In the last few weeks we’ve been working on grading the back yard.  Here is what it looks like now.

Here is a better shot with more contrast.

The area around the fireplace is ready for the foundation for the small pool cabana, which will have three open sides.

You can see we have a step up at the front of the pool house.  Our lot has about a 2 foot grade change from the walk-out elevation at the back of our house to the back of the lot.  We decided to break this grade change at the front of the pool house, leaving most of the back yard at the same elevation as the walk-out level of the house, which is nice. The area behind the pool house will be a more natural play area, fruit trees, planting beds, and a chicken coop.

However, that means we are pushing a lower level out to the property line on the right, which we just excavated to be able to put in the block & plaster wall that will separate our property from our neighbors.

Because we are retaining the neighbors yard level, the footing for the wall needs to be down at our level.  That is about a 5 foot differential at its highest, so we will need quite a tall wall to be able to both retain 5 feet of dirt and have a 6-8 foot wall above that.

There is still a ramp of dirt in front of the storage roll-offs (and our office trailer) so that we can get those out when the time comes.