My Front Yard Retaining Wall

During the summer of 2009, I had my front retaining wall and steps completely re-done.  The house lot is at an elevated level and accessed from the street level via steps.  The front yard had a two tiered rockery, even when the old house was there.  The front side was essentially left as-is when I tore down the old house and built new.

The rockery was a fairly nice feature in the front yard with the old house and was always kept in good condition.  During construction of the new house, some of the rockery structure had to be moved and some of the boulders were not re-positioned properly.   Also, I had not maintained the plants that graced the two level rockery after the completion of the house construction.  It was full of overgrown bushes.

Renovation of the front was always in the plans.  My niece's husband recommended a landscape contractor.  On one of my visits back to Seattle during the late spring of 2009, I met with the contractor.  We discussed what I had wanted done on the front side.  He offered several options, with a range of prices.  The following day, he brought in samples of the different materials that can be used.  That day, we drew up the work order.

It was not cheap, but the quality of work was excellent.  The work took a little bit longer to start and longer duration than originally discussed.  That was the summer in Seattle when it was a lot hotter than normal which caused some delays on the work.  Anyway, I write about this because I am looking at a little bit of work to be done on the street level side of the yard.  I googled the contractor company name that I had used for the retaining wall.  Lo and behold, once I found the company website, I noticed that their home page shows a photo of the retaining wall work he had done for me.  See the following link:  http://salmonbaylandscaping.com/.  There are other pictures of the same project under the "pavers and walls" tab of the website.

During the final walk-thru of the project and before I paid him for the final installment, the owner had asked me if he could use some of the pictures of the project to show potential customers.  I had agreed.  So, it isn't like he is doing it without my consent.  Also, it is nice that my front yard is featured.  It's a reminder to me that I need to do some yard work this spring and summer to maintain it in good condition.

The old house:

The new house with the rockery:

The new house with the rockery and unmaintained plants:

Construction of the new retaining wall:

The new retaining wall: