[Sub-titled: So You’re Really Going To Do This, Huh?]
Last week while the stock market was on the roller coaster ride of our lifetimes, we decided to do something a little bit different with our money. Why not invest in something stable, said we. How about finally getting the back of our property to look like something resembling a backyard, said we. So…
We had this concrete wall built. It’s very Flintstone-esque, don’t you think?
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What I Learned About Having A Garden Wall Built
√ Unlike the land excavating guy who said that he’d be at our house at 8:00 a.m. on Monday and arrived at 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday, when the concrete guy said that he and his crew would there at 5:30 a.m. on Thursday, they were. With lots of battery-powered lights. Trying to work quietly, not succeeding.
√ It took 5 hours to create the 2.5′ x 4′ footers. Two of those hours involved the crew sitting around on the ground, listening to music, laughing among themselves, eating snacks– waiting for the footers to become solid enough to continue on with the wall. We paid for them to do this, of course.
√ It took about 3 hours for 9 men to build this 30′ x 4′ free-form concrete wall. A truck in front of the house pumped a foamy kind of concrete through a 90′ hose to the backyard. Two men positioned the concrete, which looked like toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube, along the wall line by slowly walking back and forth; they stopped when the concrete was 4′ high. Then the rest of the men, each holding a trowel in one hand and a paintbrush in the other, shaped the wall. It was the darndest thing to watch.
√ After the wall was stable and had air-dried for about an hour, a man stained it to look like naturally formed rock. He used two different colors of paint in sprayers, a water sprayer, and a paint brush dipped in stain. It took him maybe 45 minutes to do this. He told me that he wanted the wall to look like “God had put it there.”
√ It takes about a week for this concrete to cure. So until that happens, the land excavator guy can’t fill behind our wall with dirt to create our yard. Meaning… there will be more to this story.
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[Please note: This is Phase Two of a three-part project. Phase One is here. Phase Three is here.]
THE SPECTACLED BEAN 
Ooh, you had concrete pumped? I’ve always wanted to see that done. IT’S EXPENSIVE! The painting of the wall fascinated me; you’ll have to get a close up of that god-given rock. As a side note, I’m having workmen inside my house tomorrow and I’m NOT looking forward to it at all.
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Margaret, yes it was pumped. At first the idea was to back the concrete truck up the driveway and across the yard to get the concrete to the swale. But that wasn’t feasible because of the hilliness of our lot, so the concrete was pumped. It wasn’t as messy as I thought it would be, but it was loud. I’ll be sure to get a close-up of the painting on the wall when I take the final photos of the finished project.
I feel for you. People working in the house, making noise and a mess is more stressful than having them outside. But the results should be wonderful, right?
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