much as possible before I tilled it...I should of burned it as well and it would have saved me tons of time when I used a harrow to smooth it all back out.
Here comes the rest of the dirt.
I was lucky enough to have a coworker with a tractor he let me rent at a much discounted rate that saved my a$$.
My son was a big fan!!
The tractor made short work of moving the dirt and tilling the backyard.
My son approved as well.
So let's fast forward to today and this is what it looks like. I know I need some more pictures of the wall and the backside etc...so those will be coming shortly. All in all after almost 8 months of work I think it turned out pretty awesome. But the real reason behind this big project is that I need more space in my shop. So to justify putting up a shed I needed to do this project first. I need that shed in order to clear my shop of all my yard equipment and landscaping stuff. Next order of business is to get the playhouse in good working order since I about fell through the floor. Playhouse 2.0 starts hopefully early spring. Thanks for looking.
